So I posted an earlier thread about a Seat Toledo but managed to do a bit more research and visited a few more car dealerships over the weekend to help work out what I want.
We've decided our budget is £8,000 and want to buy a car below that price.
Having looked at the various cars, our preference is a large saloon/hatchback style. The models which fell within this are:
Skoda Octavia
Seat Toledo
Mazda 6
Ford Mondeo
Volkswagen Passat
Toyota Avensis
BMW 3 series
Audi A6
So that should give a frame of reference for the size of the car we're looking at.
I have to admit that I didn't like the Toyota Avensis due to the shape/set-up in the drivers seat - seemed very boxed in to me.
Also I don't think I can find a Seat Toledo within budget as they only seem to have been released in the past year or so. When looking on Autotrader, all the Toledo's seem to be £10k+
I've split the above as the bottom set are the more expensive/luxury brands and therefore significantly more expensive than their counterparts in the first list.
I know some compromises will need to be made when picking a car so my questions are as following:
- considering my budget, is it worth buying one of the expensive brands?
- should the focus be on spec/extras or on age/mileage of the car?
- the car will only really get used once/twice a month but generally it will be used for long motorway journeys: typically 130-160 miles each way so what should my focus be on?
Tl;dr - what car should I buy?!