the seats are the comfiest I’ve ever sat in.
Ours is an Sri. They (front) are quite comfy, but the non-sri versions were way too wide and flat when we test drove. Apparently the Sri ones are Recaro made which might explain it.
mine is the tourer elite. have to agree with the comfort. heated leather armchairs in the front.
Only a sadist (well not quite but you get the idea) would put anyone over 10 in the rear seats of an SMax for any length of journey on a vaguely regular basis and I say that as a happy SMax owner.
They are useful for occasional use. I don't think a Galaxy or Sharan (we looked at both) would be enough better to be a proper long journey 7 seater. Also true of SUV's.
For proper 7 seats and a boot my conclusion is you want a van based thing, long wheelbase if of the Caddy/ Tourneo flavour. My dad and sister both have a Caravelle. Brilliant if you want a road trip vehicle and masses of space but I wouldn't want to be doing regular shorter/lighter loaded journeys in them or be using around town day in day out IF I could avoid it.
It's all about where your priorities sit and what compromises you are prepared to live with for what benefits. We could get by with an estate and roofbox since camping gear etc all goes in a trailer when we are away. The SMax extra boot height means dog + a week of gear is doable if not camping, which is handy and we use the third row for occasional local trips to save using two cars.
The van/car things get treated as commercial vehicles by Bradford’ new clean air zone, meaning you need to pay.
You might be correct with the van part of that statement, but if the vehicle's an M1 class on the V5c it's considered a car, not a van, even if it's van-based. So Caravelles, Rifters, Proace Versos etc don't have to pay. The van equivalent
- Transporters, Partners, Proaces - even if they're crew cabs full of kids won't be registered as cars so presumably would have to pay.
Hi- we’ve had 7 seat MPVs for c13 years now as our son has cerebral palsy so has wheelchairs, & walkers for mobility.
Started with a Renault Grand Scenic, 2x Pug 5008 (old style) and are now on an Alhambra.
One thing they had over Zafira (at least when we looked at the time we were going from Renault to Pug) is that the middle seat in row 2 is a proper seat and had moveable seats so you could fit a mixuture of kid seats and adult without being squeezed.
As others have said rear seats not that good for adults and with them up little boot. Manual wheel chairs fit in ok, but can’t remember how flat they were if you need to have an external ramp for electric wheels rather than built in.
Think if you have built in ramp rear seats go so if you need 6/7 seats it won’t work.
We were lucky (see below) when we were last due to change- the 5008 was now more SUV and there were few others - the the Galaxy was off the list. so we ended up with the Alhambra. More toys than the Sharan esp electric sliding doors. A little thing but it means our son can open & close them himself whereas before he couldn’t.
Just after getting the Alhambra my son got an electric chair for more independence. Motability wouldn’t retro fit a hoist- we would have had to give the car back early & get a replacement with a hoist specced from new. Also IIRC a hoist would mean losing a rear seat.
The lucky bit is that the rear boot is flat from the boot edge so we use a set of ramps to get the chair in.
Being a bigger car, the space is much better than Smax, 5008/C4, Scenic. Even in the back (I’m 5’8” and fit in the rear ok). With the rear seats up there is still some boot space.
Not had an issue with turning circle (rear camera helps). Been down narrow lanes in Wales ok. Mrs FB was a bit dubious of the size (having spent years driving Spitfires/ Sporty Pug 206/ mazda3) as it was a step up from the Scenic & 5008 but coped ok.
Not sure if it’s still on motability (or made) but the Hyundai i800 is a good size. Last time I looked it was quite high advance though.
If you haven’t already - check on motability as the variety has been cut drastically in the last few years for bigger cars and advance has gone up. Don’t be too worried about damage- one of the Pugs boot trim was badly scuffed from the wheelchair, they expect a bit more wear and tear from having to load several kgs of gear over and above a few bags of shopping most cars see.
There may be some more options via the adaption places, but ones we’ve seen are for the wheelchair user to be loaded and remain in situ. A friends mum rides like this in a berlingo and it’s hard to converse with the driver. It also loses a lot of storage space in the rear.
I had looked at JDM - I’ve seen some with passenger seats that come out to ground level to make transfer from wheelchair easy.
We’ve got just over a year left with the Alhambra and are struggling to think what to replace it with. I’m tempted to either buy it, (but Mrs FB struggles with the ramps when needed) or get a transit crew cab (3+3 seats) depending on rear space. We’ve had to get a trailer for camping holidays as the electric chair fills the boot of the Alhambra.
Feel free to message if you want some more info. I’m down in Kent - if you’re local you’re welcome to have a look at the car & ramps etc or I can send some photos. Think there are also motability events where you can go & see loads of vehicles/conversion specialists under one roof.
Ps regarding the clean air zones etc, may be different for “disability” vehicles- with our motability car we get free Dartford crossing and Severn crossing was free before being abolished.
Pps re diesel- the cars we had through motability were diesel as that’s the only flavour they had for the models we were looking at. They all had low mileage with no issues (apart from filling up ££)
Re ULEZ in Bradford: just checked our old Caravelle (2011 180bitdi) which was a smoky diesel guzzling heap and it comes out as zero rated in all zones apart from Bristol or Birmingham. Our latest velle (2019 199bitdi) is zero rated in all ULEZ. A velle is basically a VW t5/6 that’s had a collision with a DFS warehouse.
From a practicality point of view they make all other MPVs look seriously compromised. We’ve travelled 7-up, with full winter sports luggage across Europe several times without a single complaint about comfort or space. It’s a properly nice place to be all day long. They are stupidly expensive now though. Have you looked at a Citroen space tourer / Peugeot traveller? Almost as great inside as a velle but massively less expensive. Possibly more reliable / better made too.
We're running a Citroen C4 Grand Spacetourer. Certainly ticks the "not too big box" but consider it as a 5+2 perhaps. Huge amount of space for the footprint though, worth looking at maybe if you didn't fancy or get along with the Zafira (been in a couple of Zafiras as taxis and I'm not a fan).
Pros: Space and versatile seating (middle row seats can move individually), small-ish footprint, higher models have great spec, interior generally a nice place to be with decent materials on the dash, lower down materials are a bit cheap, good seats, great tide and a genuinely good all day motor. Great visibility for everyone. Auto box gives you extra storage between the front seats, loads of cubbies to lose stuff in. Generally a solid feeling car.
Cons. It's French so has that "will it break" thing hanging over it. We're running the 1.2 petrol as we do mainly short journeys so didn't fancy the diesel. Only getting about 35mpg but it is a small engine in a big(ish) car. Carpet is that horrid cheap stuff that holds on to every bit of debris and won't let go. Lots of gadgets on our top spec car, see the "French" bit above. Far too many controls (hvac in particular) buried in the wee 7 inch touchscreen. Silly details like small windscreen wash bottle, fusebox on l/h side so tiny glove box, receding roofline kinda pointless but not a "con" as such. Solid enough feeling but not a patch on the Volvo it replaced. Ooh yeah, and that "French" thing? The car ate a sparkplug on the motorway one day and ended up needing a new engine... and there lies another story about how sh*te Citroen dealers can be.
So not really a "recommend what you've got" as such, just my experiences of a 7 seat car that no one.had so far mentioned (with good reason perhaps). For slight balance my dad ran these since 2009 through to 2019 on Motability with no issues whatsoever, the only issue being that you can't get them anymore. Not many miles done though. Had to get a berlingo last time and neither my mum or dad are fans of that.
Depending upon your child seat requirements, look out for zafiras - many of them officially aren certified for a child seat 8n the middle of middle row. This ruled out all zafiras for us!
Have a 2016 Citroen C4 grand picasso, and previously an smax. The smax was probably better overall, but at 11 years old with 175k on the clock the electrics were beginning to fail. The Citroen is super comfy and easy to drive as an automatic though...
Between the two it's really a case of whether you want to retain the illusion of having something cat-like, or accept your role as a family taxi with your "dad bus", as I have.
Going back to a 3 series beemer as soon as the kids stop wanting to be seen with their parents though....b
Only a sadist (well not quite but you get the idea) would put anyone over 10 in the rear seats of an SMax for any length of journey on a vaguely regular basis and I say that as a happy SMax owner.
They are useful for occasional use. I don’t think a Galaxy or Sharan (we looked at both) would be enough better to be a proper long journey 7 seater. Also true of SUV’s.
+1 this. Had a sharan (basically interchangeable with Galaxy, size wise). Absolutely cavernous inside, not too big on the outside - never had an issue with parking etc - especially as you're sat so high (literally range rover height) and big mirrors you see over everything in the parking lot and they have flat sides so easy to know where your corners are
Mine was the older style which had 'proper' full seats on the back BUT - here's the thing - there was no proper deep footwell for the rear passengers - that can't be comfortable for over an hour.
Need to be looking at a van 'mpv'!
Reading this with interest. As a family of 5 (kids are 7.5, 5.5 and 2.5) I'm managing with the Octavia and actually think/hope that things will get easier for the next few years as the kids move to smaller then no car seats. However when it comes time to change, either through aging car or growing kids I'll likely go for the mpv style van. Before the youngest arrived I looked hard at 7 seaters and for many of the reasons coming out here was finding the faux X 4 SUV style unsuitable and the car MPV too. Being in London with ulez looming I'm very Leary is diesel too. Not many/any petrol options around though. ID buzz would probably be wonderful.... Although eye wateringly costly. I'm hoping a few more electric options become available and the cost comes down a bit over the next few years and will be clinging on to the Octavia in the meantime! If I had to change now I'd look hard at Vito/v-class, and at JDM imports.
+1 Kia carrens.
Dependable, not exciting, but no nasty surprises.
7 year warranty too
Touran owner here. No boot space when in 7 seater mode… but still feels like a car… anything with 7 + real boot space is a bus/van. Caravelle looks very practical, but many many times more expensive.
We've an 09 galaxy that's been great and very reliable. It'll happily sit on the motorway for hours when fully loaded with 4 kids, bikes holiday kit. Ours has now done 170k and still runs really well.
We had a fair few when the kids were young.If you are going for a 7 seater then get a big one. If you dont need 7 seats then et something smaller and better suited to what you need.
Best of them all was a Galaxy - much nicer to drive and good use of the space. We also had a couple of Espace, a Sedona, and probably something else I have forgotten. The sliding doors on the Sedona were excellent - these are big cars so when someone pars next to you, it can be a real struggle getting kids in/out of car seats, as they fill the parking space from side to side. (The rest of the Sedona was pretty poor though - put me right off Kia, as the warranty from them was rubbish in the end, and the main dealer useless too).
Never really noticed an issue with the turnign circle tbh
My uncle has a Stepwagon. Rear two seats fold away nicely.
Interesting car.
Thanks everyone for their input and thoughts. It certainly helped me to get up to speed with this new and alien (to me) world of bigger cars.
In the end we have put an order in for a Ford Grand Torneo Connect through Motability.
If you want 7 seats on Motability then you don't have too many options. There are massive cars (eg Vivaro), massive advance payments (eg Combi Electric), SUV's or for us it boiled down to a Caddy Maxi or Grand Torneo. Despite the Ford having a larger advance payment and basically being a Caddy Maxi for 2023, it seems to have better finishing touches and was offered in more engine and gearbox options than the VW which is only one diesel option in manual or automatic.
The only downside now is the lead time so it is all a bit back to square one for an unknown amount of months. I'm thinking a cheap Zafira is the way to go as a stop gap as there aren't many cheapish cars of this type in the used market at the moment. The journey continues 🙂
Thank you everyone for your help- not the end result I was envisaging at the start but one I think will work for us in the end all being well!
What’s the lead time? It’s likely that will be our choice (if it’s on the list still next year).
Are you having any adaptations? We’re likely to need a ramp for our sons powered chair.
It is a new model so there is no stock anywhere on top of the general manufacturing problems but the build status was the best level and a lead time of 7 months.
Not ideal but hopefully worth the patience for what we gain over the next 3 years.
No modifications as our son is 3 and we are not sure how his needs will change in that time.
Think our Seat is due back next May- might need to start looking soon. We initailly got by with my 307SW but as our son required more kit, that's when we went to a Grand Scenic (for a bargain £99 initial payment). Having to stow his electric chair is prompting the change to something bigger like the Torneo.
Probably not what you're after but I'll add my 2p anyway as we've just bought a 7-seater, more on the bangernomics end of things.
We narrowed it down to between a Renault Grand Scenic and a Toyota Estima (Jap import Previa).
Renault: smaller, cheaper (~2k)
Toyota: bigger, expensiver (~5k), probably more reliable
Went for the Renault in the end for a few different reasons.
It's on the small side for an MPV so the back seats are a bit squashy, especially with adults in. For legroom, think elephants in a Mini.
Can't fit 3 child seats in the middle row, not wide enough.
All back seats fold flat, middle seats can even come out, for potential massive boot space.
Suits our on-a-budget needs ok.
We had a 10 plate Grand Scenic- think the middle seats slide so you can jiggle kids seats.
you can jiggle kids seats.
Thats one way to keep them entertained
We had a 10 plate Grand Scenic- think the middle seats slide so you can jiggle kids seats.
Same with the Tourer, the middle row of seats all move independently so we moved the middle one forward slightly so a booster had more room and didn't foul the seats either side.
I know it's not out yet, but the Mazda CX-80 will be out later this year with 3 rows of seats. It's a PHEV and is VERY good - elecy for urban drive, ICE for towing/long journeys - i've had a go in the CX-60 (slightly smaller) which is incredibly well built.
I've had nearly every MPV going.
Generally, they're all * in one way or another. Some of them are * in many ways.
If I was doing it all again I'd have hunted down a decent example of a used Touran 1.9TDi and stuck with it. Boring but effective.
