Mumsnet Talk

We are going to the car dealers tomorrow
Mostly to look at the Volvo XC90

We will need to fit 3 car seats in the back and have plenty of boot space

What other cars should we consider?

I have a Disco 3 that fits 3 across in car seats easily (the reason we bought it)

thanks

We have a VW Touareg. Would fit 3 car seats in.

Has it been reliable? Have heard bad things about them before

Volvo V70 - much bigger boot than XC90, can always get AWD version if you need 4X4

we have the volvo v70 and really love it!

We have a very reliable Zafira, and we get 3 car seats in (when needed) no bother!

You might want to read this before going for the XC90 (says the V70 driver)

We have a grand renault scenic which has 7 seats.

We have 3 backed boosters now but when we first got the car we had a auto baby seat, a stage 2 seat and a backed booster no problem. Having the 2 seats in the boot means I have a huge boot space.

3 seats will fit easily into a VW Touran - massive boot as well. Plus you won't have peole hurling abuse at you every day like they do round here at the 4x4 brigade.

sowhatitsonlysnow - thanks for the link

V70, V70, V70

We have a Grande Renault Espace, which obviously isn't a 4x4, but is brilliant as all of the seats are 'proper' seats, rather than the fold away ones, so the NCAP ratings are good, and if you need to cart huge amounts of stuff around, you just take all of the seats out, and you have a transit van .

We've got three car seats across the middle, but will probably move to 2 by 2 when baby number 4 arrives in April - and we'll still have a reasonable boot. We've taken it to France and do lots of motorway journeys and it's a brilliant cruiser.

Thanks everyone

We don't actually need a 4x4 but most people with 3> kids we know have one

V70 looks like it could be cheaper and faster than the XC90

we paid £8k for our 2006 V70

it's more fuel efficient than the renault scenic and the ford focus we had previously

What about the XC60 ??

DH wants a XC90 but we don't really need one but would like a car that takes 3 across the back (for lifts) and so he is now plugging the XC60.

can you definitely get 3 car seats in the back?

I thought the XC60 would be too small

The Honda CR-V is definitely too small for us

Yes can get 3 seats in V70, but it would it's a squeeze buckling them in unless one or two are booster style seats? V70 T5 (or D5) goes very, very fast

Am not 100% certain but its wider than our A4 which you can squeeze 3 car seats (but prefer not to as its exceedinly tight) into so was assuming it would. Also, you can have 2 built in booster seats in the XC60 in a family pack thing but having said that, they are only cushions so you wouldn't use them all the time with young ones.

we mdon't have any problem buckling ours in, but that's maybe cos we have rearfacing seats? so not as much bulk around the buckle area?

we have 2 group 1 rear-facing seats and a highback booster.

we have also fitted 1 infant carrier, 1 forward facing group 1 and 1 highback booster

only one will be a booster (highbacked britax)

others will be a FF group 1 seat and then probably a RF seat similar size to group 1 although I might use the baby carrier style one for a bit

it's def worth trying them out in the car, we had to change ds1's highback booster to get them to fit across