Out of the possibilities you mentioned (MG, Haval or Kia) I would forget about the first two and go straight to Kia. Of course it depends on your budget and what you’re looking for, but Kia has a good reputation for safety and reliability which the other two don’t yet (relatively new to the Australian market). We have a Carnival which is amazing. Not recommending it for you as I’m sure it would be way too big, but a new (or near new) Kia Rio should be within your budget. 7 year warranty, too.
I wouldn’t worry too much about a “family” car if it’s just you and your DD. You’d be paying more for space you won’t need to use very often. Something Kia Rio sized would be perfect for your everyday driving, and it will have all the safety features you would want. Oh, friends of mine recently bought a Kia Stonic as their family car (2 kids) so that could be an option for you too.
When we bought our Carnival (we went from 2 to 4 kids in one go so our Ford Fiesta wasn’t going to cut it anymore) the most important things we looked at were (in about this order🙂 safety (had to be 5 stars), price (we ended up getting a one-year old ex-Uber car and saved about $7000 off the new price), warranty, practicality for our family, eg could we fit 4 carseats and a double pram in, how was access to the rear row, would it fit in our garage?
Anything else was a nice bonus for us, like it has a reversing camera which we hadn’t had before, and that is seriously the best thing ever. There’s nothing that really annoys me about the Carnival, but I remember we also test-drove the Honda Odyssey (it was the only other serious contender for us) and the most annoying thing was that having carseats in the rear row meant access to the boot was impeded, as the anchor points were right below the actual boot door. So you had straps stretching across the entire boot space, which meant we couldn’t have fit a pram in. Whereas the Carnival’s anchor points are on the backs of the seats themselves, so no problem there.
I think you will find going from a 12 year old car to something newer there will be a lot of features you will like, no matter what car you choose. If you are able, go out and do some test drives, make a short list and go from there.
ETA: I realise I sound like an ad for Kia. I’m not! I just love my Carnival. You can also look at Hyundai, Mazda or Toyota for a decent, well-made, reliable car.
