what car r we driving

sportage1kia

shazrobo wrote: »

we have a vauxhall meriva which i love, high seats, good visability, and loads boot space

Hi there
Is your Meriva Petrol or Diesel and how would you rate it economically. Thank you in advance.
Regards

kentyy

I changed my mobility car this summer.

Just a tip, if you are unable to get out and get a new car when the time comes, Motability can extend your existing one (for me they gave 6 months) until you are well enough to go out and look for a new one.

I firstly looked around on the net and got companies to mail me some car choices. Then, when I could, went and test drove a fair number of cars. Please please you MUST sit in/test drive the cars before you buy.

I had a Skoda Fabia which became too painful because the seats were too low, so the next car I bought was Citreon Xsara Picasso. This was brilliant because going over speed bumps is really painful for me and the picasso made it much better. The higher seats were great and the space was fab as i could get the wheelchair in the boot with extra room for stuff that i have to carry around too.
This year I had to change to an automatic but the citreon automatic just didnt feel right for me.. it felt like I was driving a bus!
So I sat in or test drove a Ford c-max- fabulous drive, daewoo tacuma - couldnt see well out of the back window, kia carens-small boot, kia sportage - too high, vx tiguan- felt cramped, nissan quashqi - felt my head was on the ceiling and couldnt reach the peddles comfortably, and a few others.
I ended up with a Mazda5 and am very pleased with it. The seats aren't too high or too low, the boot fits my wheelchair and stuff, and overall was the best of the bunch for me.

Everyone is different so with all the recommendations, you really do have to try them for yourself.

Another helpful site I found was whatcar.co.uk as here you can compare your present car against a few other cars, so you can see the difference in height, boot space, economy etc.

hth and good luck with finding your new car!

onetomany

hi hun i got a meriva and love it

Bart

Hi folks we have a large family: me, mrs 4 kids vsoon to be 5 I use a wheelchair so need a 7/8 seater with boot space for wheelchair PDQ trike attachment and pram! We will be getting a "car" on motability. We drove a Merc Vito and found the ride very harsh like an old landrover. Can anyone recomend anything!!

D&DD
I too have spine problems and found the Hyundai i800 a very comfrtable ride over speed humps well worth a look. But not on the motability scheme (yet) It has 8 seats all recline 3 zone aircon sliding side doors massive boot ( will take a non folding wheelchair no problem!) And parking sensors too.

shazrobo

sportage1kia wrote: »

Hi there
Is your Meriva Petrol or Diesel and how would you rate it economically. Thank you in advance.
Regards

mine is a 1.8 petrol, you can get smaller engines tho. personally i find it very economical on long distance journeys, less so on short runs

earthmother

Bart wrote: »

Hi folks we have a large family: me, mrs 4 kids vsoon to be 5 I use a wheelchair so need a 7/8 seater with boot space for wheelchair PDQ trike attachment and pram! We will be getting a "car" on motability. We drove a Merc Vito and found the ride very harsh like an old landrover. Can anyone recomend anything!!

We have recently taken a Ford Galaxy through Motability which may be worth a look. The only point where you may have issues will be the luggage space if you're going to be using all 7 seats - I think you'd get either wheelchair or pram, not both (although if it's a standard size chair, you may get an umbrella-fold buggy in too).

We don't use the back row of seats - we needed the space as DHs chair is bigger than average - but with those seats down we can easily get the chair, a travel-system and shopping in.

Access is good, the floor height is good, and you can get three full-size car seats across the back (currently two Britax Hi-Liners and an Evolva 1-2-3), although it is a bit of a wiggle to get your hand into the seatbelt clips (slows the kids down too though, so not all bad).


We handed a Toyota Previa back. This is no longer available on Motability (not made any longer) but you may be able to get a second hand one on the HP scheme mentioned earlier before. It has more space (with or without the back seats), but the seats are not as easy to move (you have to remove them completely, whereas in the Galaxy they fold into the floor), and it's very thirsty (our petrol auto rarely did better than 15mpg combined, whereas the diesel auto Galaxy is easily doing 30+mpg, which for a big auto is very good). Also, the sliding doors, whilst they seemed a good idea at first, are rather heavy, and the floor height is about the highest of any MPV we've come across, so wheelchair loading can be a bit of a struggle.

Bart

Hi earthmother, we had a VW Sharon (sp?) 08 reg ( same as the Galaxy ) when our car had to go for repairs. There wasn't as much boot space as our Hyundai Trajet with all 7 seats and had to remove a seat to get my 'chair and trike attachment in. The new Galaxy has even less room. We are strugling to find anything. As I said earlyer the Hyundai i800 ticks all the boxes but isn't on the scheme, the Vito drives like an old landrover, the rear seats don't recline the windows in the doors don't open and there isn't any heat/ventilation for the middle and rear row of seats.
Renault Traffic, no boot only the drivers seat reclines.
VW Transporter lwb only the drivers seat reclines.
Unfortunately when we go out we share the driving and do 600 mile round trips quite often, when my wife drives I sit in the passenger seat and recline it to ease the pain
I know amputation at the neck would solve alot of problems:rotfl: But we need a car soon!
Can anyone suggest anything?

somebody_else

Bart wrote: »

Can anyone suggest anything?

Have you considered taking out a loan instead of getting the car through motability?

It wasn't 'til this year that I qualified for the motability scheme, so that's what I've done. I'm also not keen on the idea of if I lose my DLA, I automatically lose the car, whereas with the loan (which actually costs me less of my DLA than I'd use on the motablilty) I would still be able to keep the car if the DLA was reduced or removed. It would be tight, but I'd be able to do it.

easy

somebody_else wrote: »

Have you considered taking out a loan instead of getting the car through motability?

It wasn't 'til this year that I qualified for the motability scheme, so that's what I've done. I'm also not keen on the idea of if I lose my DLA, I automatically lose the car, whereas with the loan (which actually costs me less of my DLA than I'd use on the motablilty) I would still be able to keep the car if the DLA was reduced or removed. It would be tight, but I'd be able to do it.

I was trying to suggest the same thing, but my PC suddenly threw a wobbly, cos I was trying to link to the autotrader results of a search for hyundai i800. There are 27 second hand ones available, several with demonstrator miles only on them.

Talk to the banks about borrowing using your DLA amount for repayment (remembering you need to cover insurance & maintenance too).

allydowd

I drive a two-seater Smart car Pulse.