Internal linking best practice

[echo1]

See example:

car rental - sedans - bmw car rental - sedans - audi car rental - sedans - ford

(internal links to sedans - audi, ford) or (internal links to suv - bmw)

car rental - suv - bmw car rental - suv - audi car rental - suv - ford

(internal links to suv- audi, ford) or (internal links to sedans- bmw...)

Should I cross link only between the product page under each category or can I link between different products under different categories? From a user point of view, I think it will give him more options if he wants to choose the same brand but a bigger vehicle although I have read numerous posts saying that we should be internally linking most of the time within the same category. User experience  or SEO?

[brycebertola]

I think in the case of a page for Sedan > BMW it would be categorically related to SUV > BMW, so cross linking should be encouraged.

If you were to restructure your site, you might end up with "Vehicle Make" as a top category, and then body style as a subcategory, with categories like "BMW > Sedan" and "BMW > SUV". Another valid way of organizing your site, where the pages would have identical content.

There's more than one way to slice a pie, so if they are justifiably related, you should cross link.