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Another clichéd baby forces sale thread - maybe?

I have a bee in my bonnet about MPVs, at least 2 occupants end up in the crumple zone, who do you put in there your own kids or someone elses?

They also lack primary safety, with their bulk, high CofG and lack of dynamic ability they are far more likely to end up in a crash, they feel like a car, so they get driven to the same parameters as a car...I have twice had to bail onto the central reservation on a motorway to allow the MPV behind to screech to a halt alongside me as they could not stop in time.

We had 2 Coupes when our first arrived, a Scirroco for me and a Honda Civic Coupe for her, she chose the Civic whilst she was pregnant as the boot was bigger than a Golfs...!

With 2 kids you do need something resembling sensible so she chopped the Civic in for a 156

Now the kids are 9 and 6 we have a 7 Series for her and I have just bought the 951.

I do have 1 question, my 9 year old is 148cm, so no need of a booster, but the 6 years old is 128cm, so needs a Booster. We use a full Bebe Confort Booster and seat back in the 7 (otherwise we would lose him back there!) what do people use as Boosters in the back of a '44?

I am using our smallest one, which I normally use in the aeroplane, but it doesn't fit very well at all in the Porsche
 
Mr Albert (i'm too polite to call you Fat!!), I have so far failed to find any seat that fits securely in the back of the 944, even the Brittax Freeway which was for the 944/968 on Brittax's car selector tool doesn't fit securely enough to my satisfaction, however it does have a narrower base and fits nicely between the seat bolsters, unlike modern seats that have got significantly larger over the years.

Ultimately when it comes to uninspiring family wagons you may as well just go for whatever you think is the most practical for your needs and look to your 944 to deliver your driving thrills. I know plenty of people who are delighted with their MPV's, but for me most models i've driven feel like vans, I don't like the high up driving position (it makes me feel unsafe and unstable), and I think the wife would struggle parking one as you can usually not see the bonnets, so i'd rather have a large auto estate car.

Also the big thing for me is that whenever I go down to Cornwall or somewhere else on holiday in the car a consistent observation i've made is that most MPV's seem to have roof boxes, while most estate cars don't, so that says to me that though MPV's may boast as many litres of boot space as their equivalent competing estate cars, not all the litres are necessarily useable. I certainly don't want to buy a big MPV only to have to use a roof box. I've spent enough weekends in my younger days carting either windsurfers or bikes on the roof of my car to know that it is a major faff.
 
ORIGINAL: sc0tty


Your comments are a bit puzzling, there is a crumple zone at the front and one at the rear I guess? but that is where the boot is, so it's not different to a hatchback car. Me and the wife sit in the front, and the two kids sit behind us!

And I can tell you there is no problem with my MPV Brakes, the car even has EBD brake distribution and brake assist too.

Was your MPV a smart car?!!
Click to expand...

I am referring to the third row of seats that are normally placed where a normal car would have a boot, you see the rear passenger's heads inches from the rear window. I am sure it is a lovely place to be if a truck is bearing down on you....

There is nowt wrong with the actual brakes, it is the increased mass and the lack of dynamic ability of the average MPV that leads it to the scene of the accident.

I did concede and allow her to have a CRV for a while, it was Ok for up to an hour from a comfort point of view and worked very well for loading up and heading for the coast/centerparcs, it was just an over-tall estate car at the end of the day. We even off-roaded it a few times!

The 730D works very well as our family car, and offers excellent handling - a boon over the winter with the cross-country route to school of 26 miles each way, twice a day. We can also hang 3 bikes on the back and put the tag-along in the boot along with a week's cr*p for a Centerparcs trip.

I will take my son up to Kiddicare in Peterborough and see if we can try their full-range of boosters to see if anything fits better than what we have. He would be safer without one, but that makes it illegal. There is a quandery, do you go the safe or the legal route....?
 
it's tricky - i think the rear seats work pretty well without boosters, so decided to go with that for the occasional journey (not that I would recommend this route to anyone else of course!). Both our kids are now over the 135cm limit, so not a problem any more

I agree completely about MPV's - horrible things. Our Legacy estate does just fine - although I do have a strange hankering for a W124 E-class...
 
I had a 2.0R Legacy on a 6 month lease a couple of years ago, cracking car, if a bit gutless after the Impreza that went before it. The handling was superb for a car that size. VBH lapped Anglesey in a 3.0R Type B less than a second slower than the Impreza STi

Is the W124 the early '90s built like a brick exterior convenience one?
 
How strange, I just clicked through to that site and thought, "I recognise that location", which is the Velodrome in Preston Park, Brighton. A few photos later I recognise the bike that I had borrowed for the day, and remember a very tidy Mercedes being photographed. Spooky.

http://w124.co.uk/actions/carsforsale.taf?page=detail&id=200679

Also, the chap who runs the bodyshop I used recently has the later variant of one of these, R Reg, and it's done 331,000 miles. He was just about to cut the alloy wheels off as the bolts have a habit of seizing into the hub he told me when I saw him last.
 
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