Need a reliable car with three equal rear seats....

[clairefromsteps]

....so what do we buy? Our priority is reliability above everything else. My poor ancient Xsara Picasso has been in the garage five times this year so far. We're thinking a Japanese car, perhaps?

We have about £10k to spend (for a used car) and want three equal-sized, separate rear seats. Must be equal (to avoid inevitable squabbles) and must be separate. This and reliability are the only deal-breakers.

Don't need a seven-seater, but wouldn't rule it out. Don't need 4WD, but wouldn't rule it out. Big boot would be good, as would a flat rear floor (ie no transmission tunnel). Don't care about colours, looks anything like that, but must be able to keep itself out of the flipping garage.

We only do about 5000 miles a year, so fuel economy isn't essential.

Ideally I'd stick a Honda engine in my Picasso, but my friendly (and now very rich) garage owner assures me that this can't be done.

We have a Toyota verso, had it for 3 years now (06 plate) and it's done over 80,000 miles with no problems. 3 equal seats which you can get 3 car seats on, it does have 2 fold up seats in the boot too which we don't use but it means the boot is big enough for our dog crate and a pushchair :-). I don't think it has a transmission tunnel either.

peugeot 307sw

The Jazz has three big seats in the back I believe.

No the jazz doesn't have three equal seats. The middle one doesn't have a dipped seat bit iyswim and if you've got two car seats in there's not enough room to sit in the middle

Thanks for the suggestions!