Help me choose a family car, needs to be automatic

[dimmu]

Please help, I need to buy a car for the first time in my life next year, and I'm utterly clueless!

Background: got my licence in the 90s, drove my parents' corolla back then, moved away from home, eventually to London, and been a non-driver for more than a decade. Now planning to move out of London next year with husband and two kids, one still in a buggy, and need to start driving again. Husband doesn't drive. I have started taking refresher driving lessons on an automatic golf, manual was too much for me in the London traffic.

So, I have been reading and learning about cars over the past few months, and was wondering if you could help me decide what to go for:

Budget around 10k, could possibly stretch to 14-15k if needed, bearing in mind my insurance will probably be quite high. Needs to be automatic.

I've considered Seat Leon, VW Golf, Ford Focus, Honda Civic but worried they may be too small, especially the Leon/Golf?

Thought about Nissan Qashqai but have read bad things about the automatic gearbox and reliability in general? Any other CUVs/SUVs I should consider? I don't want a huge car, just something practical to drive around town and occasionally on motorways.

Also, what do you look for when you test drive a car, what should I be checking? Is it best to buy from a dealer? I am really clueless about it all, and absolutely terrified of driving with my kids on the backseat. Planning to take more lessons to regain my confidence, hopefully will get there eventually.

Thanks in advance!

Maybe you should look at a Toyota Verso?

I’ve got a golf and whilst it’s lovely to drive, the boot is tiny. It’s fine for me as DH has a bigger car, but I would want it as our only family car. The boot is significantly smaller than my old Ford Focus, but I’m not sure about the most recent Focus model. I’d recommend an estate for boot space.

We have a Honda CRV - I would really recommend. It’s a spacious car but it doesn’t feel huge to drive. £15k would get you a fairly decent one in terms of age and mileage and we are on our second with an auto gearbox and had no problems.

I would always buy from a dealer, and not an individual.

I have a Vauxhall Astra whcihn is a decent everyday mid sized family car, although notmparticulry exciting.

Went ina seat Alhambra yesterday which was lovely, large and spacious. Other cars I considered include the Skoda yeti and Honda jazz. Toyotas are well made cars.

@Petalflowers that's not great advise they get them from auction or trade in

Seal Altea or the Altea XL are a bigger Leo with a good engine ! More room than Leon golf etc in the boot and back seats.

Skids fabia are very solid and lovely to drive

Volvo, any make but we have the V40.

I’ll never drive anything else again.

We have 2x automatic ford focus. One v old 3 door, boot big enough for teen DSes wheelchair and one much newer focus estate which has masses of room.

The old one keeps going and is cheap to fix if anything does go wrong. The newer one is a dream.

Wouldn't buy anything else!

I was thinking of a main dealer,

I have an automatic Volvo v70. Really recommend it. It's a 2014 model and cost about 13k I think.

I'd definitely go for something with a decent boot. Trips to ikea, b&q, holidays, want to pick up bargain second hand furniture off FB, go to the tip ... all that stuff is so easy and in my experience you get used to a bigger car very quickly.

Also - unless he can't for some reason, your DH needs to learn to drive too.

useful info

This article,has useful advice on buying cars.

Oh and also you can do a big shop and it doesn't matter if you forgot to take the buggy out of the car, you can do happy changes and sit the kids in the boot for a quick snack if it's raining and you're stopping off. We had Peugeot 5008 before this which was also good.

Thank you so much for all your responses and suggestions, they are all very much appreciated. Lots more options and things to consider and more research to do!!

I think I have also concluded that Leon/Golf are likely to be too small.

Have just come across the new Seat Arona and quite like the look of it but don't think I'd like to buy brand new even if I could get my finances to stretch a bit further.
Suzuki Vitara are also seems to get fairly good feedback on auto trader etc.

Think I will take Qashqai off the list, the automatic gearbox doesn't sound too good.

Petalflower thank you for that link, It's very helpful.

Yes husband will need to learn to drive too now at the grand old age of 40+, that's gonna be interesting! We just decided it would be easier for me to start driving again first as at least I don't have to take any tests, I'm just very very rusty, but hoping that taking lessons in London will help, surely it can't be much worse than this anywhere else!