Dacia Logan MCV?

On the suggestions made so far:

V60 - Found a T4 2 litre to drive but it was 130 miles away. Since we were still unsure about the boot space and spare wheel we decided to give it a miss.

Octavia - After our bad experience almost 7 years ago with 2 Octavia Estates (both were painfully noisy) considering the car actually matches our needs perfectly we decided to give the Estate another try. Garage only had a 1.4 TSi SE hatch so to test the estate they also lent us a 2 litre diesel DSG SE-L DSG. The hatch was pretty good, the only concern was wind noise from the top of the screen over 50 mph. Screen was Skoda brand so probably original but it would have been a real pain on a 400 mile trip at motorway speeds. So off in the estate, windnoise only evident in exactly the same spot at 75 mph plus so not an issue in that car but since it came from exactly the same spot still concerning. But the noise from the back was as bad as the 2010 cars. The mixture of tyre noise and some other noise would have been impossible to live with (rear tyres were Dunlops with loads of tread so surely not the cause). Even if we had liked it there was another issue, Skoda has closed the order book until February at the earliest so unless your dealer can source a stock car to match your spec you are stuffed. Gave it a miss. Big shame.

Logan - suppose they look big enough and they are cheap but even if I had considered them the fact that the best engine (that suits us) is a 0.9 petrol turbo would have resulted in not looking any further. After the incredible VAG 1.4 TSi 140 PS we had for 3.5 years it would have been a real disapointment for sure.

Focus ST - Focus (estate and hatch) have no more rear seat space than the Leon so no point considering.

BMW 2 series - looked last year when the wife swapped. Appeared OK but once the pet crate was on the rear seat there was no space for a front seat passenger.

VX Astra - Not considered.

308 estate - looked at it last year for the wife. Huge boot but less rear seat space than Leon hatch. What were the designers thinking when they produced a cramped family estate. OK its probably fine for families with small kids that don't need much rear leg room.

Subaru - no way having heard a colleagues experiences of dealer prices for servicing and their techniques to ensure the customer has the wallet seriously lightened at every opportunity. That and the fact they don't do anything to suit our needs and budget.

Keep trying.

Got to be one of these then;uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=lada+ri...k

But why have 3 Octavia estates that we have driven been noisy to the point of distraction wheras the hatch we tried last week was fine for road noise. Our Leon uses the same MQB floor pan and the same sized tyres and is a nice quiet place to be. From memory the worst Octavia in 2010 was on Dunlops as was the noisy estate last week. The better estate in 2010 was on Bridgestones (I think) and the hatch last week was on Contis. Our Leon is on Michelins. I am truly baffled.

As for the Golf its very expensive compared to its stablemates and to get the 150PS engine its GT spec only. You are right when you say the Tiguan is not much more expensive and we have looked at one in the showroom. In SE spec its a nice place to sit and well equipped but it was the same problem we had with the Volvo garage, they did not sell petrol Tiguans and were not interested in speaking to us.