We drove both a few years ago and compared to our C-Max (diesel) both were dreadful.

We bought a Kia but it was a Ceed diesel estate so nothing against the brand.

Tried to get a drive in a diesel Avensis but the dealer was an idiot.

They may well suit you but get a good long test drive in both.

Not much detail here(!), but i'm guessing this has to do with the lack of torque?.

It is something that you probably should bear in mind, especially if you are a 'press on' kind of driver!. Both cars are quite heavy (the Kia more so), both cars don't have a lot of torque (both being n\a or non-turbo petrol), and in both cars, what torque there is comes at quite high revs. The Toyota produces 118lb/ft @ 4400rpm, the Kia 122lb/ft @ 4850rpm. This means that if you are in a hurry, you will need to work the engines in both cars very hard indeed. By contrast, the VW Touran, even as a 1.2TSI (turbo), despite having less actual BHP than the Toyota or Kia (110BHP vs 132 and 135 respectively) produces 129lb/ft from 1400rpm. So the combination of more torque at much lower revs, mean it will be more relaxing to drive, and almost certainly more efficient. And as said, that is just the base 1.2TSI, the 1.4TSI moves things on to a different level entirely!.

That was exactly what we found.

Of course if you are not bothered about performance, you will probably find them perfectly adequate!.

Nowhere near what we expected. Even in town they were hard work. At the time one of our cars was a 80 PS Nissan Micra and that was an F1 compared the Toyota and Kia.

One other thing we found on the test drive was the rear seat comfort on both was very poor compared to the C-Max. The Toyota was without doubt the worst, the seat was totally flat and even at very moderate speeds (with seat belt on) you were sliding form side to side. A long trip would have been unbearable. We also found the instrument location in the centre of the dash distracting, it did not work in the Mini so why Toyota decided it was a good idea in an MPV (probably used the Picasso as an example) god only knows.

But one of the best used 7strs is still the Vauxhall Zafira. For your budget you could get an excellent late model approved used 1.4 turbo from a main dealer. These are comfortable and vast inside. Hugely practical and if you avoid the Fiat designed diesels they’re pretty robust.

At the 2018 European Championships the bulk of the fleet consisted of 1.4 Turbo Zafiras or 1.8 Valvematic Versos. The vast majority of drivers preferred the Vauxhall as quite a few stalled the Versos due to the low torque /clutch combo (of course, as a 1.8 Valvematic Avensis driver I was used to it).