To ask what is best value car to fit 3 under fives?

[grizzabellia]

Not sure if this qualifies as aibu, but I am bamboozled by the conflicting info I am getting on googling and know nothing about cars!

Expecting unexpected dc 3 so will have 5, 3 year old and a baby. I have a car reg 2011 bought earlier this year I can trade in but not sure how much I will get back (was 9000). Really don't want to spend much what with going on mat leave, and would like something that does not eat fuel as have long commute to work and it will bankrupt me - any recommendations gratefully received!

It's not a myth but there won't be research as such - the seats simply don't fit! You need to be careful about things like "buckle crunch".

I had a Renault Laguna and, whilst big, 3 seats would not fit across the back. I now have an S-Max (and no longer need three seats! :)).

I love my S-Max. It has 3 individual seats across the back (plus 2 more in the boot). I would always look for 3 individual seats that slide back and forth and fold forward individually.

I used to have a Zafira but I didn't like the back seat. The seat was a bench split in 2. It moved backwards and forwards as a bench. So if your car seat was strapped in with the seat belts but you wanted to move a seat forward to get into the boot, you would have to undo all the straps for the car seat - which was a pain in the bum.

Another car with 3 individual seats but is a 5 seater, rather than 7, so is cheaper, is the Renault. My friend has one and loves hers. I still prefer the S-Max but they are expensive.

tooka, it's easy enough to check - measure your carseats and then measure the back seat width of the car in question:) We have an extended rear-facing seat for our 3-year-old, a high-back booster for our 5-year-old, and soon a standard baby seat too. The only cars that we could find that would fit those across the back were the S-Max, Galaxy, Renault, Citroen Picasso Grande, and Honda FR-V (sure there must be a couple of others). S-Max was out of price range, we didn't want a french car (reliability issues), so that left us either an older galaxy or an FRV. The C-Max Grande, Zafira and Sharan were all too narrow, though they probably would be ok for 3 smaller seats.

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies, they have confirmed my suspicions that there are not many cars that will meet the criteria! I did look into the multimac, but was not very happy with the reviews of the baby seat - apparently it is very upright which may be a safety issue, also quite heavy. Also I think 3 kids would be squashed as they got older and I think it is probably safer just to have a bigger car! Now just to find one that is not too expensive...

Will be interested to see what you settle on. We only have 2 DCs but it looks like we may be able to upgrade our car next year and we haven't 100% ruled out another DC so would have to think 'just in case' when it comes to buying a car.

Would have to accommodate 3 in the back, decent boot, not French, preferably Japanese or German and affordable to run (which I think is actually a big ask!).