Complete car novice. What should I be looking for?

[FlyMeToDunoon]

DP and I are finally thinking of getting a car. Neither of us drives yet.
So with 3 DDs at 11[seatbelt, 5[highback booster] and 3[ last year in a car seat before HBB] what would we get?
We would be doing some school runs, some day trips and the occasional family trip to Grandmas for christmas.
We have no idea whether to get a small car and squash everthing in on the occasions we would have tons of stuff.
Or get a people carrier type thing.
Or would we need one of those anyway?
And btw how much does a vehicle cost to run over a year?

We have 3 dc and have an MPV which has 3 rows of seats, the third row disappear into the boot. Ours is a Grand Scenic, but we also really liked the Toyota Verso, the S Max, Galaxy & Touran.

You can, by virtue of buying narrow car seats, fit three across the back btw of a lot of cars, especially if they have three distinct seats, although you might get a bit of knuckle crunch fitting the seat-belts.

I'd recommend this site for car details and costs, like insurance, servicing and petrol.

Wow that looks like a really useful site. Thanks