Get an ordinary car with the narrowest wheels possible. (My 175/75 summer tyres have made it up slippery hills where lifestyle SUVs on chav wheels have failed).

+1

My 175/65/14 tyres are the same..Any 4x4 in winter is only as good as its tyres... few owners buy winter tyres

If you buy any modern Audi with wide tyres, get used to walking in snow.

LPG your gas guzzling petrol and cut your fuel bill by a t least a third.

And spend £2k to do it thus blowing the budget.....................

To be fair, if you're tall it depends how you sit in the car; Mr Bobbin is 6ft 3 but can sit without discomfort in the back of my mum's Aygo, if she is driving, since she's over a foot shorter than him.

Most cars will cope fine in snow - I used to commute 120 miles a day in a 1.6l Focus on 'summer' tyres, no ABS, and I never had a problem in the ice and snow. Often I was one of the few people who managed to get to work....

This doesn't narrow it down really! If you need more space than a Focus and you've got £4k, a Mondeo is probably the way to go. Or, a Honda Accord.

Edited by Bobbin Threadbare on 02/10/2012 at 18:44

Any large, economical car in your budget is likely to either be pretty old or pretty high mileage so be realistic: you can't expect it to be as reliable and not need as much maintenance as a newer, low mileage car.

For £4k you can have econmical, you can have big and comfortable, you can have newish and lowish mileage and hence less maintenance but you probably can't have all at the same time.

£4k will get you a nice V70 D5 which would fit most of the criteria but it will have 100k+ and/or be 8-9 years old so be realistic that you will be replacing the odd bit of suspension, maybe an alternator or clutch, maybe an injector or two etc. whilst you own it.

VW Golf/Passat 4Motion, or even some Skodas are 4WD.

My old Saab 9-5 2.2tid Estate has just conveyed us down to Normandy and back via Dover (strange routing due to the Brittany Ferries strike).

That was another 900 miles to add to the 192000 so far, it didn't miss a beat, and was running at about 44 mpg on the pleasingly clear French autoroutes