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Sat 31 Mar 2018 17:40

Big Boot Family Petrol - Molehill

We bought a 63 plate Toyota Verso 1.8 CVT about a year ago as our family car but with trips away to see family and on holidays we are filling the boot fully up and often a roofbox too. The second littl'un is shortly on the way and it would be great to have some plenty more boot space. We don't use the two extra seats in the boot and it is a bit of pain having them wasting useable space.

I wouldn't want anything with less power than the Verso (150bhp) but more torque for hills in Cornwall would be great (not essential though). I quite enjoy the CVT in this and would have a prefence for another auto but not a deal breaker.

We would like a petrol as we only do around 10k miles a year with a lot of start stop traffic in south London. Sadly most people who bought bigger cars recently went with diesel meaning second hand ones are mainly that at the moment. Idealy under £15k but could spend a bit more (or happily less!).

Tempted by an estate but not sure if I will miss the height and ease of getting kids in and out. Any thoughts most welcome.

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Sat 31 Mar 2018 17:49

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

Skoda Superb. The hatch has a huge boot (about 600 litres), the estate is aircraft carrier size in the back. The 1.4 TSi has 150 PS and 184 lbs of torque right down to 1500 rpm. Ours is a manual, it averages about 44 mpg. The auto's get bad press on this forum but on the Skoda forum they are much loved. Personally I would get the manual if you are not restricted to an auto.

Try one and decide for yourself.

£15000 should get you a nice 2 year old manual example at a guess, perhaps a bit newer even.

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Sat 31 Mar 2018 17:55

Big Boot Family Petrol - Avant

If I were you I'd look at Skodas and Fords first:

Skoda Octavia or Superb 1.4 TSI (these can both be either hatch or estate). The 1.4 engine is well-known for having lots of torque. The SEAT Ateca can have this engine too, but it's fairly new on the market and I'm not sure you'd find one for £15k.

Ford Mondeo or C-Max or S-Max, although most used Fords tend to be diesels.

The Mazda 6 estate is good as a petrol but won't have the torque that you're looking for.

There's the Nissan Qashqai but I wonder if that's very much roomier than your Verso.

There are plenty of Citroens, Peugeots and Renaults of the right size, but buying a used French car is more of a gamble than I'd want to take. You can get a good one but....

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Sat 31 Mar 2018 19:08

Big Boot Family Petrol - Alby Back

With your budget and brief, I'd agree with the above Superb estate or Mondeo estate suggestions. Both fine cars with tons of room and good to drive. Qashqai or similar might be more fashionable, but not nearly as much loadspace and actually not as nice to drive. Any large estate would be a good choice, but those two would be high on my list.

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 13:46

Big Boot Family Petrol - daveyK_UK

I wouldn’t go near a Skoda superb for a number of reasons but the main 2 reasons for your criteria is the size of the thing and the seating position is far worse than the high up Toyota Verso (you sit low down, go and try it for yourself the superb is designed as a motorway cruiser).
Other reasons not to buy a Superb in London is a complete lack of a quality Skoda dealer (I’m yet to find a good one and have tried 6! although I have found a good Seat one in Essex).

I wouldn’t touch a Mondeo as they are proving to be unreliable and Ford is to stop building Mondeos later this year. Superb reliability on the old model (Upto the end of 2016?) was also questionable with plenty of common faults and failures, the current model is too new to form an opinion on but I’m sure the owners forum will be helpful.

If you want a car with the height, space, a strong torque converter automatic and reliability all like your Verso but with a huge boot it has to Ssangyong Tivoli XLV

This Tivoli XLV can be specified with a 1.6 petrol automatic torque converter and it works well, although I wouldn’t call it fast although I didn’t push it.

The boot is simply huge and the car comes with plenty of kit not to mention a 5 year warranty.

A good high driving position is a huge advantage driving in and out of London and why I drive a Berlingo Multispace. I would recommend a Berlingo Multispace or equivalent Peugeot Partner Tepee that will both make your Verso feel cramped inside but unless you go for a new 1.2 pure tech petrol model in flair trim, the rest of the range doesn’t have a lot of kit.
And there isn’t isn’t many available (less than 5 nationally) as they sell fast with the 1.2 petrol engine.

Edited by daveyK_UK on 01/04/2018 at 13:50

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 15:35

Big Boot Family Petrol - SLO76

“This Tivoli XLV can be specified with a 1.6 petrol automatic torque converter and it works well, although I wouldn’t call it fast although I didn’t push it.”

Wouldn’t touch it. I agree that it’s likely to be reliable but depreciation will be horrific, vastly outweighing the initial saving from the low(ish) purchase price. These will only make sense as a cheap banger runabout in a few years.

I’d shortlist the current 1.5 Ecoboost Ford Mondeo (manual only) Though I’d be very tempted by a late previous gen 1.6 Ecoboost Mondeo at under £10k.

The Mazda 6 2.0 Skyactiv. It does lack the midrange pull of a turbo but I found it perfectly adequate and it’s likely to outlast anything else here.

The Skoda Superb 1.4 TSi is a lovely big workhorse too.

I intend on changing our current Honda CRV for a large petrol Estate later in the year but I plan on going cheaper and older to avoid the pain of depreciation and worry of parking scuffs etc. Our annual mileage is even lower than yours and a good ten year old petrol estate car can make perfectly reliable transport if bought well and looked after.

Edited by SLO76 on 01/04/2018 at 15:52

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 16:42

Big Boot Family Petrol - Alby Back

>>I wouldn’t touch a Mondeo as they are proving to be unreliable...

We have a quite a few Mondeo estates on our company fleet, ranging from new to 3 years old. They are all hard worked cars used by our sales reps. No problems at all with any of them. We did have some Insignias that were a bit fragile and some Passats and Golfs that were also troublesome ( auto gearboxes mainly ) but the Mondeos have been great. Nice to drive too on the odd occasion I've borrowed one. I'd have no problem with us "touching" more of them. Pity if Ford are dropping the model, they're pretty much ideal for our work purposes.

We did have a couple of SUVs for a while too, but the feedback from the guys was that they were just too high off the ground for regular lifting of heavy sample bags in and out of them. Bit lumpen to drive too.

Horses and courses I suppose.

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Thu 5 Apr 2018 13:35

Big Boot Family Petrol - S40 Man

I tried a Tivoli, regular not XL recently. They promised me a £10 M&S voucher for my trouble, but it never arrived.

I found the Tivoli far worse to drive than my 58 plate mondeo with 150k plus mileage.. It's handling, acceleration and general driving feel were far worse. The interior was nice enough but if you like driving I'd look elsewhere.

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 13:48

Big Boot Family Petrol - Metropolis.

Toyota Alphard

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 14:54

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

I wouldn’t go near a Skoda superb for a number of reasons but the main 2 reasons for your criteria is the size of the thing and the seating position is far worse than the high up Toyota Verso (you sit low down, go and try it for yourself the superb is designed as a motorway cruiser).

Yes its big (I don;t think the OP needs telling that - its obvious to all but a blind bloke) but once on the move you don't really notice, it drives just the same as the smaller Leon we had.

The seating position is fine and we have ours set quite high (both front seats are height adjustable).

And I agree that its an excellent motorway cruiser.

Perhaps you should go look at one.

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 15:07

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

For those that think I am Skoda biased here's an option.

One car we looked at when we were looking for the wifes new motor was the Citroen C3 Aircross. At Carfile a manual 1.2 130 PS Feel model can be yours for £15029. Autos are only available with the less powerful engine, the 110 PS feel is £15749. (I do wonder if this suggests that the autobox is made of cheese and is too weak for the better engine).

It got good space inside and in the boot, is well equiped and has a high driving position. I think its more MPV than SUV (not a bad thing) but the wacky colours seem to have moved it into that sector.

Well worth a look. We liked it in many ways but it was too big as a 2nd car, quite a bit bigger than the surprisingly spaceous Note.

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 16:09

Big Boot Family Petrol - badbusdriver

Going by the OP's preferences, the only thing that springs to mind would be a Japanese import Toyota estima. This would have a petrol engine of more than 150bhp and CVT transmission, and if you go for the hybrid (2.4 4 cyl) as opposed to the 3.5 V6, the MPG shouldn't be too scary. Reliability is a given, but be aware that Japanese cars don't have much in the way of underseal as they don't salt their roads, so make sure anything you are looking at has had this done. Having said that, if you are going to any reputable Japanese import specialist, this will have been done as a matter of course.

i have to say i am surprised that in a 7 seat verso with the 3rd row folded the boot is not big enough for the OP's needs. Maybe a small trailer would be the answer?!.

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Sun 1 Apr 2018 16:18

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

i have to say i am surprised that in a 7 seat verso with the 3rd row folded the boot is not big enough for the OP's needs

Back in 2010 we were swapping our C-Max and looked at the Verso. We only needed 5 seats but the only 5 seat Verso you could get was the poverty spec 1.6 petrol. Anything else was 7 seats and all they did was rob boot space, access into them would have been near impossible. The boot in our C-max was without a doubt bigger than a the boot in a 7 seat Verso.

We bought a Kia Ceed estate, nice high driving position and a big boot. Petrol engine was rubbish but the diesel we bought was fine since the wife had a 20 mile each way commute at the time.

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Thu 5 Apr 2018 19:41

Big Boot Family Petrol - Nomag

Personally I think coming from a people carrier you will find an estate gives you the increased boot space you want, but you will find it a pain getting young children in and out due to the lower seats.

We had an Octavia estate when my eldest was born, it was an excellent car with plenty of boot space but when number 2 arrived we got an S-max, the difference in terms of getting kids in and out of people carrier was huge - no more stooping down, no more kids legs brushing up against the backs of front seats. I realise the S-max is a big vehicle, I'm not specifically recommending it to you, but I definitely think an MPV is easier with kids than an estate.

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Thu 5 Apr 2018 22:30

Big Boot Family Petrol - Ian_SW

I must be unusual, because I find a 'normal' car much easier with kids than any MPV or SUV/Crossover. Our three year old can easily get himself into his seat in our Octavia, and can almost even open the door himself to get in now as well. Getting into something higher up such as my sister-in-laws Qashqai is much more difficult for him to do himself. During the winter this also results in his trousers (and then the inside of the car) getting completely caked in mud from having to climb up over the sills, and then again up onto the seat.

Even with the baby, I prefer to be able to put her downwards into a seat rather than lifting up into something above waist height.

As far as boot space goes, I'd be surprised if a Superb or Mondeo estate has a larger boot than a Verso in 5 seat mode though. It was possible to get much more in the boot of the work Zafiras in 5 seat mode than it was in the Mondeos, mostly because they are more van shaped with vertical sides.

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 09:46

Big Boot Family Petrol - Molehill

The Verso is quite a short car at 4.45m and the boot is around 90cm long but there isn't much height until the back of the middle row seats. A quick measure of an Octaivia gives a 15cm more boot length and 10cm more height until the seat top. Total boot height is similar. Would be much better without the fold out seats in the Verso - they are useless anyway as they don't have isofix.

I only had a brief moment to pop in to a Skoda dealer and the Superb is a nice car but a little too big for everyday driving in these parts. It also did seem difficult to get the little one in to the car if in a tight space. Though she is two and I think in a lower car she could just climb herself in. I will have to have a more thorough try with the car seat in.

Bigger cars tend to have more rear leg space which isn't what children need. They need more boot for all the stuff. Also manufacturers just list a volume measure and it is hard to find actual boot dimensions.

Hopefully I will get a chance to look at a few more options soon.

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 11:10

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

As far as boot space goes, I'd be surprised if a Superb or Mondeo estate has a larger boot than a Verso in 5 seat mode though

You need to go to specsavers and then take a tape with you to look at a few.

We had a 2002 Mondeo hatch. The boot was very good, about 530 litres form memory. We replaced that with a 2005 C-Max which had a slightly smaller boot at 500 litres but it was a box shaped boot and took most items easilly.

As I noted above we looked at the Verso in 2010 to replace the C-Max. From memory the 5 seat version had a 500 litre boot but the 7 seater lost space when the seats were folded, think it was about 440 litres. It was also an odd shape in places. Not as good as the C-Max.

We now have a Superb hatch which is just over 600 litres of boxy easilly loadable space. The estate is even bigger at 660 litres.

One advantage of the Superb over a medium sized people carrier is its ability to carry long items. With the optional folding passenger seat (a standard seat folds but the option makes it far easier to do and its flatter) 3m long lenths of timber fit easily.

How you can suggest they are smaller than a Verso is beyond me.

Also manufacturers just list a volume measure and it is hard to find actual boot dimensions.

That is why I take a tape with me.

Edited by skidpan on 06/04/2018 at 11:11

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 12:31

Big Boot Family Petrol - bazza

I have to agree with skidpan, there is nothing to beat a conventional estate for bootspace unless you go to a transit connect or similar van type car . If you can't get it all in something like a superb estate, you're taking too much with you! With 2 kids we toured Europe and camped with an Octavia hatch and roof box, a superb is a lot more spacious than that. And it has a great engine in petrol form too. It would be my choice if I was in the same position.

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 12:34

Big Boot Family Petrol - Engineer Andy

Also manufacturers just list a volume measure and it is hard to find actual boot dimensions.

That is why I take a tape with me.

Ditto - I also bring my suitcase (empty, of course), golf bag & trolley (box) and box for provisions which I use on holiday to the West Country when I'm check out the boot size of cars.

What's just as amazing is that what seems like (to many) inconsequential differences in a dimension here of there makes ALL the difference in me being able to fit everything in the boot without having to put the back seats down, or in a hatchback, take the parcel shelf out (not good in an accident if it all goes forward towards the occupants in the front seats, or security [nicely on display while you're away from the car at the motorwat service stop]).

Many cars now come with 'false floors' which seem to be included as boot space, but in reality can only be used for small items, and thus the overall usefull boot space for larger items like those I described above is significantly reduced. The same goes when manufacturers add in 'strengthening bars and beams' around the boot, which then impede items laying flat on the floor, wasting yet more space. Similarly many now don't come with any spare tyre (of any kind) but have the space for one, sort of, which often, even with the (expensive) manufacturer's space saver unit, raises the floor and has similar problems as the strengthening bars and beams.

Better to always check thoroughly at the dealership (even if some people give you funny looks when you're doing so) with a tape measure and major items going in the boot before making a purchase that could end up costing £000s if you get it wrong and the boot isn't of the right size/shape to fit everything you need in it. A former colleague of mine did this and, after trading their car in after just 3 months for a bigger one, lost about £4k on the deal, just because he couldn't be bothered to spend 5 mins checking the boot size.

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 15:33

Big Boot Family Petrol - Sam49

Depending on the age of the OP's older child I'd say the essential test is the double pushchair one. These can be seriously bulky, heavy and awkward objects! I love estate cars but I've noticed in a lot of even large ones the width is restricted by 'handy' storage panels and boxes, and there is a drop over the lip into the luggage area. Can make loading a nightmare.

When we had a double pushchair for our kids (Mountain buggy - I recommend!) it slotted fine into our elderly Avensis, which didn't have the panels and things. Compared to the other cars mentioned (and I'm not knocking them, as they are good options) load volume was less but the usable space was excellent, and the load deck was flat onto the bumper, so you could wheel the folded pushchair in. Just something to bear in mind.

The problem with smaller MPVs like the Cmax and Verso is that the load space is tall rather than long, so a double pushchair could cause problems.

We now have an S Max alongside the Avensis, which is great. Loads of space in all directions, and you can slide the seats about to create extra space. We went to Wales this Easter for a few days - 2x kids pushbikes, 3x scooters, bed linen inc. duvets, outdoor clothes, toys, full supermarket shop inc. plenty of booze etc etc - no worries, no roofbox, no bike carrier. The other week a trip to the zoo and my daughter's friend wanted to come. No problem getting the third isofix car seat in, extra seats in the third row meant his parents could come along as well. For a busy young family of four, hard to beat. Try and find a 1.6 Ecoboost, should do the job.

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 19:52

Big Boot Family Petrol - badbusdriver

A guy i know has a LWB mitsubishi Delica. I remember him telling me a few months after buying it that he took his (adult) disabled son up to the 'Simmer Dim' bike rally in the Shetland Isles and how they could sleep (lengthwise) in the back with the 2nd row of seats still in place, such was the amount of space!

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 20:55

Big Boot Family Petrol - daveyK_UK

Ifr boot space is important, then a Citroen Berlingo Multispace/Peugeot Partner Tepee/Fiat Doblo/Ford Tourneo Connect/VW Caddy/Mercedes Citan Tourer are all available in petrol form and will all allow you to put a pram in the boot without even folding it not to mention getting in 5-6 suitcases as well.

If you need something a bit smaller there is the Fiat Qubo

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Fri 6 Apr 2018 22:37

Big Boot Family Petrol - Molehill

In theory I think one of those could be great but the problem with them is mainly there aren't many petrol secondhand ones for sale as no one purchased them to start with. Also the Berlingo only gets a 3/5 star ncap rating which isn't ideal.

We had a 2005 Jazz for eight years which was a great car except the lack of power was painful at times. It seems most van/car hybrids are somewhat lacking in the power area.

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Sat 7 Apr 2018 15:05

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

Duplicate

Edited by skidpan on 07/04/2018 at 15:08

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Sat 7 Apr 2018 15:07

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

Citroen Berlingo Multispace/Peugeot Partner Tepee/Fiat Doblo/Ford Tourneo Connect/VW Caddy/Mercedes Citan

Whilst the above are certainly spaceous they are not refined or comfortable over long distances. The reason is simple, despite what other will say they are vans with seats in the back. Having driven the Berlingo/Doblo over many miles at work there is no way I would want one as my main transport.

But they are better than a Bedford Rascal, we had 2 of those diabolical things.

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Sat 7 Apr 2018 15:50

Big Boot Family Petrol - daveyK_UK

I disagree,

I drive a berlingo multispace all over anglia and london and find it great.

The ease of getting in and out, the space, the seat support and most of all driving position are all appreciated and at the end of the day i get out without feeling tired, the same is not true on the odd occasion i borrow my partners i10, which after barely half an hour is tiresome (although its a good little car).

My only complaint is the trim equipment list is skinny, they only introduced the flair trim in the past year which finally has sat nav as standard along with some other nice haves.

My drivers all use identical partner vans and enjoy how they cruise at 77mph and find them a nice vehicle to get along with. The same was true when I had some fiat doblo's except the sound proofing.

The only exception is the VW Caddy which is spacious but increadibly slow with a load, its barely acceptable without a load. Although in fairness they where only hire vans while we waited for the partners to arrive but they became so tiresome in and around town with jerky clutches and no power. ALso the caddy seating position is not as good as other small vans, its too low.

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Sat 7 Apr 2018 16:04

Big Boot Family Petrol - skidpan

the seat support and most of all driving position are all appreciated and at the end of the day i get out without feeling tired,

The seats and driving position of the earlier berlingo/Partner was OK but on the later 3 sets across the front ones we had the driving position was offset and uncomfortable. Probably fine for short trips but definitely no good for a 150+ miles drive.

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