Buyers looking at this end of the market would do well to concentrate on reliability. Especially if you’re purchasing a family car, you really don’t want your new pride and joy to be a regular on your breakdown service’s callout list. For this reason we’d strongly suggest models from Japanese manufacturers. These may not be the last word in style, but are realistically less likely to let you down, significant when many vehicles in this price range will have benefited from some extensive running in… cars with well over 100,000 miles on the clock are common.
The Nissan Primera is a very sound choice. Either generation of car available within the £2k budget lasts well; they have enormous boots and even handle nicely. In terms of availability, however, fleet favourite Ford Mondeos, Vauxhall Vectras, and Peugeot 406s dominate – and if you’re after one you’ll have a good selection to choose from. We’d suggest the Vectra as it offers the best value.