S-max? Grand C-Max? Quashqai +2? Or something else?

[Linguaphile]

Hoping I can get some help on making a car decision! We have 3 under 3 and are trying to find a reliable secondhand 7 seater, between 2 and 5ish years old, and preferably something as close to not-a-people-carrier as we can get whilst still being able to accommodate a family of 5. Relevant information:

1. We are tall, so head space and leg room are important
2. Where we live, the roads and parking spots are tiny, so compact is good... but we also need a pretty good sized boot as we like to camp, go on road trips, etc. So basically, we need a tardis.
3. Good fuel economy and reliability are both very important
4. The car has to be able to fit 3 car seats across the middle row.

DH is dead set against Vauxhall, Renault and Citroen, due to repeated bad experiences with reliability. He also hates the look of the VW Touran, so that's off the table as well. Galaxy, Alhambra and Sharan are too big, I think.

Any suggestions as to what might suit us? For our budget it looks like we could get a 2014 Grand C-Max with about 40k miles, a 2013 Quashqai +2 with around 51k miles, or a 2012 S-max with about 75k miles. In my research it looks like the S-max might suit us best, but obviously we get a bit less for our money. I guess I'm wondering if it's superior enough to the other two to warrant going a bit older and more mileage!

And apologies, it looks like my autocorrect has misspelled qashqai incorrectly in a number of places!

Shoot me now. Spelled incorrectly. Or just misspelled.

My brother has an s-max. He loves it and if I needed a bigger car is get it too. We can fit 2 high back boosters and a baby carrier along the 3 seats in the back. When the back 2 seats are folded down the boot is huge. Plenty of leg room.
It has parking sensors so parking it in small places would be easier. And it looks nice to. His is black.

S Max. We had one but gave it up when we had our fourth child. Very popular amongst all the army mechanics too.

Good value, great all rounder.

I've been looking in to this too and I think the S Max and the Alhambra are approx same size and the Alhambra has the edge for me with electric slide doors and sunroof as standard. It just seems to win.

I'm going to test drive one at weekend so will see how it handles but I had a look at the reviews on various car sites, and on here actually and it seems to be most practical.

We've had a couple of smaxs previously and loved them. We had 3 under 3 so it suited our needs. Having the extra seats in boot came in handy when nan in the car and the space is unbelievable. We went on holiday with 4 adults, 3 kids, buggy, and all the luggage for everyone without needing a roof box. Good family car

Quasquai +2 would be my choice from that list but why not look at Land Rover Discovery? They're great work horses. My parents have always had them, I've had one and it was great so handy and the dog used to love having his own seat!

I have a qashqai +2 and I love it, it ticks all your boxes, except 3 seats across the back is tricky. You'd have to go to a dealership with your seats to check it out (that's what we did!) We got it when ds1 could go without a booster, and he sat in the middle.

I wouldn't like to use the pull up seats in the back as a permanent thing either - just as an extra seat when carting extra dc around.

Grand C Max is very roomy but also quite nippy and manages the tight corners and small parking spaces in our local multi-story really well.

It has also proved surprisingly accessible for my mum to negotiate and she has very poor mobility.

Workin are they really the same size?? The Alhambra looks massive to me in comparison! Maybe I need my eyes checked... will have to re-evaluate if that is indeed the case!

I came on here to say Touran, but if you have ruled that out, then I think the S-max is good. We are also tall and it scored well on my 'roomy on the inside whilst not huge on the outside' criteria (Touran was smaller on the outside which is why we ended up getting that).

We've just been through the same situation and went for a Sharan. It's basically exactly the same as a Alhambra. The sliding doors are a godsend in car parks and actually it's not really any longer than our estate. Smax and Galaxy have the same wheel base and head clearance is much better in the galaxy. We didn't look at the grand c-max as I think I struggled to find the car seat combo that would work for three under 4, but we have ERF seats which are more bulky. We loved all the gadgets in the Fords btw. The Sharan has at least as much bootspace as our previous Passat estate, plus you could just fit a roof rails and a box.

Alhambra is the same as the galaxy which is bigger.

Smax for sure. Its a great car. If we ever trade pur galaxy we will get one.

Quashqui (or whatevs) is a pointless show off of a car with no actual space for children in car seats. Ditto Volvo xc90 but you are too smart to consider that clearly.

Bails I think the Land Rover is just a bit too big and too expensive for us!

Sounds like S-Max might be a winner. Good to know about the car seats in the Grand C-Max, Always. We'd probably need to test them out to see if ours fit! Ours aren't hugewe squeezed them into a Volvo XC60 hire car without a problembut something to check. I really did like the Grand C-Max as it's the cheapest to run and insure and also has sliding doors/smaller bum which is a win for tight spaces, but I wonder if I will miss the extra S-Max boot space more than I will enjoy the compactness and cheapness of the C-Max!

You could probably put a roofbox on theCmax and get even more bootspace than the Smax

I LOVE my xc90 and have 2 ERF seats plus a baby seat across the back. TONS of room in boot and I manage to park it in zone 2 London car parks and terrace streets without too much trouble. I don't like reverse parking it but parallel parking is easy peasy

You can't get 3 seats in the middle row of a quashquai +2, we tried and it just wasn't (safely) possible. Same with the grand c-max, it's too narrow to comfortably do.

It definitely is with an S-max, we had one with 3 and then 4 children in car seats. The boot is massive, we used to easily fit luggage for a week away plus a buggy when the 3rd row is folded down.

We had a touran before the s-Max and really struggled with 3 car seats. We used to have to knuckle graze and the kids couldn't do their own buckles.