What Car? Personal Shopper: best 4x4 estate for £35,000
Want a new car but don't know where to start? Just send us your criteria and we'll give our new and used car choices, and tell you how much we can save you...
Buying used
- Our recommended choice: 2018 BMW 5 Series Touring 30d xDrive M Sport
- Price: £35,000
- Mileage: 10,283
The beauty of buying used is that depreciation has a way of making something unobtainable, obtainable. When new, a 2018 BMW 5 Series Touring with xDrive four-wheel drive in M sport guise was a little over £55,000. Today, that same car with 10,000 miles on it is £35,000. A huge £20,000 saving on an exceptionally good car.
While it isn't quite as sharp to drive as the saloon, the Touring is still a comfortable barge with which to whittle away miles in, particularly if you can find one with adaptive suspension on it (it'll have the word 'Adaptive' on the drive mode switch by the gear lever).
The boot is one of the biggest in the class and it gets a 40:20:40 split-fold rear bench for added flexibility. Plus there's loads of space for five people. If ever there was a car to suit all occasions, the 5 Series Touring is it.
- Also consider: 2018 Audi A6 Allroad 3.0 TDI 218 quattro Sport S tronic
- Price: £34,275
- Mileage: 11,667
Fortunately, the Audi A6 has just been replaced with an all-new model which means that second-hand prices have taken a dive, and brings the A6 Allroad within budget. The A6 Allroad is quite a piece of kit with fully adjustable air suspension that you can use to raise the ride height when going off-road, plus that lusty 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine has bags of torque to pull itself out of sticky situations.
Read our used Audi A6 Avant review
- Also consider: 2018 Volvo V90 D5 Inscription Pro AWD
- Price: £29,445
- Mileage: 4160
The Volvo V90 is another example of a luxury vehicle that's depreciated to such an extent that you could come away with an as-new car and still have change from your original budget, Lucy. We found a six-month old example with the Pro package that adds the upgraded 12.3in digital instrument cluster, heated steering wheel and windscreen along with a premium sound system. You also get a comprehensive suite of safety tech including blindspot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist and automatic emergency braking along with large animal detection.
The best diesel cars
If you're in the market for an SUV, an executive saloon or something for towing, diesel cars still make a lot of financial sense. Here we count down our favourites
