Best car for 3 car seats

[Fizhy]

Sorry I feel like this has been done to death already but we're struggling to work out which car is going to be best for 3 car seats.

we currently have a 4yr old in a high back booster, 2yr old in joie 360spin and both are quite bulky. We're due our 3rd in oct so the car seat situation for the older 2 will be the same and baby will be in a cybex cloud T.

We have a merc GLB which is a 7 seater but once the back seats are up it leaves 0 boot space and we've got quite a bulky pushchair so we're looking at getting a new car.

we quite like the bigger van style cars like a VW transporter but even though they're big and have got a huge amount of boot space we're not sure that 3 seats will fit across the middle as the seats don't look much bigger than a standard car?! We might be wrong on that though. We know some of the older Peugeot 5008's could work but the newer models don't seem to fit 3 anymore.

ideally we need to start shopping around and going to have a look and trying the car seats in the car to see if they fit but we'd quite like to narrow the search down to cars we know are going to work/fit in all 3 seats. Our budget is max 30k so it rules out some of the bigger fancier models.

any suggestions?

If you’re open to using diff rows-I’ve been looking at the Merc Vito, you can arrange the seats how you like, and have a lot of floor space in between, they’re individual seats too so possible will all fit in one row. Not sure prices of new ones but can’t imagine you’ll struggle with 30k.
theyre van like yes, but really quite space handy & id say nice inside too! Test drove one recently and the auto’s drive lovely.
ive got one teen, a 10 year old & one on the way (means 1 Carseat soon) but my teen is the same size as your usual adult so leg room and a car seat means we have to change car too 😅

Our berlingo fits 3 across the back seat easily but you do loose the spin function! It’s well under your budget though so might be worth looking the the 7 seater version?

I had a Citroën C5 Aircross that could take 3 car seats on the back seat. It was one of the few cars I have ever seen with 3 ISOFIX points on a single row.
I loved that car but I now have more grandchildren than seats, so have upgraded to a Vivaro van.

My advice is go for a 8 or 9 seat van. Mine is incredibly useful on days out with buggies, and all the extras you need for children.

Have you tried a VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra. Not the fanciest car but lots of room. We have a joie ispin 360, highback booster and a baby seat in ours. With one third row seat up, there is still room in the boot for our pram.

I had the Audi Q7, three equal sized seats in the back.

Mine are 4, 2 and 0. We have three chunky car seats (isofix) across the middle row. It’s fab. But I’m not a car person at all and don’t care what it looks like.

Ah thanks everyone - some helpful suggestions which are helping to narrow down the search!

the merc vito we love but I think it's a bit out of budget sadly. We can't find any newish/ok mileage models under 30k.

I think we're definitely leaning more towards a van style. DH has been looking at the sharan and touran but not sure we love them. But to be honest I think we might have to forget what we want and go with what's practical 😂

Audi Q7 is another we've been looking at - we've seen 1 within budget that looks ok so we might go and have a look.

@Jeebawhat car do you have?

Ford S-Max! Can’t believe I didn’t actually write that! 😂😂

We have a sharan and it’s great. We can fit all 5 of us and grandparents if we want to, or the kids and various friends, or us and camping stuff. As they get older I love driving a bus full of kids round to various places and listening to them chat 🙂 If you can avoid three kids having to be across one row I would. In a sharan or similar we have two in the middle with space between them and one in the back and the seat next to them down so we have a larger boot space. But it’s super flexible and you can put seats up and down v easily. We are 7 years in to three kids and the car has been such a solid choice for us.

Also, the sliding doors on a sharan make things easier, not sure why really, but you can manage with less space in car parks when you’re still grappling with a baby, and don’t need to worry about the kids flinging the door open and whacking the car next to them etc.