Type of car to drive?

Not being familiar with all the brands of vehicles in the UK...what would you recommend for a family of 5?  We have 3 kids ages 8 1/2, 7, and 4 1/2. 

We have a vaxhall zafria (sp?) mainly because it has a third row of seats and was roomy enough for an adult to sit back there.  Maybe not for hours but for the odd occasion it works.  We also looked at a couple other brands with 3 rows.  Mainly decided on this one because it was in our price range and available.  can't say much for the specs though sorry.

BTW we have 3 kids as well

Not being familiar with all the brands of vehicles in the UK...what would you recommend for a family of 5?  We have 3 kids ages 8 1/2, 7, and 4 1/2. 

Hyundai Santa Fe - http://www.hyundai.co.uk/new-cars/new-generation-santa-fe
Ford S-Max - http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/S-MAX

Both have 3rd row seats, ISOFIX attachments for child seats, and lots of luggage space in the back.

I would recommend the same thing I would to anyone in the U.S.-- do some research!  Check out sites like AutoTrader.co.uk (which will also give you a good idea of price ranges for new/used models) and the various auto review sites.  You'll fairly quickly see how the various makes/models correspond with vehicles you're familiar with at home, and the review sites can offer good comparisons of several models in a class.

Following up tmfigy's comment, I've driven a Zafira as a hire car.  Vauxhall is really just a fancy, British name for General Motors, so you'll notice that a lot of the cars look very familiar.  Unfortunately, so is the build quality.  That means lots of them are just fine, but there tend to be lemons.  The one we had was a bit of a lemon, which put me off, but I will say I liked the vehicle overall, and thought it handled pretty well.  It is just a touch big for a lot of the small parking lots you find here, though, and while the fuel economy on the diesel we had seemed alright for the week we had it, I don't know how that would stack up over the long-term, especially if you're in a lot of stop-start traffic, as opposed to on the motorway, as we were.

Similar, though slightly smaller, vehicles I've looked at are the Vauxhall Meriva (seems eerily similar to my old Pontiac Vibe, which I really liked) and the Nissan Qashqai, and I'm sure there are lots of others.  I'll admit I tend to be biased toward brands that I'm familiar with (Ford, Honda, Toyota, etc.), but I've had a Renault now for a couple of years, and I do quite like it.

Good luck!

Hi ErinO

As per above, do some research as only you and your family know what requirements you have for a 'car'. Are you all particularly active and have things like bicycles, or boats etc? do you need lots of storage space? will it be a commuting car or more of a shopping and leisure use vehicle..  and so forth...

There's lots of websites about car reviews, what to look for if buying a used vehicle etc. You'll then need also to look at your wallet/purse as only you know how much you'd be looking to spend! would it be a few thousand? £5-10 thousand? 10-20 grand? 30 or 50 grand? or perhaps 80-100 thousand?!  keep in mind about things like insurance, running and maintenence costs as well.

There's plenty of cars out there to move a family around with 3 kids under 10 years old, and they don't have to be SUV/People Carrier sized either.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

What about buying What Car? magazine:
http://www.whatcar.com/
If no one's mentioned it?

Thanks for the responses!  The main thing would be 3rd row as we will be having family over to visit and need room for them as well.  DH will have a company car.

Right now I drive a Nissan Armada but mainly because I hate mini vans and needed an 8 passenger because I ran a daycare out of my home and needed to transport more than my own 3 kiddos on a daily basis.  While I will miss my giant SUV a lot...I don't need one over there. 

Also, don't forget that roads (and car parks!) can be MUCH MUCH smaller here.  In Manchester city centre, you'll mostly be sort of okay (if having to pay exorbitant rates for parking), but leave the city centre, and you'll wish you had something easy to park...

There just isn't as much room--it's worth it, I think, to end up with a smaller car to avoid those sorts of headaches.

Mercedes E Class estate will seat 7 and avoid the dreaded mini van!

So my husband was able to negotiate a car into the package for me as well.  Here's the options they gave me...

Nissan NV200 Combi
Toyota Prius
Ford Galaxy
Nissan Qashqai
Ford S-Max

Unfortunately I have to pick it out sight unseen since I won't be over there for another month.  Hoping he can look at them at least next week and get it ordered for me. 

I love my s max! Galaxys are good too, slightly longer, I think. I don't generally have too much trouble parking it. I also have a family of 5 and felt the s max was enough space without being overkill. We also test drove the Zafira, but I hated the space. S max reliability is good. Tyres are expensive, so shop around for different prices (don't go to Quick Fit). Most of the time we just leave the third row down and have a good boot size. I like that the third row folds flat, so you don't need to take out seats.

Keep in mind that you will need boosters or car seats for all your kids until they are 12, so the extra room is good as it can be hard to get seat belts on and off with three in a row in a standard car. Our third child is due next month, and while I can get all three seats in the same row (which I couldn't with our previous car at all), I may put one of them in the third row for ease of buckling in and out.

The only thing I would do differently now is to get the slightly higher spec s max as it has a sensor for backing up. You do a lot more parallel parking here, and it's tricky seeing out the back of any larger car. I never used to think the sensor was worth it, but after using some rentals with one, I really miss it (and would also love the Bluetooth phone hook up).

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Looking at your list again, if I were you, I'd definitely go for a larger mpv like the s max over a regular car like a Prius.. I would struggle to put three boosters in a row in normal sized cars. It will take a little getting used to the narrower roads here, but you'll have to adjust to that with any car.

I don't know where you'll be driving, but I've been much happier with my mpv/people carrier here, and as you said. It's nice to have the option of room for two visitors. We only drive one car in our family, so when visitors came with the smaller car, we had to decide who stayed home on outings. :-(

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We have a Ford Focus, one size smaller than the "Smax" (Cmax maybe?), so it only has two rows of seats. It's brilliant. SO EASY to fold the seats down, enough room in the car that we blissfully make trips to IKEA and CostCo without worrying about running out of room and great gas mileage. It's definitely a "family" car, but, oh well--I can get my Honda S2000 later!

There is also the bonus that Fords are EVERYWHERE here, so no trouble getting parts if anything goes wrong and needs to be fixed.

So the Prius is a Prius + 7 seater.  Anyone know how that compares to the S-Max?  Those are the 2 we have narrowed it down to.  I see that there are a lot of S-Max lovers here!  My dad would be proud as he worked for Ford for many many years!

Autotrader.co.uk was helpful as I was looking at different cars. Besides their own info, there are reviews from people who had them themselves, if I remember right.

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