What car next after the SMAX now kids getting

[PeanutButterOnly]

Hi, we have 3 dc who are now 12, 9, 6. We got an SMAX 4 years ago (a true godsend, have loved it) and now looking into whether to trade it in as it has a fair few miles on the clock.

What sort of used car did you go for at these kind of kiddy ages? Our options seem to be another SMAX (still quite expensive for us), a Citroen Grand Picasso (similar to smax, but cheaper, possibly less reliable, greater depreciation). We could look into an estate car because although useful, we don't often use the back row seats in the Smax. I thought of the Ford Mondeo Estate (good value and great reviews, another Ford, but DH says no he doesn't want one) , Passat Estate..(DH more keen)...

I am worried however that estate cars won't have enough legroom for a rapidly growing 12 year old in the middle seat? (Plus the other 2 dc are short for ages and still in high back boosters which tends to squash the middle person ....)

It still seems v tricky with 3 dc, even though we no longer have the 3 car seat issue.. Any ideas? If we went estate, would we miss the 3 full sized seats in the back? Should we just run the Smax to the ground? It has 80k on the clock and due a big service. Thanks for any pointers!

80K on the clock isn't too much on a modern car. We ran our last car, an Octavia estate to 145,000 miles and we could have kept it longer. I believe it's still running, with a new owner.

We've just bought a Skoda Superb estate (new) and it's fab. Really roomy in the back for our three (1 x nearly 13 and 2 x 11 year olds), huge boot for everything we could possibly need when we go on UK holidays, and large amounts of shopping and lots of fab gadgets. Much, much cheaper than the equivalent Ford/Honda/VW (but runs on a VW engine so just as good). I'd highly recommend it.

Our last car was a Renault Grand Scenic, which we traded in - it had just over 60k on the clock, it was only 10 years old, but was starting to fail in many areas and we got just £500 for it! (And I reckon that was a good deal.)

Passat Estate's a good option, it's got the space your after and the ride quality is really comfortable when driving. If you end up going for the Passat, I'd recommend the 148bhp 2.0-litre if you can find one
used.

Although if you're looking at budgeting, I'd say go for the Dacia Logan Mcv Estate. It's a pretty standard car but personally it's just as comfortable and practical just with a lower price tag from £6,995 when bought new.

There's more on the car here if you want to look into it. www.carkeys.co.uk/car-reviews/dacia/logan-mcv-estate?76542rh

I have just gone through this as DCs are bigger (a little older than yours)and the third row of seats were not used often. But we have decided to go for a Galaxy 7 seater as we have found that when they get to after school activities at senior school stage we carry loads of bags and loads of other children as part or the lift sharing we get involved with.

Will be getting the Galaxy after the summer and have got a good deal on a new one. My recommendation would be to hold on to the 7 seats as we find we are using them more.

Thanks everyone. Still more thinking to do I think. We'll have a look at a couple of estates I think and yes I can see 7 seats are useful for the increasing taxi duties!