Which car for 3 car seats?

[DrFunkesFamilyBandSolution]

What a boring thing to base the car purchase around! But suppose safe ds's is a good thing.

Dc3 is due Dec, ds1 will be 3 & ds2 will be 1.5yrs so need the big bulky seats for all.

We've been looking at the VW Touran or Ford Galaxy, if owners of either can advise?
Any cars we've yet to consider?

Thanks!

We used to have a mercedes E-class - it has the bench seat (no curve at the ends of the seats), so you can fit more in across the back seat, if you see what I mean, and later on, when you have growing children, it has the most rear seat legroom of any estate car on the market.

It was a lovely car to drive too - and I would prefer to drive an estate car rather than a people carrier.

If you want a people carrier, then I'd probably go for the Galaxy - I've had friends who had them, and liked them. The one thing that might change my mind would be a people carrier that had sliding rear doors - my dses are too old to need this now but I always thought that looked like such a sensible option, when you were at the small child, car seat stage, because you could get the door completely open in small spaces.

Hope this helps. If you like, I could ask ds1 (age 20, total petrol head) if he knows of any recommendations.

...and presumably a consideration will still be to get shopping/pushchair in boot when the 3 children are in the car.

for me, galaxy wins hands down. touran didnt have enough cargo space for us when configured with 3 rows of seating.

have had the galaxy for over a year now, and cant really fault it.

We'd rather have an estate but we've got one atm & with our double buggy & two travel cots it doesn't leave us much useable boot space! Will have a look at the E class, as would be much more comfy (dc's are likely to be tall too, so good news about leg room).

Family member had just bought a Touran & they're visiting this weekend, will trial the boot space then.
2-0 Galaxy it's looking like atm!

Didn't like the idea of sliding back doors but seeing how crap other people are at parking, coming round to the idea!

Thanks for replying, very helpful both of you.

Basically the Galaxy is a much bigger car - the touran is IMO a part time 7 seater while the Galaxy is a full time 7 seater (if you want it to be).

Touran takes 3 across the middle - but a tight squeeze getting to the seatbelt clips. Boot space large unless you have the back seats up (then it is very small)

Galaxy (bit wider) I think takes them easily. Boot space ok with 3 rows and huge if only using the middle row.

Sliding back doors are a godsend with carseats - much easier to handle.

Equivalent to galaxy are vw sharan and seat alhambra (basically same car underneath I think).

Thanks throckenholt!
We did look at the sharan, dh turns his nose up at Seats, think it's going to be a Galaxy, now to find money...

We are looking at the touran. I do like it just a bit concerned about the boot space when the back Seats are up.

Touran - when the back seats are up you have about 30 cm depth across the width of the car - enough to get a suitcase, or some shopping, or a small foldup pushchair - but not much else.

The boot when the back seats are down is huge.