People carriers

I’ve got one of these and it can carry my four kids, two dogs and accompanying bikes and paraphernalia with relative ease.

just bought a fiat doblo 1.9 multijet came with 120bhp but you can chip them to 150,it does 45mpg fully laden, rear seats split to leave 2 in use and a gap for bikes down the side, my mate stands his motocross bike in there to. the doblo is more like a van than a car so it has less interior plastic to get scratched from pedals and such like,mine got aircon,tinted windows and lumbar support in drivers seat, best practicle car i driven for someone 6 foot 3

Get yourself one of these boys toys – just about find one in budget if you shop around. I love mine, it’s great fun – leather, aircon, 6-disc CD/MP3 player…..

Really?? we have a thunder at work. It’s truly horrid to drive and bugger all room inside considering it’s the size of a small tank.

Plenty of room in the front and plenty in the back for the nippers – a bit harsh for adults on long journeys though. I do 40k a year in mine and love driving it – it is chipped to 170bhp though.

I have a hardtop on mine, but being able to hose it out when mucky is great.

Maybe a slight diversion, but I’m dimly thinking of replacing my Focus with something along the lines of a Galaxy or Interchangable VAG Group Equivalent… But the cockpits look really long, how does the loadbay compare length and breadth wise to a Mondeo estate? Either with 2 sets of seats or just the front seats.

Also, how are they to drive? Taller, higher COG, heavier but does it matter that much? I’m not after a sports car but I’d like something that’s at least not unpleasant.

I had a Sharan 110 TDi, I bought it new in 97, did 128,000 miles in it before it went for scrappage in 09. It never once let us down and the worst MPG I ever saw was 38 but normally more like 40/42. I used to carry the bikes upright with the front wheel off (take the back row of seats out and tip one or two of the middle row forward). It was comfy, handled reasonably well and just really useful (you could carry a single bed in the back if you tipped the seats down).

I have a Multipla now which is ok, but I regret parting with my Espace to get it.

The Espace swallows bikes whole – no faffing around taking wheels off muddy bikes etc.

With the 6/7 seats out the boot is as deep as a Mondeo, & its about the same width. Obviously its taller. With the 6/7 seats out a double buggy will sit upright no problem. I expected the Galaxy to be like a bus but was quite surprised. Parking it side by side with my Mondeo there isnt much in it, they are about the same length. Its a pretty upright driving position, not like a van though. Great visibility. On the road, there is obviously more body roll, but driven normally its fine. They come in around 1750kg, so 270 or so more than a Mondeo. We dont need the space, what we were after was the weight as we desperatly didnt want an SUV for towing.
This is ours with my 29er & the Wifes 26″ ht. You can easily get another built bike in, & I’ve even had 5 seats in & still got 2 built bikes & another 2 with wheels off.

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IMAG0568[/url] by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

Spot on, thanks Takisawa. In other threads I’ve heard things like “you can get 2 complete bikes in” or “4 bikes with the wheels off” and thought “I can do that with my Focus”. But that’s much more encouraging. I’ll run the big red skip til the wheels fall off then look at a big ‘un, cheers!