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Hi,
Mini Damascus on the way means I need to sell Mrs d's 2 door polo and buy a bigger car.
I'm looking at an estate and have kind of narrowed it down to a kia ceed, golf estate, passat, Ford focus, skoda fabio or octavia but open to suggestions. I'm strangely drawn to the volvo v50, must be a dad thing.
Not got a massive budget, looking at 3-5 grand.
I'm looking at diesels as I'm hoping they won't be scrapped in the next 5 years.
Any top tips to look out for?
You will struggle to get past better value than a Fabia Estate or V50 for family of three IMO.
We ended up the the SEAT equivalent of the Fabia, as it was the more basic engine and they made it £500 cheaper...
V50 chosen carefully seems to be a solid, workhorse of a comfy small estate - certainly more comfy than the Skoda or SEAT.
The Volvo will be more comfortable than the others but may be more to fix if it breaks.
The kia will be leggy no doubt for the mileage so worth checking it has as many services and stuff as possible.
i would probably look at a none VRS Octavia for the amount of room in the back.
Also don't forget the basics of test driving the car, having an RAC inspection and ring the local dealer to check the car has had all of its recalls.
SAAB 9-5 mk2 aero estate 2002. Goes like stink, passes the dad test, not diesel. Think of the (your) children
Why would you need to jump up to an estate?
Just curious.
Why would you need to jump up to an estate?Just curious.
Modern expectations 
While I was growing up most the day to day transport was done in a Datsun Sunny, then a Metro, then a Mini, then a Fiesta (all 3dr).
It was more hassle for sure, and both me and my parents loved it when we got a bigger 5dr car, but need is a strong word.
These days I have a big estate that I barely use, cos I need to transport my bikes around in decadent luxury. It's simply impossible to do it in a small car don't you know... yet somehow I used to manage to cart me and my mates and their bikes around in my Fiesta as a 17 year old, must be some kind of space-time contraction phenomenon at work...
Back on topic though, OP, I'd take a smaller estate over a bigger hatchback, as often what you really need is accessible space rather than sheer volume, and estates do seem to be just a tiny bit more practical for getting bulky stuff in and out of.
I'd take a smaller estate over a bigger hatchback
This is what we did. Smaller, cheaper, lighter, lower tax and fuel.
Huuuuge boot when needed (the Ibiza estate boot like the Skoda is way bigger than a Golf/Focus etc).
Skoda roomster? Unfashionable so cheap but massively practical for bikes and children.
Do you really need a diesel? Are you/partner going to be doing a lot of short journeys...if so, you may end up with DPF issues.
At that price bracket, I'd be looking at private sales and getting a good feeling about the previous owner selling the car. In my experience, at £3k the warranty provided by a dealer will be next to meaningless.
In a similar situation to the OP. On the list there is VW Golf, VW Golf Estate, Seat Leon ST, Skoda Octavia Estate (vRS*), VW California Ocean*
Do you really need a diesel? Are you/partner going to be doing a lot of short journeys...if so, you may end up with DPF issues.
The DPF will have to be replaced even if you do long journeys. They eventually fill with ash (some companies such as Terraclean offer a cleaning service, dunno how successful this is long term though). Honest John (https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/) reckons DPF/Emission control system failure starts to become a possibility in the 80,000 to 100,000 mile range.
Because of this he also reckons you have to be doing at least 20k miles a year to justify a diesel due to the cost of sorting the DPF further down the line.
*note that my version of the list doesn't directly correlate to my wife's version 
Any VAG 140 CR Engined Estate will do the trick. Will be robust, go forever and cheap to run. At that price, manual only. Octavia best bet.
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Skoda roomater? It fugly and reminds me of the car homer Simpson designed.
Do we need an estate? Probably not but will it be more practical? Yes. With parking sensors it doesn't make that much difference to drive. Mrs D is used to driving my vwt5 campervan so she's used to driving a big vehicle.
Has anyone got any experience of taking out a AA warranty (or equivalent) is it worth the money?
Diesel vs petrol. I am leaning towards diesel because of my small budget which means high mileage. I'm aware they are evil and I should buy petrol but just a bit nervous about buying a turkey
What are the inspections you can buy like? What do they cover? Which is best?
And if I'm buying private can I phone the main dealer for a print out of the service history?
I wouldn't rule out an Octavia Hatchback over the estate as it's still got loads of room and there are more around.
The dealer may have service history but if they are able to provide it, its likely to be chargeable. In terms of Diesel v Petrol id rather a high mile diesel. The Diesel v Petrol, which is worse, debate seems to have come full circle and the cleanest of diesels are better than the cleanest petrol, as I understand it.
In terms of warranty, no experience but would be interested in real world experience.
How many miles do you need to do to blow out the cobwebs on a diesel to avoid issues? Wife's journey to work is 10 miles each way, some 50 mph roads. Car would be used for longer journeys at weekends.
I think based on her yearly miles a petrol makes more sense but I just don't know enough about petrol engines to buy one with high mileage as I've always gone down the diesel route.
I'd rather buy a high mileage petrol than diesel. At your price range some models will have DPF's and some won't, but even if they don't there's plenty of other things that can cost you plenty money (EGR valves, dual mass flywheels etc.). If you're not using it predominately for long journeys that would be another warning sign against a diesel.
This is based on my experience of a 2010 Audi A3 TDi and a 2004 BMW 120d that both seemed to get very wallet unfriendly at about 120k miles.
How many miles do you need to do to blow out the cobwebs on a diesel to avoid issues? Wife's journey to work is 10 miles each way, some 50 mph roads. Car would be used for longer journeys at weekends.
I had a 2007 Seat Leon with a DPF, had a similar commute with longer journeys at weekends too.... it didn't end well. Some evenings I had to drive up and down the M3 just to get the car to regen. Then the DPF gave up all together 
At your price range some models will have DPF's and some won't
Yes and the ones that have DPFs will have early generation systems, where DPFs were hastily slapped on to euro 4 engines to make then euro 5 type approved.
Have you put all of your criteria into Autotrader and seen what's there?
This looks suitable:
Seat Ibiza 1.4 SE Sport Tourer 5dr
Edit: Here's another Skoda Fabia SE TSI 1.2 5dr
and another Seat Ibiza 1.2 Tsi Sport 5Dr Petrol Estate
Edit 2: Actually considering these cars myself as a less spendy option
How things change.....
Or was it just my parents who thought that a 1978 MGBGT was a suitable family car? I am still convinced that as I was unusually tall, they were actually trying to stunt my growth....
Originally I was happy to keep the polo. I thought, it's OK, it's just us 3 and I've always got the van. I even turned down buying the parent in laws astra at a bargain price when they traded it in for a new car.
Then we put the car seat in and the passenger seat is so far forward my face is in the windscreen. I'm 6ft3 so that's understandable but Mrs D is 5ft8 and it's not much better. It was at this point I realised we had just outgrown the polo. Shame really as it's a great car.
If you’re getting a VAG diesel, I’d advise checking that it’s had its cambelt change (5yrs or 72k miles FWIR) - even at an independent it’s quite an expensive job. As far as DPF filter goes, we had an Octavia 170bhp diesel estate, and started to get DPF issues when we moved house and wife started using it for almost exactly the type of commute as you’ve described. The VAG independant that we used for servicing recommended that any VAG diesel should be taken for a half day motorway drive at sustained high speed at least once a month to avoid DPF issues! He reckoned that getting the engine hot for 15-20 minutes and then taking it up the revs a few times wouldn’t be enough to clear the cr*p out of the filter - he reckoned it needs long periods at high temperature that only a long high speed run can provide. Don’t know if it was just sales BS, but more recently, a Ford dealer told us that their DPF’s work at lower sustained speeds than VAG engines....hmmm
We flogged our Octavia for a petrol Ford:)
Having previously got about 170k miles out of a petrol Cortina, I would rule out petrol cars if you’re not doing long runs. I’d maybe look at ‘normal’ non-turbo engined models, rather than 3 cylinder twin turbo type things.
As far as Octavias go, we bought an estate, because we preferred the body shape, but the Skoda salesman did explain that the boot length and depth to the bottom of the windows is exactly the same as the estate - so I guess if you were open to the hatchback, it’d open up your choice a lot more.
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