To buy a seven seater, or a teeny Smart car + hire bigger car for holidays conundrum

[marmiteandhoney]

Advice, please!

I'm 21 weeks pg with child number five. I live in London (have plenty of parking at home) near plenty of public transport (within half a mile of two mainline stations, two overground stations, an underground station, and buses galore).

At the moment we have a Fiat Multipla (six seats) which has been fab.

Obviously this won't work once I have the baby.

The conundrum is what to do then. We're pondering getting rid of the car, although not sure that we can do without one altogether (dh is vicar so needs to get to meetings and stuff, and likes to get to funerals before the family to welcome them so is not very keen on going in the funeral car although that is an option. Plus would be handy to have driver +1 seat to get children to Brownies/Beavers/Rainbows etc.)

We use our car a lot for holidays (have a folding caravan, so need something with a towbar), and for visiting my folks (one hour drive, two hours by train, and obviously can't come back late in the evening with small children if we have to go by train). We visit my family quite a lot, but they visit us much less. If we didn't have a car, then we'd have to visit them less, which in a way would be a shame but would also make us feel we weren't doing so much running around the country.

If we were to buy a bigger car, what would you recommend we look at? (Bear in mind part of the reason that the Multipla is so great for us is that we have rather travel sicky children, and there isn't any need to have any sitting pukily in the boot.)

Any comments about the public transport/hire a seven seater for holidays/buy a very small cheap-to-run car for local stuff that public transport just won't cut?

Thanks in advance!

One car we have been looking at recently is a London cab! You can put another seat in the front and it then has 7 seats. Seem to be cheap and reliable to run and so far all reviews on owning them privately have been good.

There are some blogs on owning them and a company in London that sell them privately.

Hope that helps

Watching with interest although I only need 6 seats so your car could work anyway.

Check out the cost of hiring a 7 seater for your holidays.

I looked at hiring one for a 7 day holiday and was almost the cost of buying a 3-4year old one!

I would check very carefully before ditching the car that you can easily hire something with a towbar.
Periodically i have had need to hire something to tow with, and certainly here in Yorkshire it is virtually impossible, even landrovers for hire often don't have tow bars - i've hired over the years (when desperate)bizarre options from a 17 seater minibus to a 7.5 ton flat bed truck because they were literally the only things around for hire that could tow.

Loshad- yes, good point. We're going to phone around car hire places near here and see what they say. Although we'll definitely have to ditch this car, at least (or go on holiday without one of the kids, which given that they're all under ten I probably shouldn't do, tempting as it is).

Looks like a 7 seater for you - galaxy diesel is cheap to run and they go for yonks (mine 10 years, 120k and going fine) - finding one with a tow bar might be tricky though.
My SIL had a mitsubishi MPV with tow bar which she loved but the boot space was tiny when the back row of seats was in use.

Hmm. Maybe we will need to think seriously about seven seaters. Any opinions on the brilliantly cheap Fiat Doblo? No boot with seven seats, though, I assume, but likely to find one with a towbar I think.

I wouldn't worry about finding one with a towbar per se. Depending on the make etc. You can get them fitted for £300 although do factor this into the budget.