which cars fit two booster seats and a small adult in the back seats AND have a decent enough boot space for a dog/camping gear?

[Pernickety]

I feel like we're trying to fulfill conflicting criteria. We have 2 primary school aged children and have outgrown our Ford Focus.

Very often my mother stays with us and we need 3 proper sized seats in the back to be able to fit her in comfortably. We consider the Verso but the boot space is too small. We camp, and have been using a trailer but would like to be able to get camping gear in the boot again. Plus, we intend to get a dog quite soon.

All of this points to an estate but do many estates have 2 proper seats across the back? We're considering the Mazda 6, Toyota Avensis or Volvo V50.

Or is there a middle option? Is there a 5 seater with quite a large boot that isn't an estate and maybe we could manage with a roof box?

depending on the size of your dog, an estate might not even be enough. we have a lab, and 2 dds and when we went camping we got a roof box. I used to wonder why on earth people with estates had roof boxes but now I'm one of them. you'd need an enormous boot to get a dog and camping stuff in. I'd resign yourself to using your trailer - and decide on the car based on the seat thing.

I think it's the dog that makes this difficult. We've just had DD3; her sisters are just 4 and 2 so three car seats for the forseeable.

We've ended up getting a Citroen C8 which is a 7 seater. The two back seats come out completely leaving lots of space for dog and camping gear. At a push, our old, rickety, medium sized dog can fit on the floor in the middle row because it's flat rather than footwells. Everytime we looked at anything else we realised that if the dog was in the boot then packing much else would be a nightmare because a) she takes up space and b) all the packing would have to be very carefully packed so that it didn't fall on her (or she'd need a crate to protect her which would take up even more space).

That's not the answer you were looking for, is it? I hope someone else is more helpful

we've got a land rover discovery which is quite simply the best car i've ever driven (we've got 3 kids though so feel i can justify driving something enormous!)

The dog could go on the back seat if we loading up the boot for camping, as My mother doesn't come camping with us. We tend to camp locally, within an hour's drive.

We have a megane scenic and it has 3 full size seats in the back. Boot is big, it's a 7 seated but last two fold in the floor. 3 middle seats slide independently too which gives more room for boot/passengers

Ford S Max or Mazda5.

Citroen c3 picasso- 63 mpg!!

Or if budget more an issue, a xsara picasso.

Fiat multipla

Honda crv

An old fashioned estate car?

4 children, (one in car seat, one in booster) 2 adults and medium sized dog all got to centre parcs with roof box and S MAX

Fiat Multipla - 6 proper seats and boot space. Diesel version is economical.