My 2001 Honda Civic finally died and has been scrapped as it was uneconomical to repair. I walk to work and do very little driving so in the past 8 years have clocked up only 10k miles. I don’t enjoy driving and prefer to walk/cycle wherever possible so have toyed with the idea of not having a car but I do like the convenience of having a car for when walking/cycling isn’t an option and there aren’t any car hire places nearby. I have family who have recently moved to Devon so expect I will be doing a few more miles than in the past as it’s a 400-mile roundtrip and guess we will probably visit 2 or 3 times a year.

My main requirement is a large enough boot (with the back seats down) to fit 2 bikes, so I have been thinking something like a VW Golf, Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra. Ideally, I would like a petrol automatic. I have been slightly put off the Focus after reading about the issues with PowerShift.

With the bike requirements, surely you want to look at an estate?. To that end, you could get a circa 2016/2017 Honda Civic estate 1.8 petrol auto estate for around £10k. Re the Focus, a pre-Powershift auto is fine, just looked at a 2010 Focus 2.0 petrol auto with 75k miles and 2 owners for £4.5k.

Would a 2013 Golf be a better option than a 2016 Astra?!?

If the cars are in comparable condition and have been looked after equally well, no.

Another option you should be looking at is a Toyota Auris hybrid estate.

A Honda Civic 1.8 2013 onwards hatchback has a much larger bike friendly boot than the cars you have listed. The magic seats also offer bike space if you take the wheels off. Avoid 2012 cars as they can have issues with oil consumption.