7 seater advice?

[Newcar2025]

We are looking for a 7 seater car- we have narrowed it down to Peugeot 5008, Citroen C4 space tourer & Ford Galaxy. We want a car that has three full sized seats in the middle row and has reasonable space for the back row seats. Just wondered if anyone has any experience of pros/cons of either of these cars?

How tall are your family? Ds and I are both well above average height so it was likely our dc would also be (and most are). We wanted a 7-seater where the third row folded flat to the floor, and anybody could sit in any seat. The Galaxy had two aspects that made a massive difference to passenger comfort on long journeys: flat floor in front of the middle seat, and full-size seats in the third row. These ultimately cinched the choice over things like sliding doors and fancy driver seats.

Though sliding doors are brilliant when wrangling carseats and small children. The Galaxy has generous boot space with all seats in use. We could still carry a buggy and day-bags for everybody. So the other question is how old your children are. Are you more concerned with the small (carseats) stage or the teen (beanpoles) stage?

Depends if you are looking for new or second hand? The Seat Alhambra / VW Sharon is great, sliding doors, 7 full sized seats, plenty of boot space. But no longer made so would need to be second hand!

Thanks for your replies, sorry I did leave a lot of info out! I am quite short but my husband and children are on the taller side, although they are 6 & 2 so still a few years to fit in child seats. We're not planning anymore, but our main reason to get a 7 seater is to help transport friends around (also needing at least a booster) or taking my parents out with us so the Galaxy when we tried it seemed to have a reasonable space in the 3rd row- probably not for a long journey but manageable for short adults for a short journey?
We did look at the Sharon but the middle row seats didn't seem to fold flat which put us off a bit? Maybe just the particular model we saw though.

The Alhambra / Sharon seat fold flat from around 2011 onwards. The older style ones didn't.

Our latest Alhambra has a vast amount of space when all 5 rear seats are folded flat!

We have a VW Sharan and 4 children, all now 6ft and over and they can all still just about fit! We also have a large dog (Goldie). The middle seats do fold flat, the boot is big enough (unless on holiday when we put a roof box on) and it has been 100% reliable. Sliding doors were brilliant when they were younger.

It's now getting a little elderly but is still going strong...

I'm not in the UK so I see a few others... I have a Dodge Durango, will comfortably seat 6 adults plus a smaller one in the centre seat, middle row. Another car that I see around that looks interesting is a Kia Carnival.

In the UK I have a 2005 Ford Galaxy, it has served me very well. 7 individual seats, built in child seats etc. But I think the newer models are a bit more "compact". Galaxy, Sharon and Alhambra were all built on the same body shell, so a lot of things are interchangeable.

We have a Peugeot 5008 and it’s fabulous.

The boot seats don’t have a huge amount of leg room but even at 16 and 18 ours can get in them for short journeys with the middle row slid forwards a bit.

It’s been a fabulous car for us and I always recommend them.

We found with the SUV seven-seaters that even where there was tolerable leg space in the third row the access was really poor, and grandparents etc would have struggled. We opted for a Dacia Jogger in the end and love it; the third row is really much more usable than the Peugeot 5008 or the Skoda Kodiaq as well as the Jogger being £15-20k cheaper.

The Jogger has three full size seats in the middle, but only has ISOFIX on the two outer ones. The middle row tumbles forward rather than fold flat and the (individual) third row seats are completely removable.

The Peugeot Traveller, Citroen SpaceTourer, Vauxhall Vivaro Life and Toyota Proace Verso (actually all the same vehicle underneath) all have full size seats in the second and third rows, with ISOFIX on all five, but although they were intended to compete with the Ford Galaxy, they are van based. The Peugeot Rifter, Citroen Berlingo, Vauxhall Combo Life and Toyota Proace City Verso (again, all the same car) are slightly smaller but still have three full size seats in the middle row; you'd need to go for the XL version of each to get seven seats.

Don't get a citreon they are so bad, so badly designed and the electrics are hopeless.