Family hatchback £6-7k

mjt

mjt

mjt

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A family member needs a car to lug him and his family (wife & 2 small kids) around. He doesn't want an estate or anything massive. Is a Ford Focus still the best thing at this price point?
I don't know the UK market, but looking on AutoTrader, it seems you can get the 4th Gen for this budget, albeit somewhat higher mileage.

1.0 Ecoboost (125bhp) decent in a 5-6 year old car?
Anything else out there worth considering?
 
Focus titanium 182 or a Zetec S 182 will fit the bill perfectly and in budget.

Although looking through At there doesn't appear to be a single 182 Estate on sale. Best is a 150HP version.

The 1.0 Ecoboost engines aren't called ecobooms for nothing. I'd avoid them and go for the 1.6 Ecoboost.
 
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Check whether you can get into the newer i30 at the budget (2017ish), nicer all rounder than the mk3.5 focus for a generic family hatch imo.

I also wouldn't dismiss the astra which is better value for money than either - but tbh I don't think I'd personally ever buy one....I guess most other people think the same hence the price!
 
MissChief said:
Focus titanium 182 or a Zetec S 182 will fit the bill perfectly and in budget.

Although looking through At there doesn't appear to be a single 182 Estate on sale. Best is a 150HP version.

The 1.0 Ecoboost engines aren't called ecobooms for nothing. I'd avoid them and go for the 1.6 Ecoboost.
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Good to know, cheers.
rodenal said:
Check whether you can get into the newer i30 at the budget (2017ish), nicer all rounder than the mk3.5 focus for a generic family hatch imo.

I also wouldn't dismiss the astra which is better value for money than either - but tbh I don't think I'd personally ever buy one....I guess most other people think the same hence the price!
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2017 i30s are just out of budget by the looks of it. Have mentioned the Astra, but who would take one over a Focus?
 
The ecoboosts seemed good when they were still quite new, but then they started to go bang. The 1.6 was the best of the bunch I think, it was also used in the Fiesta ST.
 
Nasher said:
The ecoboosts seemed good when they were still quite new, but then they started to go bang. The 1.6 was the best of the bunch I think, it was also used in the Fiesta ST.
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There was a bad batch of 1.0's fitted to the Focus that had a brittle cooling pipe that once broken would cause the engine to overheat and grenade pretty quickly. It has been solved for a long time. Fiesta's were unaffected IIRC.
 
BinnsY said:
With two little ones I'd consider something with a bigger boot. This screams Octavia to me.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202103290717614

When it comes to loading all the extra stuff (prams / bikes / trikes etc) kids come with I think they will really value the massive boot these have over the normal options like the focus.
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Really? Proper hatchback versus hatchback with saloon shape boot? Not sure how the maths stacks up on this one. Could see it going either back. Octavia is a great recommendation though, if OP doesn't mind the extra length.
 
The Focus' boot is pretty small - certainly not as spacious as an A3/Golf.

I own the 1.0 125 ecoboost, and it's a great engine - the scare stories are over exaggerated as these things always are.
 
dLockers said:
Really? Proper hatchback versus hatchback with saloon shape boot? Not sure how the maths stacks up on this one. Could see it going either back. Octavia is a great recommendation though, if OP doesn't mind the extra length.
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Not sure what you mean here? The OP is asking for a hatchback suitable for someone with 2 kids. The Octavia despite looking a bit saloon like is categorically a hatchback, with interior space comparible to the Focus. However, the focus boot is about 315 liters. The Octavias is 590. Whilst I accept it's 30cm longer than the focus its not exactly a huge Car and I dont think falls foul of the "massive" criteria he's trying to avoid.

Ultimately I'm speaking from experience and I only have one little one, at One point we had a 2009 Civic, and a 2010 Octavia, again the Civics boot from that era was considerably bigger than the Focus and even that didn't compare to my Octavias at the time. It's simply unbeatable in that size of car when it comes to putting all the stuff in the back young children tend to come along with.
 
BinnsY said:
Not sure what you mean here? The OP is asking for a hatchback suitable for someone with 2 kids. The Octavia despite looking a bit saloon like is categorically a hatchback, with interior space comparible to the Focus. However, the focus boot is about 315 liters. The Octavias is 590. Whilst I accept it's 30cm longer than the focus its not exactly a huge Car and I dont think falls foul of the "massive" criteria he's trying to avoid.

Ultimately I'm speaking from experience and I only have one little one, at One point we had a 2009 Civic, and a 2010 Octavia, again the Civics boot from that era was considerably bigger than the Focus and even that didn't compare to my Octavias at the time. It's simply unbeatable in that size of car when it comes to putting all the stuff in the back young children tend to come along with.
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My question/observation was what you commented on after your first sentence. I've never had a 'hatch/saloon' so was unsure whether the space is as usable as the 'proper hatch'. The maths point I made you also answered. Octavia seems to be the staple recommendation on motors and I can see why if it performs as well as the numbers say.
 
dLockers said:
My question/observation was what you commented on after your first sentence. I've never had a 'hatch/saloon' so was unsure whether the space is as usable as the 'proper hatch'. The maths point I made you also answered. Octavia seems to be the staple recommendation on motors and I can see why if it performs as well as the numbers say.
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Fair enough, that makes more sense.

It definately has a huge impact when it comes to putting things in for kids yea. A good example was our pram. Whilst the civic could swallow it easily, it had to go in sideways, essentially using 80-90% of the floor of the boot (unless you tipped it on it's edge or something which invariably leads to it falling over unless the boot is rammed). On the octavia the boot was long enough for the pram to go in folded, long ways. Essentially leaving you with 40-50% of the boot floor clear for loading more "normal" things to the side of it.

You can of course get around this simply by putting the pram on top of things, or things on top of the pram, but you cant beat the convenience of being able to load things side by side when you just want to get one or the other out. This logic then rings true as they got older and things like our fold up trike / balance bike etc could all fit long ways in something like an Octavia and it just gets easier. You then just have the huge amount of extra literage any time you do need to fill a boot for essentially no extra cost.

The Octavia is essentially a bit of a unicorn car. It's a focus size car, with a Mondeo size boot, and in all honesty, I'm not sure there is anything esle quite like it.
 
Octavia is a good shout
the Focus Mk 3 has a smaller boot than the previous Generation, I have a mk 2.5, and i can tell you now, you dont want smaller than that with a family.
go octavia
 
Octavia boots are massive, it may share the floor plan of the Golf, but having owned a Golf and Octavia from the same generation, the Octavia was only slightly longer and significantly more practical.
 
Octavia is the ultimate family hatchback but it is on the bigger end of the spectrum (longer than some estate cars that have bigger boots), if he wants something shorter around the length of a focus but with a bigger boot, the 308 and Scala fit the bill.
 
“Why aren’t you recommending a Toyota or Honda?”
Any opinions on that? Toyotas are dull and dreary, I don’t know anything about Hondas.
-edit, looks like you’ll get a 12-13 plate Civic for that budget v a 14-15 plate Focus!

HangTime said:
Octavia is the ultimate family hatchback but it is on the bigger end of the spectrum (longer than some estate cars that have bigger boots), if he wants something shorter around the length of a focus but with a bigger boot, the 308 and Scala fit the bill.
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He won’t find a Scala for £7k!
 
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