I would approach this by looking at what's available locally rather than looking at specific makes. Vans generally are only sold when problems are looming, with the exception of the Transporter they are not really fashion items. At this price point any van has the possibility of being junk, even if it had a good reputation when newer. £3500 really is pocket money these days.

Nobody can recommend anything in your list at £3.5k.

That is banger money these days and has been for a few years now. As you should know from comments on your previous posts over the last year, finding a decent vehicle of any kind at such a low price point requires more luck than anything else.

Any of them could be worth buying, but equally any of them could be an absolute bucket. It depends on how well the vehicle has been looked after.

If you see something you like the look of post a link to the advert, otherwise I'm not really sure what you expect of the forum?

Browsing your previous threads, I've also become slightly curious about what happened between the end of Jan last year, when you were asking about £30+k PHEV's, and the start of March, since when you've been asking about £3k estates and SUV's.

Another suggestion though, based on your previous threads, is that maybe pooling your resources for a better SUV/estate/van at £7.5-8k would be a better idea than spending £4k on a 2 seater and £3.5k on a van/estate/SUV?. Just a thought!

Edited by badbusdriver on 05/02/2025 at 08:28

I joined loads of facebook car owner groups to get some opinions and i was quite surprised how cars such as the XC90, Mondeo, Touran and other cars you have mentioned all basically have the same rear seat space as I have in the passat and they all said they wouldnt buy one for 5 adults and dogs

They all said I would have to go bigger such as a Torneo Custom van, or may be a ford Galaxy or similar

Maybe its back to the drawing board ?

I;m sure it could be reliable but as it slightly smaller than the passat and the rear passengers would have the same or less room there isn't any point

thanks though

Locking this one, there's no need to have two threads running by the same person covering the same questions.

Mod