No! Not another “what car?” thread ;o)

Got our eyes on something newish and my overproductive loins mean we have a 6, 3 and 1 year old.

Rather than go for a 7 seater we’ve decided to try a 5-er. Has anyone fitted 3 car seats across the back of a Yeti? Two eldest have high back boosters, youngest is in a proper seat and will probably go in the middle.

Any thoughts/experience with this vehicle or any similar (missus likes Qashqai too).

Be worth popping to your local dealer and testing. I have kids of similar ages & we can just get 3 seats across the back of a Passat. Yeti is golf based (IIRC?), so 3 might be a squeeze. It is a good size inside though (the Yeti), you might get lucky 🙂

Bitter experience tells me it’s probably not gonna work.

Three car seats across the back requires a vehicle with 3 seperate seats.
Even the widest of ordinary cars don’t work because the seat belts are in the wrong place. You get two wide seats and a narrow bolster in the middle.

Scenic, Picasso, S-max, Galaxy or the like are you best option. Beige if you can get it.

I had exactly the same problem and have solved it variously with a mk II Galaxy, a Scenic, a Grand Scenic, a Nissan Pathfinder and now an S-max.

The size of seats is more important than the car IMO.
It seems kiddy seats have grown huuuuuuuge.
We deliberately looked for and bought narrower, smaller seats. It worked fine in the Passat and then Touran.

lots of child seats have extra protection at shoulder height. you could remove it from the sides of the child seat if in the middle.

removed the inner protection as a temporary measure to fit a teenager between two child seats in an A6 but hate doing this as it was such a squeeze + felt that if anything happened those in the middle would get injured by the child seats. so went for the full sized 7 seat option.

is there a 5 seat option with sliding rear seat where you can bring one seat forwards or backwards? to give more space at shoulder height? Golf SV?

My experience of trying to get two child seats plus a person in the back of my mum’s Yeti suggests that it’s not going to work. As perchypanther says, you really need to look for something with three separate rear seats.

OK – thanks all. We currently have a Mazda 5 as our family 7 seater – and even that is a proper pain to fit 3 across the rear as it has side armrests (and sliding doors) which seem to cut into the space a lot.

Trying to find a cost-effective 5 seat solution (yeti currently on 99 per month lease deal so worked out cheapish over 4 years) is tough, but thanks for the pointers on cars. We have friends with smax and similarly crippled with 3 sprogs so know it works, but really were looking for something smaller/newer/cheaper as 95% of mileage is SWMBO on her own.

Matt OAAB – which seats did you end up with?

We have friends with smax and similarly crippled with 3 sprogs so know it works, but really were looking for something smaller/newer/cheaper as 95% of mileage is SWMBO on her own.

Renault Scenic then. We’re on our second one ( as the wifes car) and it’s been great. Not as solid as the s-max or a german equivalent but perfectly servicable and designed entirely for people with children.
Cheap as chips for a nearly new one.
The 5 seaters don’t command the premium that 7 seaters do.
Find a high spec one with leather and lots of toys for a bargain price.
Ideal “mama-wagon”

I may have dreamt this, but isn’t there something that says you don’t need 3 seats in the back, you can have the kid in the middle without a booster? If so, as long as you get a seat belt adapter so that it fits across the 6 year olds shoulder, you could do that?.

Only in extenuating circumstances, like putting you kids in a taxi or picking up someones elses kid as well as your own.
For normal service it’s car seats all round.

Or, consider if you need three seats across the back? if the car is mostly for SWMBO to use on her own, could you not put the oldest kid (in their seat, obviously) in the front for the limited amoount of times it’ll be needed. You already have the “big” car for family trips etc.

If the car is needed to give lifts to adult passengers in the course of the day, then this may not work, but thought it worth considering?

Also consider Peugeot 308 as some of these have 3 separate seats, even in 5 seat version. Insignia Estate’s have 3 isofix points too apparetnly, but no idea if they work with 3 seats.

basically, due to the variation in seats, all you can do is try them I guess…

(edited for typos)

If you’re sold on the Yeti, why not look at Multimac:

https://multimac.co.uk/range

Never had one but I remember reading a review where they put four kids in the back of an M3..

Rear seat in the yeti are 2 full size and the center is one of those 3/4 affairs. I doubt you’d get 3 child seats across the back but depends on the size of you child seats.

Those multimac seats look great, but £1500! Wow 😯

Surely you have just managed to justify a T5 to the wife!

We have friends with smax and similarly crippled with 3 sprogs so know it works, but really were looking for something smaller/newer/cheaper as 95% of mileage is SWMBO on her own.

But will it stay that way? We struggled on with a Verso for ages, but the S Max with 3 full size seats, and 2 pop ups for friends was a revelation. Great boot with the extra 2 seats down too.

That said, I’m buying a Kombi as now they are bigger and want to cycle / surf / paddle I’m exceeding nose weight and roof space :-/

Well, we think we’ll need a 7 seater before too long to help with ageing grandparents. But for the time being (2-3 years) I anticipate doing 25k ish motorway miles pa on my own and SWMBO does 1.5-2 hours commuting. Daily stuff is mostly walking, and we have an (ahem) nanny.

Am coming round to Keith’s POV on this – do we really really need 3 kids in the back for the very occasional run somewhere or weekend away? I commented to SWMBO the other day we should have a 5 seater and rent a 7- when we need it for the cost saving…

But no matter what my thoughts are on the matter, there are two higher authorities on this – STW and my wife! Might as well point her in this direction…

Had a gander around a Ford Tourneo Grand Connect the other day. That’s a lot of van for the money! 17-18k for “1 owner 10 miles” territory. T5s are 30k aren’t they? Plan was to wait till the kids got into something big hobbies-wise and see what we needed…

do we really really need 3 kids in the back

You don’t…..right up until the point that you do.

Embrace the MPV. It’s the vehicle of excess testosterone.

Proudly proclaim to world that your wanger is big enough to fill a seven seater……..and then get a vasectomy 😉

Embrace the MPV

But they’re so f*&ing expensive! Damn my genitals.

Should have thought about that before you stuck it in.

😆 Normally I just think about Margaret Thatcher…

Proudly proclaim to world that your wanger is big enough to fill a seven seater……..and then get a vasectomy

That’s my bio page sorted then.

I commented to SWMBO the other day we should have a 5 seater and rent a 7- when we need it for the cost saving…

I looked into that too. The S Max is still the best 5 seater due to the amount you can throw in the back even with 3 proper adult seats in the back (which is great with the new booster regs). I really wanted a big estate, and whilst many fitted the bill overall space wise (A6, XC70, Accord) none had the cabin space for the boys.

With 3 boys, you also need an additional seat for Kofi Annan if you’re planning on driving anything over 15 minutes. When I found out privacy glass was tinting, and not a limo-like screen I was most disappointed.

With 3 boys, you also need an additional seat for Kofi Annan

Brilliant 🙂

I’ve got 3 boys, and they’re young enough to mostly get on at the moment. 3-4 years time it will be a different story I’m sure!

2 boys and a girl here. Guess which one will be in the middle seat!

Trouble is with all these smax things, you can’t get away from the fact that the Tourneo is chuffing huge(r) and miles cheaper. And sliding doors.

No way can we get three seats across the back of our yeti. When we absolutely have to travel 5-up (two adults, our two cash-eaters and my niece for example), one child goes in the front and some poor sod goes between the two in the back. Tolerable for about 20 miles.

Side impact result on the multimac’s not great without the optional headrests. From Which? (which looks suspiciously like the ADAC test):

When installed correctly the 1260 four-seat model worked well to protect babies from newborn up to 13kg, using the Minimac infant carrier and for children up to 22kg (about six years old), in our severe front and side impacts, when fitted with the optional YLVA headrest.
However, we found side impact protection without the YLVA headrest inadequate, so we don’t recommend using the seat without it. As this headrest is designed only for children up to 22kg, this means we can’t recommend its use for children heavier than this; they may also struggle for space.

Despite the yeti’s quoted huge boot, it takes deft packing to make use of all that vertical space. To the point that we ended up gettiing a bolt-in oem dog guard to stop stuff flying around.

Hang on… I’ll go and check.

We’ve just got a yeti and have four seats as we got bored of moving them so keep two in each car, a kiddy and a booster so I can test your hypothesis.

The yeti seats do slide back and forth so you may well be able to with a bit of jiggling.

yes…. No isofix on the middle seat and you’ll have to be careful on seat choice but ours fit. Bit of a squeeze but no impingement of the seats. i can e-nmail you a (slightly rubbish) pic if you like

We went to mothercare with a tape m measure. From memory it was a couple of maxi cosy baby seats and a high back booster. Then quite quickly two high back boosters and a baby seat.

Yes please Dr_death – YGM.