Hi Ronny,

The €333 rate has nothing to do with engine size at all, I'm afraid; that's the light commercial vehicle rate of motor tax for a year, and you can only avail of it if the commercial vehicle you own is used solely for business purposes.

For cars registered before 2008, the tax bands relate to the engine size, so yes, 4x4s with 3.0-litre engines are particularly expensive to tax from that era. And in fact, to tax a registered commercial vehicle for private use costs the same as that, regardless of their age, whereas a private car from 2008 on is taxed according to its CO2 emissions. Even so, it sounds to us that the kind of vehicle you're looking for might still fall into the top two bands for tax. 

There's no easy way around that, I'm afraid. None of these vehicles are cheap to tax, not unless you'll consider the likes of a plug-in hybrid etc. Come back to us with a budget and we'll try to steer you toward the best compromise.