advice please on 7 seaters

[mam2girls]

hi ladies, this is my 1st thread on here and was hoping you could help please.
i have 4 children aged 4yrs and younger and am pregnant with number 5.
we currently have a vw touran but when the boot seats are up there is no room for the double buggy and when lo comes in december we will need the double buggy when we go out.
what 7 seater cars do you recommend? the main thing we need is room for everychilds car seats and the buggy, also not a fuel guzzler :)
we will be buying 2nd hand and part exing the touran. any advice would be appreciated. thankyou xx

we got a chrysler voyager. Main thing was we wanted a big boot, and leg room. Plenty of that with this car. We checked out other 7 seaters but the problem was always lack of boot space. We travel a lot so need it for the luggage, and like you double bugggy.

ours was second hand also, don't know how much, but could find out i guess.

sorry my '7 seater' is in the same bag as yours( Renault Grande Scenic ' or something like that

The 2 extra seats in the back aren't supposed to have child seats on them and have virtually no leg room.

If i give you a pound for every person whose told you that 'you've got your hands full' you'd probably be able to keep your Touran and buy another car too

lol think i cud buy a few cars :)
we had a chrystler voyager as a courtesy car when dh had a crash last yr and the room was fab but the fuel cost was ridiculous as
we use the car a lot as the kids have hospital appointments and so do i.

surely some car manufacturer must of thought of boot room when making a 7 seater?

Best car for 7 with decent boot space is the Toyota Previa - they stopped making it at 56 reg but there are still quite a few around - look for a diesel. Some seat 7, some seat 8.

\link{http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/toyota/previa-2000/\review on Honest John}

Alternatively there are grey imports of the same car called Lucida & Estima which are cheaper but possibly dodgy

We have a Galaxy, and could get our Nipper 360 Double in the boot folded up, whenn all seats were up. Not a lot of room for much else though!

I am not sure if we would have got our old powertwin in, but could have got the Maclaren double in too.

Fuel costs not so bad on the diesel, the petrol one we had before was a killer.

creequealley is being honest about the two back seats in a lot of the "flexible" 7 seaters, a lot if not most car seats are not recommended. (we had a Grande Scenic for a while)

We both love our 53 reg Galaxy, but DH would like to try a grande voyager, just for the sliding doors!

We have a Mitsubishi Grandis which has 7 proper seats - you can get child seats in the back row unlike the Zafira and Scenic. Boot space ok, not massive with rear seats up but I'm sure you could get a double buggy in without a problem. It also feels very solid and sturdy unlike other 7 seaters we looked at. They don't make them any more so you should be able to pick one up second hand easily.

Fab car, we love it, but it is a bit juicy on the petrol. Wish we'd gone for a diesel version as supposed to be much more economical.

I've just asked DH (he is a bit of a car boffin ) and he said that in your position, he would go for a Renault Grande Espace here

Economical, loads of boot space, 7 "proper" seats and pretty reliable.

We have a Toyota Previa and it is the bees knees, I love driving it

It's a 7 seater, 2 captains seats in the middle, 3 seats across the back, lots of legroom, boot is big enough for buggy and shopping. The rear doors are sliding which is amazingly useful in carparks.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Btw, I was very keen on a Chrysler Voyager, but the safety reviews put me off.

I looked at a Grand Espace as i needed bootroom as well but i didnt enjoy the test drive, we plumped for a Volvo XC90 in the end - plenty of boot room and not so unwieldy as an Espace imo. Diesels are pretty good on the mpg but i wouldnt touch a petrol, Second hand of course.

thankyou ladies,
we had a scenic megane b4 dd3 was born and had nothing but bother so its put dh off the whole megane range. the safety rating for the chrysler is awful tho.
we are going to tidy the car up tomorrow and have a look at a mitsubishi grandis.
cant thankyou enuf tho :))

i think previa was our second choice based on size. We were looking at one where the seating can be made up so passengers are facing each other. But we went for the voyager coz the boot space was a bit bigger.

i didn't realise the voyager was a fuel guzzler as compared with previa or galaxy, or are they about the same? im clueless about cars, left it to my husband to look into the details. We are not exactly wealthy so if its a guzzler he may have to do some selling up...watch this space lol.

We had a Grand Voyager years ago purely because of the seat configuration. It was a 2,2,3 so it was easier getting children in and out of the car.

any of the big people carriers will guzzle fuel with a petrol engine - worth paying a bit extra for a diesel whichever car it is

we had a previa and could get mothercares double mountain buggy in boot and weeks worth of shopping easily and all proper seats , I miss it ;(

was pretty good on miles and super relaible