amie tried an evoque and hated it - about the same size as an x3 on the outside, but terrible visibility (for her - she's 5ft7 and mostly legs) and cramped on the inside. Mrs 964RS might find the visibility even worse as I think she's a bit shorter than Mrs Smallspeed?
We couldn't get our big dog in the boot of the evoque either (little one would fit in the centre arm-rest
) just felt like it was style over substance through and through..
My sister has a Hyundai (can't remember - small hatchback thing) and loves it - very cheap to run and so far completely reliable. Its hard to ignore them at the price, which includes the cost of servicing too.. I was amazed when I took it for a main-dealer service (the middle one) for her while she was pregnant. Did it while I had a coffee and charged £165 all in! I'm used to BMW having to bring someone out of retirement, then taking a week and charging £500 to do mine
At the same time as buying her X3 Amie also tried -
The small VW one (tiguan? ) which was pretty good, but neither of us could stand the "hard" VAG interiors
Audi A3 - seemed like it had nothing to offer over the VW except the list price and the badge, although to be fair we didn't look that hard
Both of these have been updated since so may be better than before, but I'm guessing in your budget you'll be looking at the older shape anyway
Mini Countryman - I've had minis and loved them but Amie wasn't impressed with the countryman, HOWEVER she's just (last weekend) test driven the new one which came out at the start of the year and it seems a different animal - I think this (cooper s / works) is probably what she'll end up with when her X3 is ready to go back in 6mo
X5 (latest) - Loved it, but too big and found it harder to park/manoeuvre than the x3
Defender - She didn't enjoy driving it at all, but still really wants one
girls eh?!...
G-Wagen - (a friends G63) loved it, can't afford one!
