Venturing into the unknown: best car for twins?

[SpookiePookie]

Hello,

So, the wife and I got the shock of our lives two weeks ago when we found out that we were expecting twins! We knew she was pregnant and I was considering changing my car anyway, so I had been researching a suitable car and was set on either a Focus, Mazda3 or Civic.

We have also just moved house and our mortgage is three times what it was before. I've gone from being pretty well-off to a bit poorer, and then from almost broke to really screwed in the space of a couple of months! It's true that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. There's a pretty good chance that it won't make any sense for her to go back to work, so it'll just be my salary for the next couple of years - whatever I buy I have I am stuck with.

Twins dramatically changes things. It has reduced my budget and may impact the kind of cars I should be looking at. It will be quite different to just having two children as we'll need to think about transporting double buggies and twice and much stuff when we go away.

I am currently driving a 57 BMW320i that I won't be sorry to see the back of. It's actually quite impractical (no folding seats) and the ride is way too hard. The roads are an absolute state where I live and the wife moans about it being uncomfortable. I think I'll get around £3500 trade in and will be looking to top it up and spend a total of around £5000. I might be able to push it more and it seems that £6000 gets you a much better car.

My requirements are: 5-6k, very reliable, reasonable running costs, petrol ( I do around 12-14k a year) no longer than my current car (I can only just squeeze into my garage), good ride, comfortable over distance and excellent boot space. I don't care about badge prestige and would be actively looking to avoid BMW again.

The car that's really jumping out at me right now is the Qashqai. Specifically the 1.6 petrol. The 2.0 petrol is going to be a bit juicy and the diesels are not going to mix well with how I plan to use the car.

Another thought (I've not checked the size) is a Zafira. You get an awful lot more car for your money with these, although I've hated every Vauxhall I've ever driven (yawn).

So my questions are:

Will the Nissan QQ be a safe bet, assuming I can find one with its history and has been well-maintained? On the face of it, it looks like a good option if I can get one with good history and already done things like the cambelt and clutch Does anyone with twins have experience of this car?

Am I over doing it? Will something smaller be ok? It looks like I can get a really nice Focus and have change from my budget.

These cars have been the focus so far because they are quite common and you can afford to be fussy. Am I overlooking any other obvious options?

[OldGermanHeaps]

Smax, galaxy, altea xl, golf plus, sportage, i30 all better than a zafira at that price imo. Quashqai is surprisingly cramped and you'll struggle with a double buggy and a weeks shopping in the boot, nice interior bu much smaller than they look from outside.
Also don't discount diesel, pre dpf diesels don't mind lots of short trips and tend to be cheaper to fix.

[ZX10R NIN]

I'd say a Mazda 5 in Sport trim is the way to go, with electric sliding doors & good boot space as well as a load of other kit they represent good value for money. Don't go for the smaller engine you work iy harder & end up using the same amount of fuel as the 2.0.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2017...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2016...

[white_goodman]

Congratulations! Sounds like you need an estate and why not stick with your choices (Focus and Civic). Other options would be a Golf, C-Class or Volvo V50 maybe? When our eldest was born, I had a Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon which was great. Plenty of room for baby paraphernalia, comfortable and yet still fast and fun to drive. A Forester/Legacy Estate would have a bit more cabin/boot space though. Unfortunately, my job changed and involved a longer commute, so I replaced it with a C-Class diesel estate, which was huge and comfortable but not quite as fun. We had a few issues with that being an older car, so it was replaced with a brand new saloon, which we had for a couple of years when my youngest was a baby. It wasn't ideal but we did OK. Now the family car is a Chrysler Grand Voyager. It's huge and the space is a real luxury. My wife wanted extra seats because our nephews live nearby and sometimes she looks after them for the day and doesn't want to be stuck at home and my parents live abroad, so we can all travel together when they are over. We like it but it is huge and although decent enough, not a fun drive. If you don't need extra seats, then an estate is the best all-rounder in my opinion. Nothing wrong with a Quashquai but the boot isn't that huge. Would be a perfectly decent choice once you can ditch the baby gear though. Hope that helps and good luck.

[SpookiePookie]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. The Mazda5 looks like a pretty good choice. One thing I can consider is going for a bigger car and getting a permit for the next street and not using my garage. That wouldn't be ideal, but does make estates and 7 seaters possible.

My big concern is reliability and running costs (as well as space!). My BMW really drinks on short trips and my route to work is country roads - I really need to improve this situation! I've still got the luxury of a few months to sort this out.

Edited by SpookiePookie on Saturday 18th March 09:02

[SpookiePookie]

white_goodman said:

Congratulations! Sounds like you need an estate and why not stick with your choices (Focus and Civic). Other options would be a Golf, C-Class or Volvo V50 maybe? When our eldest was born, I had a Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon which was great. Plenty of room for baby paraphernalia, comfortable and yet still fast and fun to drive. A Forester/Legacy Estate would have a bit more cabin/boot space though.

Would a Focus or Civic be up to the job? They are appealing because you can get a lot of car for the money and would be way cheaper to run than an MPV. I've always fancied an Impreza - I'll investigate 🙂

[OldGermanHeaps]

You can make do with a smaller car, but it is harder, you'll be surprised at how much ste you end up dragging atound with you more often than you expect, and the bigger doors are better on your back once they get a bit heavier and into the. Bigger car seats. At that price point my choice would be an smax, they are a surprisingly good drive, they handle better than something that size has any right to, nice interior, huuuuuge boot and easy on fuel and a supple ride, plus the extra seats come in handy occasionally.

[ZX10R NIN]

Space will be your biggest problem with Civic/Focus Estates they just won't accommodate all the gear you'll end up taking with you.

Also a bigger car means more fuel, real world the Mazda in petrol form will do 23mpg around town, the diesel will be around 34mpg I'd say you're on the borderline for a diesel plus the extra torque will make it an easier drive while you've got the time I'd get the buggy you want & then visit some dealers & checkout how well they accommodate it.

Congratulations by the way.

Here's a diesel Mazda5

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2017...

[DSLiverpool]

We have twins now 7 it went
Dodge nitro
Murano
Zoe
Ioniq due in a week
Nitro was excellent for them

[Smithy99]

Congratulations. As a father of twins for nearly six years now, and a lover of cars. I have some experience in this matter.

First up the smaller they are the more stuff *2! We were given a double buggy - these are not small - so able to test in various cars. I was really hoping a Octavia VRS would work - it didn't. Put the buggy in - no room for anything else.

We ended up with a Zafira, the boot was epic and did a sterling job for 5 years. It was awful to drive with no power but I still had my Leon to drive, so do not too painful. Last year we changed to a Qashqai as baggage is now so much less - much more fun.

Get a zafira for a few years, they are cheap and do a job.

Finally you will be so knackered you won't even know what you are driving for the next two years anyway!

[SpookiePookie]

Thanks again everyone. The Altea XL also looks like a decent shout and I think the 1.9 diesel doesn't have a DPF, so maybe it would work for me. Only trouble with this and the Zafira or S Max is that they wouldn't fit in my garage! I think I could live with that, but the wife will give me grief after making such a fuss about getting one. Whoops!

So is the consensus that the QQ just wouldn't work at all? I've been trying to convince myself that it's the right car and balance cost, convenience, ride and actually fits in my garage. Maybe I'm just plain wrong

I'm now going to expand my search and consider a couple of diesels. We might need to consider moving up north in a couple of years, and if that happens then I'll be a lot bloody richer. I would then buy the dream (Grand Cherokee for the family and 350z for me). Until then, I'll keep up the search.

• edit: actually having just bothered to look up sizes it seems as if the Altea is actually shorter than my 3 series. Who knew?

Edited by SpookiePookie on Saturday 18th March 18:43

[OldGermanHeaps]

Altea xl is great, we have had one 4 years, and it has been great. Aircon sensor failed, stuck caliper and thats it for non remap related failures, popped a diff bearing from a hairy remap but keep it standard and it should be good. The torque and increased rev ceiling of the remap is worth a £200 repair every now and then though. 2.0 bkd is non dpf also and has a lot more poke and tuning potential than the 1.9 and doesn't have the dicky oil pump drive the audi and vw variants have. Boot space is great, bigger than an x5. Handles nice too. Its the longest we have ever held on to a car, we keep looking at others but never find anything we like as much for up to £13k. Going to wait until the new shap s max comes down a bit.

[white_goodman]

SpookiePookie said:

Would a Focus or Civic be up to the job? They are appealing because you can get a lot of car for the money and would be way cheaper to run than an MPV. I've always fancied an Impreza - I'll investigate ??

Ok. As someone else suggested, I would buy the double buggy and car seats before you get the car. Stick the buggy in the boot and see how much room you have left for other stuff. Put the seats in rear-facing and see how easy they are to put in and whether you can sit comfortably in the front without the child seats touching the back of the front seats. I think that a Focus/Civic Estate may well be fine for twins, our old '99 C-Class Estate certainly would have had plenty of room or maybe go up a class size (Mondeo, Passat, Mazda 6 etc, although the newer Golf estates are now a decent size) but then it would probably be too long for the garage. Think of the Impreza as more of a big hatch than an estate but a Forester or Legacy would be fine. The flat 4 engines are tough but not the most reliable though. How about a big hatch, like a Mondeo, Octavia, Insignia etc? We had our saloon when our second child was born and were living in Canada at the time, where estate models are rare. It was a Toyota Corolla saloon, which for a smallish car had a nice deep boot and decent space in the back i.e. with the seats rear-facing, we could sit in the front comfortably without the child seats touching the back of the front seats. Conversely, our second choice, a Honda Civic saloon, a car that I later owned would have been useless in this respect, so I'm glad that we chose the Toyota. However, if Ford offered a Focus Estate out there, I would have chosen one of them every time for the extra boot space.

It depends what you want. Something that's still fairly fun to drive, in which case get an estate or ultimate practicality and maybe extra seats, in which case maybe an MPV. In all but the biggest MPVs, the additional running costs would be negligible i.e. Astra vs. Zafira, hardly any difference. Will you ever need to seat an extra adult between the two child seats, as this is where a lot of smaller cars fall down, as they don't have the width to make this possible. Many MPVs have three individual rear seats, so are better in this respect. Personally, I wouldn't get an Altea, as friends of mine had Seats (2003 Leon and 2007 Altea) and experienced lots of niggly problems and crap dealer service but that's only anecdotal, others have decent experiences of Seats but it put both of them off the brand and they now drive Fords and Suzukis. The latest (Zafira Tourer?) looks OK but the older ones have had some issues of bursting into flames, so I wouldn't put my family in one. Your BMW being a saloon is quite long for the space that it offers, so you might find that an estate or small MPV would still fit in your garage. I would also recommend a VW Touran (TDI or 1.4 TSI) or maybe a Skoda Yeti (look quite funky but maybe not quite as practical as the Touran)? Our Grand Voyager is a big old bus though (17 feet long), so I probably wouldn't recommend it but if you want to transport 6/7 and their luggage, it's one of the few options out there and she likes it. A Qashquai would be a nicer drive and cheaper to run but I think the boot might be a bit small for you initially.

Good choice on the dream garage! We had a 2001 Grand Cherokee when we were in Canada and I loved it apart from the reliability. My brother-in-law had the new-style one though (2011) and didn't have any problems, so I would still have another one day. I like the 350Z too but they're getting on a bit now, so maybe a Cayman S instead.