Ah - if the children are child-seat age you're looking for width - you'll need to take the seats along with you and see if they fit.

The Skoda Superb and Ford Mondeo - perhaps even a Ford S-Max if you can find a good one within budget - move up the list: otherwise it'll have to be a 7-seater provided you're happy to have one child in the 'very back' if the seats won't fit three abreast.

There's another thread running on here at the moment ('Spacious family car....' started by Hokka Hokka) where there are some more ideas, including the Mercedes B-class and the Honda FRV. The Honda, which never sold here as well as it deserved, is a 6-seater with 3 seats in the front and 3 in the back.

Edited by Avant on 02/02/2013 at 12:08

Thanks a900ss, for your reply.

I went to view & test drive a Vauxhall Zafira on Saturday, with great expectations of buying it & I really didn't like it. I thought from pictures of interior & from seeing these cars everywhere that'd I would love it, but I was sadly mistaken. It turned me right off them actually, my husband felt the same...So after some more investigations I am now in need of some more advice from anyone that has any knowledge of family cars.

We are now NOT going to go for a 7 seater. We have a 2000 Nissan Almera at the moment & it has been a little squashed putting a booster & two kiddies seats in the back, but we have since discovered that our eldest no longer needs a seat, so we're going for a family car with hopefully some boot space for buggy etc.

My husband thought the Vauxhall Vectra could be a runner, any suggestions from people that have any experience with these? I was shocked at the insurance quote I'm getting for these!!! (£900)

As I said earlier in the post, we only have £6K to spend, which leaves us quite limited, but in diar need of a car because ours is off the road in one week! Please help with suggestions, we are now looking for family car with boot space, that is reliable because we're going to have to get something possibly 5+ years old which will mean high mileage & with carrying children reliability is of most importance! Ahhhh the stress of it! :( Please help!

I'd strongly suggest a Skoda Octavia ..something like this perhaps?

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201212184665542/sort/default/usedcars/transmission/manual/fuel-type/petrol/maximum-mileage/up_to_60000_miles/model/octavia/make/skoda/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/one

Reliable, sturdy, VW platform, Cheap in comparison with the Passat and a wider choice of petrol engines = better fuel economy, equipment levels very good again in comparison with rivals, (particularly with that model, the elegance), also lower insurance groups with 1.4 and 1.6 petrol engines compared with 1.8+ Vectra's, will go on forever, large boot and spacious interior! You'd also have a few pennies left over!

Thank you Bluenose20. I will definitely look into this! :)