Tell me about your best family cars!

[Rainatnight]

Two DC later, we’ve decided that we need a car. We live in London, so it’s mostly short journeys, but we do want to go on longer trips for holidays and things.

DC are little, so need room for buggies, etc. I’m very short, so nothing massive.

I have NO idea where to start. Any wise ideas?

I’m very short and love my Ford Kuga 😊

Thank you! Would you say it’s big enough for families from a storage pov?

Should have also said in my OP that we’ve ruled out SUVs.

VW Touran, 7 seater which has two of those seats in the boot. Very popular round here for families.

Our Ford Focus was perfect in London with a young family. Could fit in buggies, it was economical and easily parked. We've now moved out and shifted to a buyer car ( Outlander, as we wanted electric and something bigger for long journeys), but my day to day Mini serves us very well too.

Ford Galaxy, seven individual seats and if you fold down or remove the rear row then the boot is a cavern. Older models very cheap, Ford not too expensive to maintain. Some of the seats have built-in child boosters.

For holidays with two young DC, you need a car with a big boot to fit in the buggy, the travel cot and the rest of the stuff. For parking round London, you'd probably ideally want a small car. Can you live with parking a bigger car?

We have a Vauxhall Insignia, chosen as it has a big boot and is pretty cheap 2nd hand. It's not very good at fitting in 3 DC if you are considering another. We liked the Skoda Octavia better but they are much more expensive used as they hold their value better.

We drew up a list of family cars so went and sat in them in various showrooms to test things like how good visibility is (we looked at new cars in showrooms as it's easy to wonder about and sit in cars without talking to salespeople as they leave the cars unlocked, not because we intended to get a new car). We then looked for a 2nd hand version of our intended car and did a test drive.

Be golf with roof bars for holidays. Vws go on for ever too.

I'm a short person. I really wanted a Ford Kuga but when I took one for a test drive it just felt too massive! I decided on the Ford Ecosport which is a little smaller, and god I love it! It's really nippy, and fast and just gorgeous really!

We have a Skoda yeti for our family car and I recently bought a Honda jazz as a work car/runaround. The jazz has actually turned out to be the better car for running the kids and their things (bikes, sports equipment etc.) about. The back seats fold completely flat with an easy mechanism, and the floor in the back seat is flat all the way across (rather than having a bump in the middle). This creates extra bag and leg room and it means the kids can easily walk through the car from one side to the other (good for getting them both out of one side of parked awkwardly). I also had an AA man tell me that they are very reliable - in 25 years of call outs the only time he's ever been called to a jazz is when the lights were left on and the battery flat, or for a flat tyre.

This is all really helpful, thank you for the replies.

We are definitely definitely not having another DC so definitely no need for extra seats. Have I said definitely enough?

I had a Renault scenic.
Lots of leg space and the seats came out do you could make more room.

We have a Vauxhall zafira and three kids. We can fit everyone in and the boot is a great size for all the stuff we need to take on holiday. Plus has two extra seats in the boot when needed.

Skoda Karoq

I’m small and the seat has so much adjustment. It remembers the different seat positions that DH and I have. Massive boot and the most comfortable car I’ve ever had.

That does sound amazing. We’re a bit worried about SUVs and emissions though. We live in a really polluted part of London and think we have to try not to be part of the problem.