yes i noticed that, mind you still very long at 4.8m

I've owned both the hatch and estate Octavia, I would say the estate was quite a bit noisier. But from the ones I've been in, the Superb is a much nicer car all round. If you don't have to have an estate but want the rear seat room, the Mondeo hatch is a nice place to be. Don'tforget the Avensis, nice big roomy traditional car.

Honda civic tourer?, spacious cabin, huge boot, and of course, the brilliant 'magic seats'.You haven't expressed a preference for petrol or diesel, but resident trader SLO rates the 1.6 diesel version (which is both unusual and high praise for a modern diesel!). And going by what I have read about this era of civic, the ride is much plusher than some previous civic's.

Sadly, with the new civic, honda has bowed down to the pressure from the motoring press and their obsession with having the drivers seat very low. So they have moved the fuel tank from under the front seats to under the rear seats (where it is on most other cars), but this means no more magic seats (at least on the civic). I'm assuming this will also be the case when/if a new civic estate comes along.

The Mazda CX3 is based on a Mazda 2, so it's actually a smallish car styled to look bigger, as are many of the latest crop of smaller crossovers. I would still favour a traditinal large hatch or estate as they can't be beaten for space. Those Mazda 6s are fine things, that's what I'd be cheching out, with the well-respected SkyActive petrol engines. Quashqai might be worth a look but it's not reliable.

The Superb is a great car but probably longer than you want - about 4.8 metres.

I'm not sure what your budget is, but could you get a Mazda CX-3 within budget. They may not have been aroind for 3 years but one of these will be less than a CX-5.

If you're more after comfort than driving fun, consider a Nissan Pulsar or Qashqai. Too wallowy for my tastes but the seats are excellent and both models have plenty of legroom in the back.

The VW Golf Plus or Golf SV, depending on your budget, have good legroom, and the ordinary Golf isn't bad in this respect.

Finally there's the Ford C-Max, although some of the engines can be unreliable and hopefully SLO may see this and advise us on which if any of the Ford petrol engines are any good.

Skidpan hasn't been around for a few weeks. People do come and go on forums like this but I hope he hasn't gone for good. He can be abrasive but has some good ideas.

The CX-3 is a very good drive, though (personally speaking) overpriced (even second hand). Most second hand examples available are either the 1.5 diesel (variant of the diesel-of-doom) and 2 ltr petrol (fine in manual, quite nippy at 0-60 in 9sec), but most, especially in the petrol-engined format, are Sport Navs which are quite a firm ride (at least after a few months - my brand new test drive model was ok) and they reduce the boot space from a reasonable 350 ltr to only 287 ltr to accommodate the uprated ICE.

The one to go for (if you do) is the 2.0 petrol SE-L Nav on 16in rims, but there's little in the way of dealer or decent broker offers on CX-3s, and especially this model (which is the most popular and owners seeem to hand on to them). Very few of these on offer second hand, especially via dealers (when I looked back in Jan/Feb there literally was less than 5 across the whole UK via Mazda's website).

Its a shame that the SEAT Arona has just arrived - it is about the same size as the CX-3 overall, but manages to get (across the range) 400 lts of boot space and both the frugal 1.0TSi petrol and the very nice 1.5TSi version. This could do very nicely but I suspect it would be outside the price range of the OP, even with deals from dealers/brokers (nothing listed on the 'cars for sale' [new] section yet).

It would be useful to know the OP's budget, usage (typical range of journeys) and annual mileage requirements as its a bit of a guess otherwise, mainly on size and parking difficulties for larger (longer) estate cars.

"Skidpan hasn't been around for a few weeks. People do come and go on forums like this but I hope he hasn't gone for good. He can be abrasive but has some good ideas."

Hm... His recent contributions went beyond "abrasive", I thought.

No-one is indispensible.