Best family car with space got camping kit up to £10,000 tops?

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MrGrumpy

Huge Member
Location
Fly Fifer
Not sure if a Nissan Qashqui would fit the bill but we have one as hire car on holiday just now and I actually quite like it . Seems to have a fair bit room. Managed to fit 4 suit cases in the boot and carry 5 of us from the airport . My lads are all 6 footers plus .
 

Bonefish Blues

Banging donk
Location
52 Festive Road
Mazda CX5 would fit the bill.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Ford Galaxy, with the 2 Rearmost seats folded down the boot is huge, pretty economical on fuel/repairs, with all seats down for moving stuff it's not far off a Transit Custom, not the S-Max though the boot is much much, smaller
 

Profpointy

Legendary Member
Mondeo is nice to drive and presumably fairly cheap overall. Saab 95 estate if you want something posher. You'd get a top end one for that, though lots are autos so you may have to search petrol manual gearbox and they ate quite old now too. I have a 95 saloon which is 20 years old and still OK
 

Jameshow

Veteran
Mondeo is nice to drive and presumably fairly cheap overall. Saab 95 estate if you want something posher. You'd get a top end one for that, though lots are autos so you may have to search petrol manual gearbox and they ate quite old now too. I have a 95 saloon which is 20 years old and still OK

Saab 95 is a really old car descended from the 9000, the 9-3 is based on the Vectra.
Volvo v70 is a good old estate.
 

stephec

Squire
Location
Bolton
I had a Mondeo estate as a company car, probably the biggest boot you'll get in that class of car, get something like an ST line spec and they're nice and comfy, and it had a spare wheel instead of a bottle of snot.

Mine was a 2lt diesel, pre ad blue, it would average 60mpg on the motorway with a boot full of tools and spare parts, only 150bhp though.
 
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OP
OP
T

Time Waster

Veteran
The mondeo, smax and galaxy are built on the same platform. Focus, Cmax and i think the kuga are the same platform (cmax is probably no longer a model in the current range). The fiesta, Bmax, ecosport are based on the same platform (bmax no longer made i think).

I once heard that Ford basically cut down the number of platforms the car models came from years ago. This means you get very different looking cars out of basically the same structural elements. Also why I'm very cautious of getting a Ford with a 1litre petrol engine, the nickname for a 1 litre ecosport is ecobang because that is a common feature of the engine. The oil pump is a weak one for the car and once it goes so does your engine. You'd think they woulf learn after the ford Ranger pickup (and other vehicles that used the same engine). In most countries they supplied the ranger to had full recalls. The UK ford gave their customers a the middle finger and said if it goes they'll do them a deal for £5-8k at one of their main dealers!! I had a friend cuaght out that way. They know drive an Isuzu pickup and won't touch Ford again.
 

Hicky

Guru
The mondeo, smax and galaxy are built on the same platform. Focus, Cmax and i think the kuga are the same platform (cmax is probably no longer a model in the current range). The fiesta, Bmax, ecosport are based on the same platform (bmax no longer made i think).

I once heard that Ford basically cut down the number of platforms the car models came from years ago. This means you get very different looking cars out of basically the same structural elements. Also why I'm very cautious of getting a Ford with a 1litre petrol engine, the nickname for a 1 litre ecosport is ecobang because that is a common feature of the engine. The oil pump is a weak one for the car and once it goes so does your engine. You'd think they woulf learn after the ford Ranger pickup (and other vehicles that used the same engine). In most countries they supplied the ranger to had full recalls. The UK ford gave their customers a the middle finger and said if it goes they'll do them a deal for £5-8k at one of their main dealers!! I had a friend cuaght out that way. They know drive an Isuzu pickup and won't touch Ford again.

P3 Volvos are basically mondeos I believe but with the D5 engine(euro 4 variant).
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
The mondeo, smax and galaxy are built on the same platform. Focus, Cmax and i think the kuga are the same platform (cmax is probably no longer a model in the current range). The fiesta, Bmax, ecosport are based on the same platform (bmax no longer made i think).

I once heard that Ford basically cut down the number of platforms the car models came from years ago. This means you get very different looking cars out of basically the same structural elements. Also why I'm very cautious of getting a Ford with a 1litre petrol engine, the nickname for a 1 litre ecosport is ecobang because that is a common feature of the engine. The oil pump is a weak one for the car and once it goes so does your engine. You'd think they woulf learn after the ford Ranger pickup (and other vehicles that used the same engine). In most countries they supplied the ranger to had full recalls. The UK ford gave their customers a the middle finger and said if it goes they'll do them a deal for £5-8k at one of their main dealers!! I had a friend cuaght out that way. They know drive an Isuzu pickup and won't touch Ford agai
The builder who is doing our toilet said ford now use rubber timing belts and they basically disintegrate over time into the engine , i dont know how true it is but he reckons the ford transit he has atm is the worst one they have ever done and many van hire places will not even stock it and his garage has given hi free breakdown cover.
 

Bonefish Blues

Banging donk
Location
52 Festive Road
I bought a p2 to avoid the dpf(I had a Peugeot with suffered terribly).

Had one of those, too (in fact 2xP2s - an XC70 & a S60) That Euro 3 engine is brilliant. Now have a P3 and my counsel is that Volvo seems to be one of the marques whose dpfs seem immune from blockage - we've never experienced an issue, no matter how it has been driven, nor have I heard of any issues on Volvo Forum.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
The DPF on the D5 motors works in a totally different manner to conventional DPFs. Not only that, they're about twice the volume, so they don't get blocked.

To really cheer up owners they're a dry system, with no nasty EOYLS type exhaust additives system, so 95% of equipment that causes hassle on a typical DPF car simply isn't fitted on the D5.

As Boney says, they simply don't cause problems on a D5 unless the car has been seriously, grossly, nastily abused - forget everything you know about DPFs when buying a D5 as it simply doesn't apply.

I've had a P3 D5 185 and it was swift, long legged, and moderately economical. It shares the platform with Ford products - that doesn't mean it shares the same floorpan, it means key dimensions such as engine mounts, door hinges, suspension pick up points, etc, share the same relationship in 3D space. This means they can be built on the same line or, in Fords case, they saved money by duplicating the same line in Gothenberg. It also means engines can be swapped between models without ennecessary engineering required for the conversion, enabling Ford to steal the 5 cylinder units for their cars, and other items such as supension arms etc to be common across many models. Thus it's a platform, and not a shared floorpan as might have happened in the old days - the sheet metal underneath is not common, and while related it is most definitely not a Mondeo with a different body.

The biggest issue with P3s is electric gremlins and mine was afflicted. I got to the bottom of it in the end but the average buyer would have to pay a garage, and due to the nature of the car it'd need to be a marque specialist or a dealer, which can be spendy. Buy one by all means, but buy wisely.

The P2 is probably the better ownership proposition in the that regard, the downsides being there aren't many sweet low milers left, it's not quite as sharp to drive as the P3, and the P2 engine isn't as lively as the more powerful 185/200/210 units the P3 could be had with.

Addressing the OPs question directly, £10k is a curious price point. Unlike even 5 years ago that doesn't buy you a lot. For anything of any serious size or capacity £10k is going to buy to at least half a decade plus and lord knows how many miles of previous owners abuse, cheap servicing at Kwap Fit, budget tyres, etc, to the point where us saying "such and such car is a good bet" is a moot point.

At that lower end of the market you're probably better off buying on condition and history rather than any notional idea that the Ford Tippex is the idea car for you.
 
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Jameshow

Veteran
I've had a few volvos

The d5 were the best tbh.

2x XC90
1x V70.

In real world driving the d5 was as good as the T5 which could often be found without the torque with the turbo kicking in higher up the rpm.
Not to mention the mpg.

The 185 gearbox was much better than the earlier 163hp box.
 
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