Recommendations for a used car please

[ItJustCameOffInMyHands]

We're a tall family with two teens, the largest is currently 6' 5" with long legs so we need a car with lots of room front and back. I drive on rural roads and in farmyards and I flinch everyone I hear my estate car bump or scrape the ground. Having said that I live in the home counties, in a town centre and would be the object of some disapproval if I went out and bought a Range Rover! Can you suggest a robust, high and roomy car with fairly nice styling inside (not too plasticy, probably leather) which is economical to drive? Ideally for well under 10k with parts not too expensive Thank you!

How old are you willing to go on the car? You won't be getting a range rover for that price anyway unless it's pretty old.

How about a Kia 4x4? Not sure of the name. Top Gear rate Skoda Yeti. I think that's a 4 x 4 too.

Thanks Merry, I'll have a look at some online. I'm thinking a fairly old car with full service history and fairly low mileage, obviously higher mileage for a more prestigious car.

I second the Skoda Yeti.

We have the same issues. VW Sharan works quite quite well, as there are 3 rows of seats which you can configure in various ways - eg take out one of the middle row seats to allow tall person in the back more leg room. Each seat in the middle row can also be moved backwards individually, and my eldest 2 Ds's, (at 6'4 & 6'2)are comfortable in the middle row.
We also looked at Honda Previa, which allows the back seats to be arranged sideways, which might give more legroom.
Hope that helps.

You can pick up a late 2011 plate Yeti with just under 50k miles for a tad under £10k.

Less if you haggle?

Newer style Galaxy or Smax? Bags of room in both. Go for ghia models to get best specs, although my ex-demonstrator Galaxy non-ghia has everything a ghia has apart from a panoramic roof and a walnut trim.

We had a large Toyota. It had done 50K, was 5yo when we got it and had quite a lot of problems. It was 10K. It gave up the ghost the other day. We decided to go a bit smaller and newer this time, for similar money, got a 3yo VW Touran. I would recommend private sales which you get checked out by the RAC for around 230-250 (worth every penny as you can also use it to haggle down, bit like a house survey). We got a really, really good deal this way.

Mazda CX-5 is exactly what you need

We just went and tried the VW Touareg and Tiguan, my son can only sit upright with his head in the sunroof space. We've got a VW Golf Estate at present and his head meets the ceiling when he sits up straight which I don't think can be safe. So far the only cars we've found where he can sit with reasonable clearance and with leg room are the Discovery and the Range Rover. The MPVs make a lot of sense, thank you for the suggestion. We had a Ford Kuga as a hire car recently and my husband went on (and on!) about how plasticy it was inside. It doesn't really bother me, in fact we had a C-Max years ago which I loved but he didn't. For the sake of peace (and it obviously matters to him!) I'm not going to be able to consider Fords, Vauxhalls, Renault etc. The RAC inspection is a great tip, thank you.