Has the 4 year old moved onto a Group 3 seat (high back booster) yet? If not, they must be getting very close.

Those seats are noticeably narrower than the ones for smaller children which have the integral 5 point harness. They also only use the ISOFIX mounting (if they even have them) to hold the seat in place when it's not being used.

If the child is big enough for that type of seat, it should open up your options quite a bit more as the 4 year old can then go in the middle seat.

We have group 3 seat and group 1 seat in the back of our Octavia and its possible, if slightly cramped for a smaller adult to ride in the back seat as well. A youngish teenager would fit no problem.

If having that car seat option is likely to be some time away, I'd suggest looking for something with fairly vertical sides, and where the wheel arches are properly behind the back seat (they aren't in the Octavia) or the car is high enough for the seats to be above them. The Golf SV might be an option, or possibly a C-Max. I don't really like them personally, but most of the 'crossover' type vehicles (Ford Kuga, Vauxhall Grandland etc.) to tend to be a bit wider than an estate car in the back.

Thanks for this reply. The combo life looks a bit too big for us - we’d probably go for an estate car over an mpv. Partly as we are used to a pretty small car, and as we live in a city and have on street parking so space is at a premium. I was considering the Auris estate (as mentioned in your other post) but wasn’t sure whether the distance between isofix points afforded any greater space for the one in the middle (and it seems pretty much impossible to find this measurement for different car models?). I’ll look at the Avensis estate too (sounds as it you were in a similar situation!) - thank you.

The Vauxhall Combo Life, in standard wheelbase form, is 26.5cm shorter than a current shape Focus estate (15.7cm shorter than the previous Focus estate). Even the LWB Combo Life is only 8.5cm longer than the current Focus estate.

Though as said, it is not within your budget anyway.

I did think about the Golf SV too, I like them and think they are very under rated. Big boot at 500 litres, but actual capacity can sometimes be deceiving. Worth a look though I think. There is the Touran too, but not many manual petrol versions without an excess of miles.

Going back to the Combo Life, while it and it's PSA/Stellantis cousins (Citroen Berlingo and Peugeot Rifter) are out of budget, there is another couple of options which uses much the same running gear, the Citroen C4 Picasso (5 seats) and Grand C4 Picasso (7 seats). Some concern over the 1.2 Puretech petrol engine and the interior quality is maybe not the best. But on the plus side, the interior is very much designed with 'family' in mind, very airy interior, deep windows and lots of cubby holes.