Largish MPVs you can easily chuck a bike into
Discussion
Wondering what 6 or 7 seater cars can you chuck a bike (or couple of bikes perhaps) without having to remove their wheels or rotate steering bar, yet still allow at least one passenger in the middle row? Needs a bit of height so regular estates are no go, and almost all are 5 seaters anyways. When carrying bikes wouldn't need more than three seats but occasionally need to carry six in the car (though not at the same time as any bikes!.
The ones I've been thinking about include
- Galaxy and Sharan, fold flat middle and back row seats but a bit tight with a couple of bikes in and someone in a middle row seat,
- Chrysler Grand Voyager, Citroen C8, Merc Viano all seem a bit longer but it's unclear what happens with the seats or how much they would get in the way, plus all these are getting on a bit now and reliability might become an issue sooner rather than later,
- Japanese grey imports, particularly thinking Estima, Alphard and Elgrand. But every one seems to have a different seating arrangement and it's impossible to judge from ads if you can fold the seats away sufficiently to fit any bikes easily. The back row of the Estima seems to fold into the floor right down to cabin floor level due to a boot depression near the tailgate, which is neat, but not much good for bikes unless one of the middle row seats can be compacted enough. The old Ford Tourneo and other similar van based MPVs is out being only a five seater, the new one with seven seats is outside the budget limit (say £15k).
Am I missing any obvious candidates?
The ones I've been thinking about include
- Galaxy and Sharan, fold flat middle and back row seats but a bit tight with a couple of bikes in and someone in a middle row seat,
- Chrysler Grand Voyager, Citroen C8, Merc Viano all seem a bit longer but it's unclear what happens with the seats or how much they would get in the way, plus all these are getting on a bit now and reliability might become an issue sooner rather than later,
- Japanese grey imports, particularly thinking Estima, Alphard and Elgrand. But every one seems to have a different seating arrangement and it's impossible to judge from ads if you can fold the seats away sufficiently to fit any bikes easily. The back row of the Estima seems to fold into the floor right down to cabin floor level due to a boot depression near the tailgate, which is neat, but not much good for bikes unless one of the middle row seats can be compacted enough. The old Ford Tourneo and other similar van based MPVs is out being only a five seater, the new one with seven seats is outside the budget limit (say £15k).
Am I missing any obvious candidates?
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