zafira tourer elite. perfect.

Nope. Utter *agony* on the back of my legs/sciatic after about 40 mins….

zafira tourer elite. perfect.

Nope. Utter *agony* on the back of my legs/sciatic after about 40 mins…
This is the thing about test drives, I’m not sure how long most dealers allow for test drives, but apart from one Vauxhall Vectra, which was so uncomfortable it only took five minutes for me to start wriggling around trying to get comfy, it’s only after a couple of hours or so that you really start to find out all the little niggles that make a car really difficult to live with. There are certain cars based on vans that have limited seat adjustment, plus a footrest next to the brake/clutch pedal, depending on whether auto or manual, which causes me great discomfort after around half an hour or so, because I can’t stretch my left leg out, aggravating the arthritis in my left knee.
I’ve also discovered the advantages of auto boxes in heavy, slow-moving traffic…
The advantage of having a job driving cars for ten or more hours a day, individually two to three hours, I get to find out how comfy a car actually is, I don’t have any problems with current Vauxhall cars, the only cars I have comfort issues with are vans and BMW’s! BMW’s because of the harder suspension and low-profile run-flat tyres fitted to many of their cars. Not all, though, tbh.
But I understand many don’t have the luxury of extended test drives, so I guess maybe the answer is to maybe try to hire a particular model for a weekend, or see if a dealer will allow an extended test-drive, to find out what it’s really like; as I say, I really don’t know how long an average test drive is from a dealer – when I get a lottery win and can afford a new car, I might find out! 😀

BillOddie – Member
I have Kadjar, it’s fine.

The Kadjar is basically a Qashqai with a nice frock on!
To be fair, it, and the Captur, which is the Juke underneath, have both been substantially improved by Renault, as far as I can tell, only driven one Captur so far, and it was a much nicer car than the Juke in every way, and just as much fun to drive.
Looking forward to getting a Kadjar to drive one day, they’re lovely looking cars, Renault have really got a good design team at the moment.

I just bought a Mitsubishi L200 4 door pickup – best car decision I have made in years (coming from BMW’s)

Boot space is good and it is doing 40mpg town commuting. Bloody love it.

SUVs are less practical than they seem, but they can look pretty good
MPVs are the most practical, but they look awful
Estates are somewhere in the middle

I refuse to drive an MPV, would rather have a van! (I love vans!)

But we have one car and my wife uses it more than me. We have a merc e class estate. Plus a roof box. Plus a tow bar for the bike rack. Fits 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 big dogs in no problem.

Mitsubishi L200

Boot space

?

yeah, a pickup won’t really work for me.
we already do have one big estate, a pug 406. my partner drives that more than i do. i’m inclined to go crossover or SUV still, i think (with roof box to supplement the slightly smaller than a big estate boot space)…

If you get a roof box, make sure you get one with double sided opening, makes day to day usage so much easier

And get one with quick fit brackets, again, much easier to lob on and off

If a proper roof box is too big to stash away when not being used I’ve found a HandiHoldall to be a great alternative: https://www.handiworld.com/handiholdall-111/handiholdall.html

That said I’m surprised at the current RRP, they’ve gone up a lot in the last two years.

I’ve had a 2006 crv since about 2008. It’s massive in terms of load lugging capacity but most the recent SUV I’ve seen seem to compromise load space by trying to look nicer (slanting rear screen etc). Think I’ll go for an estate when it’s finally time to replace this one. Been bloody great for us though.