7 seat car advice - please help

[AtHomeMum]

I am looking to replace my car with a 7 seater. I need a large boot area & so don't want anything where you need to take the seats out to have a boot. I looked at an older land cruiser (pre 2002), which was ok w.r.t seats, but the middle seat only had a lap belt. I have 3 dds & want 3 3 point seat belts in the normal back seat. The extra seats are to share a school run & if my mum is staying. Anyone have any ideas? - reliability a key factor - which is why I was looking at toyotas.
Thanks!!

Assuming you are thinking new, we hired a Corolla Verso the other week and really liked it. The seats in the boot were so easy to flip out, with good leg room all round, and all rear seats had proper belts. The main downside I saw was the pillars at the rear of the boot seemed to create a bit of a blind spot but think that is the trade off for safety. The other thing was the location of the gear stick and electronic starting mechanism mught take some getting used to. We also need to decide on a new car and are still confused !

You want a Toyota Previa then! It has a huge space behind the third row and the latest Previa (2000 on) gets really good reviews - Honest John only has 2 negatives and one of those is a plus to me! (The bench seat in the 8 seater splits in half and folds to the side, so you can still have 6 seats and an even huger luggage space without having to take a seat out and store it somewhere).

There may not be a shoulder belt in the middle of the middle row though.

(HJ says "Facelift in June 2003 brought Euro 4 compliant 154bhp 2.4 litre petrol engine, front side airbags, seven three point seatbelts in seven seater versions, CD player and a new exterior look" which implies that there weren't seven 3 point belts before. Have a look anyway. )

Thanks - i drove a previa, but thought it was a bit lumbering, although may be OK. I have a huge estate at present, which we always seem to fill when going on hols etc, so think the corolla verso would be too small.

Has anyone got a previa - any views? thanks

VOLVO XC70 or XC90

DEFFO BRILL

Renault grand espace for the larger boot with 7 seats or the espace for a smaller boot.

I recently bought an oldish Volvo V70 and love it to bits. It has a boot the size of Birmingham, the extra seats flip neatly into the floor of the boot when not in use. All rear seats (including the extra ones in the boot) have proper seatbelts.

Mine is an automatic, which I was suspicious of, but is fantastic. Recently drove from London to Isle of Skye and back without any probs. The only glitch we've had is when some fiddly-fingered child flipped one of the rear lights onto constant and ran the battery down. Grrr.

If you're in London, I'd recommend the dealer I got mine from v. highly.

AHM, if you do an archived search for "previa" there are quite a few threads, even ignoring the ones about placenta previa (Countess Dracula used to have a Previa and once referred to it as her Placenta Previa which made me laugh!) - there are several Previa owners on MN.

Basically though the Volvo estates give you either 5 seats and a boot the size of Birmingham, or 7 seats and space for a few bags. (We had a 240 years ago with the seats in the boot and they take up most of the boot space. When we went on holiday with 4 kids we had to take a trailer.)

The MPVs with 7-8 seats and decent luggage space are the Previa, Grand Espace and Chrysler Grand Voyager and Toyotas are far more reliable as you said.

Thanks very much - i haven't used the archive search before ..

My current car ( an R reg merc estate - very unreliable) has broken down again this am, so i'm trying to get organised.

Looks like it will be a previa as the seat belt issue rules out a landcruiser. Would like a newer land cruiser or the Volvo xc90 - but too pricey for me.

Thanks for all your help

I have a chrysler and used to drive previa but to be honest I find them a bit lumbering and heavy for a woman.... I am a raging feminist but honest with it.
Now expecting 5th child am looking at new previa and grand espace as they are siad to be more car-like.
XC90 lovely but costly and rear legroom is minimal for children 8+ years.
I love land cruisers but find them pricey too. How much have you seen them for?

I have a Ford Tourneo 8 seater and is the best car I have ever had in terms of space and reliability. All 3-point belts too and decent boot space (I can put my pushchair in there without folding it first).

this is a Tourneo

QE, I don't know how to tell you this but that isn't a car, it's a bus.

Jan - it's my car!!! pmsl

And I'm well impressed with myself - that's my first ever link

AHM we have a Toyota Previa and it is amazingly reliable despite being about 11 years old - I bought for our nanny. No idea re the lap belt thing in the middle tho.

We are selling it if you are interested, though prob too old for you

CD, you still have it? I'd assumed (obviously) you would have sold it by now!

Congratulations on the link, QE - there'll be no stopping you now! I know a family with 6 kids who had one of those, they found it fantastic too, only it was just called a Transit minibus in those days (about 10 years ago - 4 of the kids are driving themselves now ) - none of your fancy-shmancy Tourneo stuff. I love it that the photograph shows private plane-type executives rather than chocolate-smeared kids!

CD, I need to change my Corolla soon for something bigger and need something with the Toyota reliability again. If AHM isn't interested, I probably am. Just dealing with DS with measles but will CAT you when I get a chance if that's OK.

When we phoned up our insurance company, they didn't have it listed. Strictly speaking, it is a mini-bus but they are the ones who described it as a car so who am I to argue eh?

It's not that different to driving something like a Galaxy and we find it so spacious both in terms of leg room and luggage space that we don't honestly know what we'd do without it now. We bought ours a couple of years ago almost new, with one eye on the future when there would be 4 strapping lads plus my dd to ferry all over the place!

We used to have a Toyota Space-Cruiser (ancestor of Previa) which had 8 seats, and that happened to me a few times when I rang for quotes - some companies said "if it has more than 7 seats it's a mini-bus" and refused to quote.

(This was 11-12 years ago and there were hardly any 7-seaters then, except the Peugeot/Citroen/Volvo estates with 2 in the back, let alone 8-seaters.)

we know lots of people with toyoto previa (2nd hand) that are very reliable. We used to havea 7 seater land Rover Discorvery that was very reliable, we only used the 2 rear seats for occassional use too, but very useful for my h to drop me and the girls off on a night out

JanH yes we still have it, we decided to hold on to it for a while longer as my mum is deciding whether to sell her car to us and get a new one, I would like hers for our nanny as I know it's history etc. She seems to be taking her time though!

Kittypickle, feel free!

Renault grand scenic or espace.

We have a Previa, and with 5 kids we really need the boot space. We find that it is great being able to have the back seats either face each other, or to have both rows face front(and after being on holiday with a lot of driving, we've decided NEVER to have the children face each other for journeys that take over an hour). It does cost more to insure (in Ireland) and the Motor tax is horrendous, but it is definitely worth it.

And I find it easy to drive and park, because that was my main worry, but apart from hitting the gate post at home a couple of times ( and I did that in the estate car we had too) it has been plain sailing.