Car to fit 3 child seats in please help!!

Exemplar

The wifes Mini Clubman has a 'change gear now' indicator which even telly you which gear to be in... I find that very, very annoying!

Kilty_2

alcot33uk wrote: »

The wifes Mini Clubman has a 'change gear now' indicator which even telly you which gear to be in... I find that very, very annoying!

Yep, that's exactly what my Picanto has :mad:

Flyboy152

Swiss_Toni wrote: »

We were in a similar situation and found a novel solution...

Whilst trawling the dealerships, we found the award-winning Volvo childseat, which can be separated to being just a booster seat when the child is old enough.

The novel solution?

Although the seat is a standard width "inside", it has a very narrow frame and so is not as wide "outside". This meant that instead of having to change car, we were able to put 2x Volvo seats plus one standard baby seat across the back seat, and now 3x Volvo seats.

This discovery cost us iro £70 per Volvo seat, but saved £'000s in changing the car!!!

We have a VW Passat Estate btw, 130bhp, very large boot, ave 55mpg (I get upto 65mpg on my 45 mile drive to work on A roads), 2003, value iro £3.5k, long life service means once every 18k miles or so. Very cheap and happy motoring!

Blimey, is it a TARDIS?

Flyboy152

Kilty wrote: »

I hated the digital speedometer at first because of the way it changed - you don't see the speed rise/fall like you do on an analogue speedo if you know what I mean.

Got used to it though and liked the central location. Rev counter didn't bother me, my Picanto doesn't have one either (although does have one of those annoying "shift indicators" :mad:)

Citroen cars have always been known for the "quirkiness." I used to have a GSA, the speedometer was on a glass drum, behind an indicator line. The drum would spin around according to the speed. The indicator switch was a "tumbler" type and wouldn't self cancel. The hand brake was dashboard mounted and the cassette/radio was located on the centre consul, behind the gear lever.

bigjl

Flyboy152 wrote: »

But unless you take out the rear seats, no boot. The newer ones don't even have that option anymore. The rear seats of the new Galaxies are not removable and they don't fold flat into the floor.

My sister got round that by removing one rear seat when they went on long journeys, they had 4 kids and bought it, actually the Seat version initially, because you could get three full size child seats alongside each other in the middle row, the put the rest of the luggage in a roof box.

They now have a new shape Galaxy for family duties and find it better than the earlier model.

Though I believe that the newest of the Ford Galaxy's, those made in the last year or so, do have a third row that foldas into the floor, but the earlier new shapes do not.

Swiss_Toni

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Blimey, is it a TARDIS?

Well you'd never have thought you could fit 3x kids seats across a standard Passat rear, but the Volvo seats do a great job!

We can even get them in the car whilst it is raining, strapped in and safe pretty quickly!

TARDIS? Pah! :T

PS
Mixed feelings from the Volvo salesman - up to the point where we saw the Volvo childseats across the rear of a car in their showroom, he was "on" for selling an XC90, but we spent £140 on seats instead....!:beer:

Craig_W_2

steph7163 wrote: »

Hi

I am looking to replace my car Nissan Mistral as it is 17yrs old & is costing a small fortune to run.
My needs are that it has to be able to fit 3 car seats across the back for a 1, 2, & 3 yr old & have plenty of boot space for pram, shopping, luggage, dogs etc... i am thinking that i would perhaps prefer an estate over an mpv style car - mainly because of boot space but am open to suggestions budget is around 4k

thank you

steph

We had the same requirements and we got a Skoda Octavia 1.9 Tdi estate. Brilliant car. Solid, comfortable, safe, acommodating, smart and really frugal. What more could you want!?

Ours was bought with 106,000miles on the clock and we've added another 50,000 in three years. Amazingly, having bought it for £3k, we could still resell it today for over £2k! What a car!

Flyboy152

bigjl wrote: »

My sister got round that by removing one rear seat when they went on long journeys, they had 4 kids and bought it, actually the Seat version initially, because you could get three full size child seats alongside each other in the middle row, the put the rest of the luggage in a roof box.

They now have a new shape Galaxy for family duties and find it better than the earlier model.

Though I believe that the newest of the Ford Galaxy's, those made in the last year or so, do have a third row that foldas into the floor, but the earlier new shapes do not.

The new Galaxy's rear eats do not fold flat into the floor, the just fold a bit.

mcweasel05

Had the Scenic for 6 months - would never have one again... In that time it was in the garage for a full month!

Got a 04 Plate C-Max replacement under 'sale of goods act' for under £4k with 31k miles. It fits 3 child seats across the back, huge boot (enough for buggy & full load of shopping). I checked the MOT history as soon as we bought it (July 2010), never even an advisory and just passed MOT (yesterday) with only advisory on nail in tyre! In addition, only repair we've had is a bearing joint & screen pump valve for £60 at independent garage.

So, imho, plump for the C-Max - Focus handling, cheap parts and generally all round goodness!

bigjl

Flyboy152 wrote: »

The new Galaxy's rear eats do not fold flat into the floor, the just fold a bit.

Thats a pity, not looked at a new one closely as out of my price bracket, seems a glaring oversight.

How far into the floor do they go?

I am sure Ford made a big thing about them folding flat.