Hi Ado,

Tough question, this one. Your budget is by no means small, it’s actually fairly generous, but from your parameters outlined above, what you’ll be looking for is an SUV of some sort. And, for €16,000, you’re going to struggle to get a hybrid. There is one vehicle that would fit the bill, which is the old Lexus RX. You could get a Mk2 RX 400h or an early (circa 2009/2010) Mk3 RX 450h, the former capable of around 30mpg (9.4 litres/100km) and the latter said to do 44.8mpg (6.3 litres/100km, although, in reality, you’re more likely to get about 35-38mpg out of it, or 7.4-8.1 litres/100km). There is also the chance you’ll get a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (plug-in hybrid) for your money, but at 30,000km/year this isn’t a practical idea. PHEVs tend to be brilliant if you regularly charge them and use all their electric driving range, and we suspect (at your annual mileage) that you’ll be on open roads a lot, using the petrol engine and therefore getting less economy from the Mitsubishi than from the aforementioned RX 400h.

If you’re worried about diesel, then why not look at petrol crossovers instead? Much more modern vehicles on the 161 plate can fall into your budget, they ride high, they typically have good-sized boots and their turbocharged, small petrol engines can easily match the economy figures we’ve mentioned above. All of the Nissan Qashqai 1.2 DIG-T, the Ford EcoSport 1.0-itre EcoBoost and the Mitsubishi ASX 1.8 petrol are available, but what about searching out a Fiat 500X 1.4 MultiAir? It looks good, rides nicely and has a capacious cabin, and you can find used examples for around €16,000.