Get a 7 seater or 2 cars?

[Crappydiem122]

We are in a situation where occasionally we will need to transport 4 children around, at least twice a month. It's occasional because of my DSD only being here at weekends and me offering to do a couple of days weekend childcare for my niece (sister is a shift worker and really stuck).

When DSD and DN overlap we won't all fit in our current car with DH. So here's the options:

1 - buy a cheap second car, a fiesta or something. If we're all going out for the day we have to take both cars. Gives us the flexibility of 2 cars on other days but we have the running costs of 2 cars and the second car will have to be a small, cheap runaround.

2 - trade in current car and put some extra money towards a decent 7 seater. It's means there's no issues when we have all the children and only 1 set of running costs. But it means we're stuck driving a huge car about that we really don't need (or particularly want) on all the other days too.

I've looked at a few cars and we can't swing it financially to get a decent 7 seater and a second runaround. So it's one or the other.

Any thoughts, wise mumsnetters?

I wouldn't do either tbh. Whichever of these options you choose will be massively costly just do you can take your niece out on the occasional weekend. Helping someone out with childcare is lovely, but adding hugely to your monthly expenditure because of it? That's a no from me.

Depends partly if you could do with the second car anyway and the kids of distances, parking costs you do with all the children. Finally is it likely to be long term as an arrangement?

An alternative is, do you have a car club type scheme near you or independent car hire where you could essentially rent a larger vehicle as needed

I think it’s madness to pay for a bigger car or second car just to accommodate your sister’s kids.

Is she going to contribute to the cost of the bigger car and higher petrol cost?

Is she going to contribute to the cost of a second car and the insurance, MOT, road tax , petrol, tyres?

Why can’t your sister find childcare?

I'll give you a 3rd option, for the odd days use public transport or mix of car and taxi.
Seems daft to go to the expense of another car and insurance for only a couple of days a month.

4th option, could you be added to your sisters insurance and use her car if necessary.

You probably need to work out your average mileage and calculate petrol costs for each option then the insurance and tax costs for each to work out which is more affordable. If you do a lot of miles during the week it may work out cheaper to have two cars if you don't a 7 seater may be the cheaper option.

See if there's a city car club near you - either option is a shit ton of expense for just a couple of days a month.

This may be a complete non starter but have you thought about using alternative forms of transport on the occasions where you need to travel en mass? Or splitting up so some go by car and some public transport?

If that's no good then my gut instinct would be for 2 cars but you need to do the math to work out what would be cheaper. One problem w 2 cars is you need to have 2 drivers available.

Or if you have zip cars or equivalent near you that may be another option.

How old are the children?
If past carseat age then second car, at some point they'll want to lean to drive or be in different places at the same time to meet friends. And you don't need a big car once they've left home.
If still little then 7 seater. Never need to move carseats around, loads of boot space when they're not all there.

Stay at home when you've more passengers than seats??

I think buying a car to occasionally drive your niece about is absolute madness

On the says when you look after all 4 children do you have to use the car? Can't you do things locally or use public transport or if absolutely necessary take a taxi.
I think that would be much cheaper and better for the environment.
Unless you need an extra car the rest of the week for other reasons, if so go for the extra car

Do you and OH go anywhere separately?
We had two cars, my car (small two seat sports car) OH had a large old rover (lovely to sit in but it was too big for me). Whoever wasn't looking after the kids had the sports car, whoever had the kids took the rover. Neither of us liked each others car so we ended up with a third 'family' car.

They were all old bangers which we maintained ourselves.

A quashquai +2 isn’t much more expensive than a normal quashqui and you can get some pretty decent offers secondhand. Taking your niece round is your reality, despite what other posters are telling you, so you need to have transport that suits you. With that in mind, I’d think about reducing petrol costs/MOT costs etc and having only one vehicle will be the best way to do that.

How often realistically will all 6 of you go out? I would have thought that you would more often end up splitting up as the four kids won't want to do the same things so I wouldn't do either and would just do taxis when the issue arises.

More random ideas:

Can your sister put you on her car insurance and lend you her car on these weekends?

Can you get a cargo bike for some of the kids or even just an ebike for you or DH?

Car hire/car clubs as others have said

Id get a 6 or 7 seater, but one that the spare seats are ones that are in the boot.
We hired a peugeot like this once on holiday that was quite economica, and when you didnt need the extra seats it was just a good boot space.

I think the amount you need the extra seats is actually quite a lot, so id def go for a bigger car. It will give you more freedom, and they arent all gas guzzlers

If you go the 7 seater I'd highly recommend a kia carens. It has the 7 seats but is relatively compact so doesn't feel like a bus - we are on our second, had a diesel automatic and then changed to a petrol manual because of the ULEZ. They don't make them any more but there are loads second hand from kia dealers and you'll probably get a couple of years warranty, as the original kia warranty is 7 years.

I also really like the massive boot which comes in handy more often than you'd think (when you have the 6th and 7th seat down)

I think a second car makes more sense than a 7-seater because I'm guessing it will be more useful in the periods when you don't have all the kids. Would it sometimes be useful?

Otherwise I agree with others to look into other options (public transport, taxi etc) which will almost certainly be cheaper if it's just the odd occasion.

It would have to be the bigger car. A second car is just going to be so much more expensive. Another car to service and mot every year plus insurance and car tax. Then there's tyres, and potential repairs especially if you can't afford a decent second car.

I don't know how old the second car wld be that ur talking about. We've always had 2 cars, 1 brand new that we change every 3yrs and a used car that we have for longer until we are fed up with the bills. We tend to find that once the car hits around 7yrs old the repair bills just get worse every year and more often. The last car (a Peugeot) started getting worse every year after year 4! We got rid of it by year 7 wld never buy another one. Mazda was the best and we got rid of it at 10yrs old but it had been a very good car until then.

Are there any car clubs like Zip Car near you so you could just hire a car for the few occasions you need one?

Is there no way around a second car? Like doing things in walking distance, getting public transport or getting a cab on the odd occasion?

Thanks for all the helpful comments! I hadn't thought of a car club, I'll definitely look into that.

My sister doesn't have a car so I can't share hers and the public transport is both terrible and expensive where we are so I'd rather avoid having to take buses if we can.

We were planning on changing cars soon anyway, so I'm just trying to be practical with what to get as it will be a long-term arrangement.

Why can't your sister find childcare?
She did. It's me. Have you tried finding weekend childcare for shift work? Maybe you're lucky where you live but that's family/friend territory where we are. Plus I love my niece and the kids all get on so it's no big deal. Just need to decide on a car!

We have 3DC and have a 7 seater (S Max) and we use it as a 7 seater less than you will. I love the enormous boot when the back row of seats are down and it's very spacious as a 5 seater. I'd think you'd need to have 2 very small cars to be cheaper than a 7 seater because of all the overhead costs and every trip you're paying for petrol for 2 cars. We do live in a town where the centre is just 15 mins walk away and DH WFH so we do manage with just 1 car quite happily but can see in a different situation 2 smaller cars might be better.

With that update that public transport isn't an option I think I'd go for a bigger car unless you can see a real advantage in having 2 cars.

We are a 2 car family needed for work more than anything but weekends we only need one car.