Can anyone recommend a family car that is best suited to our needs. The criteria is as follows:
Budget: up to £5k
Essential requirements: MUST have drivers headroom of 1030mms or more.
To be able to carry two adults, two teenagers, two Labradors plus all luggage on annual holiday. (Not just to and from kennels/airport, but nationwide).
Manual gear change.
Options that would be nice but not essential: A decent towing capability would be nice but not essential.
A sunroof would be nice, so long as it does not impinge on headroom.
Air conditioning and central locking.
We have no real preference regarding fuel type, but shy away from LPG due to its scarcity in this part of Kent.
A 'car' would be preferred as opposed to a 'van' or 'minibus' style vehicle.
Before somebody recommends a Discovery or Shogun, Range Rover, Land Cruiser, etc...they all fail on headroom.
Bizarrely, a friend of ours has a 'Y' registration Nissan Micra and I can fit into that with headroom to spare. There must be a 'family-sized' car that also has extra head-room?
Regards
|
If you were prepared to sacrifice the manual gearchange, and accept a slightly older car, then, if you could find a good one, a Mercedes W124 estate would probably tick all the other boxes.
Although I can easily be accused of bias in suggesting this car, it is one of the few cars in which I don't use the seat in its rearmost setting, and, if I wind the seat down, I actually feel small in the car - there's absolutely no danger of my contacting the headlining.
I'm currently sorting out some niggles on one of these cars, and, yes, it has cost me a little more than I had imagined to put it right - but, I hope to keep it for some considerable time yet!
Number_Cruncher
|
W124 only has 36.9" head room, apparently. So about 10cm short.
Accord Tourer has 1016mm, so is likely to be a good option.
Mazda 5 has 1033mm
|
Ah, we're onto one of my pet subjects here - I'm something like 1980mm and long in the body, so I've spent quite a while over the years looking for suitable transport. Forgive me if I get a bit excited or didactic over this!
First, forget your fancy of a sunroof. If you really do need that much headroom but don't want an MPV, I can't think of a single car that will do it for you. A sunroof just gets in the way, and is somewhere else for water to get into an older car, so you're better off without.
Next, define your terms: how are these headroom measurements obtained? My S60 has (according to What Car?) 984mm of front headroom. According to my tape measure, with the seat set for me to drive, it has about 970mm measured vertically upwards from the base of the backrest and about 1050mm measured in the plane of the backrest. I suggest that a single measurement is meaningless, even with a standard angle for the backrest, because what is comfortable in one car will not work in another. No substitute for legwork here, I'm afraid.
That said, there are some places your legs should go first, and sellers of Swedish cars should be high on your list. I had two Saabs before my Volvo: my enthusiasm for them stems from a visit to the Saab stand at the 1992 Birmingham motor show, where I'd tried just about every mainstream maker's offering without success - this was at the height of the sunroof fad - before one of Saab's fragrant, red-suited greeters put me in a red 900S and it felt immediately right.
So you could do worse than look for an old-shape Volvo V70, although I've not tried one, so I can't comment on space in the back seat. (The current V70 is no better than the S60 in that respect and would make your teenagers grumble.) But you should certainly try a Saab 9-5 estate, which has one of the few back seats I can sit in comfortably when the driver's seat is set for me. Others here will tell you what mechanical pitfalls this might have.
I don't know if £5,000 will buy you an early model of the current Vectra or Mondeo estate, which are both huge Haven't tried the Vectra; considered the Mondeo in 2002, which was OK for headroom but I couldn't get comfortable in the seat. Same applies to the Passat estate - ample headroom front and back and more space than the 2005 model but I didn't like the seats. Lots about, though, and in production since about 1997, so should be within budget.
Hope that's some help. And if you've got a link to somewhere that sells genuinely long-sleeved casual shirts...
|
Ah! WillDeBeest, you're talking my language!
I'm not quite as tall as you (hey! whats 50mm between friends!) but only manage a 29" inside leg.
I'm seriously considering campaigning my MP to lobby for people whose ergonomic frame severely limits their choice of car and, therefore, means that we tend to end up driving gas-guzzling brutes that attract more vehicle excise duty. I feel strongly that we are being discrimintaed against! Didn't someone once say that the burden of taxation should fall equally among the many rather than unfairly upon the few? Perhaps we could qualify for grants under Motability, or discounted road tax, or vat exemption or something!
OK, rant over. Thank you for your comments guys, especially WillDeBeest. I'll have to do some leg work and mark off those models that are eminently unsuitable.
SWMBO has not yet recovered from the shock that I can't fit into a 'new' car. For us, that's any vehicle thats around 10 years old. We currently use a 19yr-old Land Rover Defender that gives me about 100mm clear headroom. As expected though, the neckrests, oops sorry, headrests are woefully inadequate and even on their maximum projection barely manage to reach the base of my skull.
We'll keep looking and, if I do find anything that suits, I'll keep you posted.
|
|
I take it that you would not consider a Citroen Berlingo?
|
Tyro
Do you have first hand knowledge of the Berlingo? I'm 6'2" (sorry, don't know what that is in metres) and am comfortable in my Vectra B however, I'm starting to hear rumblings from my 13 year old about there being nowhere for his feet to go. What's legroom like in the back of a Berlingo?
|
Yes, I've owned one for 5 years.
I'm 6'1". I've rarely been in the back seat. I can say, however, that with the driver's seat pushed back as far as it will go (which is the way I have it), I would have a couple of inches to spare for my knees if I were sitting in the back seat - and plenty of room for my big feet under the seat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
What about an early Mazda6 hatch or estate, without a sunshine roof? Loads of headroom.
Clk Sec
|
>>Essential requirements: MUST have drivers headroom of 1030mms or more.
I thought 'headroom' was just that - the space above the passenger's head - obviously
I'm wrong, since several posters have mentioned 'headroom' in excess of a metre
in several saloon cars (with the sunroof open perhaps?)
Is 'headroom' defined here as the distance from seat squab to roof/headlining ?
confusedly,
woodbines.
|
Have a word with the Queen, she had kids and numourous dogs to transport once upon a time.
Have you consider an estate with roof rack or a secure trailer ?
|
Have a word with the Queen she had kids and numourous dogs to transport once upon a time.
Indeed.
One recommends using one's own train. For longer distances, one's own aircraft prove satisgactory
|
|
There you go TC, sorted, a bit over your budget but another Honest John satisfied customer (maybe) !
|
|
|
|
