Proper 7 seater?

[belgina]

Our 08 Zafira is on its way out (gearbox yet again). Our family has grown and we now have 2 teens a large for age 6yo and a 3yo. We are looking for a new, bigger 7 seater. DH and I are struggling to agree on what to go for and in those "best 7 seater" lists it's not always clear what car is a 5+2 & what is full sized.

What we need is 7 full seats that are not too tricky to move if we want the boot space. I like sliding doors, but that's not vital. I do want easy access to the back seats. It also needs to be up to towing a caravan and the most difficult part of all; it needs to satisfy DH on the aesthetic side.
Any suggestions?

We have a Nissan Pathfinder... Boot is ok with back seats up, but most 7 seaters have crap boot space when all seats in use. We can just put one of the seats up and have extra boot space.

I honestly think 4x4s look much bigger on the outside than they are on the inside! And then you have to factor in the much higher running costs as well...
I have an S-Max but probably wouldn't recommend it for your family. It's meant to look sporty (which isn't bad) but that means it's a bit lower than other MPVs, and especially in the third row head height isn't great. I once had my brother sitting in one of the very rear seats - he is 6'5" and could barely sit straight, with his knees up to his chin!
So - if Ford, then Galaxy (taller than the s-max); otherwise VW Sharan/Alhambra (don't go for the Touran which is much narrower and shorter), Citroen c4(5? The big one) is meant to be really good too. I'd steer clear of Renault scenic, Mazda 5, Zafira Tourer as they are all quite a bit smaller.

I agree with sansa too. We test drove most last summer too and decided if you are going big then you'd better go big and BG done with it.

We love our galaxy so much we are thinking about getting another for our second car!!

We ended up going for a touran - it wasn't the biggest and if it had been a case of money no object we'd probably have gone with the sharan, alhambra or smax but we lease and managed to find a really good deal on the touran - worked out nearly 200 a month cheaper than the alhambra. And it being big enough to take 7 and the buggy whilst not being enormous was a result for us as we live in the city centre so the extra length of the alhambra sized ones can cause problems for parking!

Actually if money was no object dh would have gone for the Q7 but I didn't want something that big. We got the touran and a second smaller car instead