Motor Head: When the time came for me to buy a new car, Volkswagen’s doughty Touran people-carrier turned out to be just the job

My family and I had no intention of buying a new car this year. Our 2009 Mazda5 MPV was well-suited to our needs, though we were vaguely planning on replacing it in the next couple of years for something better suited to life in Dublin city.

But then, the engine developed a very expensive and more or less terminal problem. The repair estimate was only a little less than the potential value of ...