5 Things to Remember When Choosing Your Next Family Car

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Passing my driving test was one of the most important achievements of my life so far and when the day finally came over 11 years ago now and at the age of 19, I don’t think I realised how much freedom was to come! Luckily my mum had saved her 15 year old Ford Fiesta for me and my sister to share (she passed her test not long after me) and so my first experience of a car was an old but very reliable one!

When I moved out of my mum’s house at the age of 23, I had to buy my own car as my sister was sharing mine so I saved up about £1000 and bought my beloved Corsa. I bought it from my step-mum and it had been really well looked after so although it was 4 years old when I got it, it served me well for almost 6 years until it started to fail its MOT’s and was going to cost a lot more than its worth in repairs.

Then Mario bought me a lovely 2 year old Fiesta which absolutely loved! It was candy blue in colour and really pretty! However with baby number 2 on the way, we had to decide whether to change the car to one that was a bit bigger and so we got our current BMW X3. I thought I would give you 5 tips on finding the perfect family car for you!

Buying Your Next Family Car – Do Your Research

One of the first things to do is to write a list of the things that are important to you in a car and things you really don’t want to compromise on. The best way to do this is to head over to a car site such as Cars.com where you can find a huge wealth of information on every type of car currently on the market! They may even give you ideas as to things you may have missed thinking about and with it being Car Seat Safety Week, you will get some handy tips on how to ensure your car is as safe as possible for your little ones!

Consider Your Budget

There’s no point in choosing a car that you cannot afford the monthly repayments on! I know its easily done when you get to the showroom and are dazzled by the stunning range of cars available to you but if you are going to struggle to pay for the car itself let alone the tax, MOT and insurance, you will be in for a shock! Also consider the cost of car parts and repairs as a new tyre for a Fiesta is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than a tyre for a Range Rover!

Test Drive

Now I have never test driven a car however I have sat in a huge number when looking to buy one and it definitely help! I want to make damn sure I can drive the thing and navigate through the streets of Mapperley before we buy anything! It could be a very expensive mistake if I’m going to ‘ding’ it off everything!

Width of Driveway

When we moved into our new house, we thought we could fit 3 cars easily on the driveway however due to the narrowness of it and the placement of the gate post on the wall, we soon found that although we can fit 2 cars on the driveway absolutely fine, there isn’t a lot of space so if when we got the bigger car we had to work out how to park them both!

Size of Boot

One thing I really struggled with in my Corsa when we had Mia as a new-born, was fitting our huge buggy into the boot and I refused to make the same mistake again! When you have children, you need your life to be as straight forward and easy as possible so having a car boot that you can easily get a buggy in and out of is now top of my car buying list and something I cannot compromise on! Our X3 boot currently fits 2 buggys, a changing bag, spare kit, buckets and spades, umbrellas, bird seed for our long walks and a spare potty! It’s huge!

So that’s it! A few of my tips to buying your next family car and although some of these are personal to me, I hope they give you a good idea of the types of things you could consider for yourself and your family.