Adulting time - Baby on the way

[Coowhan]

As above, been doing a lot of battling with myself but the time for a more sensible car is coming up fast Currently I'm driving something not very sensible at all, a mapped M240i running about 460bhp with a diff that my fiance absolutely hates In all honesty it is far too fast for any road to enjoy speedwise and I'm pretty sure my neighbours hate me a little more every cold start. I know I am definitely gonna miss the feeling when flooring it for sure..

Have always had performance cars and obviously will be needing something with more doors and a decent boot. Was thinking back to a hatch. Something I can throw stuff in when needed and still have some fun in from time to time. Like the idea of a Leon cupra, decent spec as standard and seems fairly good value. I used to own a megane 250 that I used to take on trackdays etc and tbh it was probably my favourite car I've owned. I remember when owning it the Leon coming out and always liking the look of them.

Imagine there is a few people been in the same situation. Any advice/recommendations? I've toyed with about 20 different cars in the past few months from diesel estates to all types of hatches and everything in between it feels like. Never owned a diesel and not sure it's for me. I am not a fan of my OH's dad's 3L A6 diesel at all really and I tend to do shorter journeys and really only about 6k miles a year anyway.

 

[Dominic-Toretto]

Audi RS3 8V? A practical 5 door hatch with a little power and reasonable running costs.

 

[tamzzy]

M340i touring

 

[SDK^]

Fiat Multipla or Ford S-Max

Failing that - a hot hatch or quick estate. You didn’t mention a budget.

- Golf R / Audi S3
- Audi S4 Avant
- BMW 335 Touring
- BMW 3 GT, hatchback version of 3 Series.
- Seat Leon Cupra R estate / hatch
- Skoda Octavia vRS estate
- Ford Focus ST estate / hatch

 

[theone8181]

Just move over to the m3, what's the problem. Just cause you have kids doesn't mean you need to go full old person, I dailyed a 911 with 2 kids for 4 years without too much problems, including when they were rear facing.

 

[paradigm]

Just move over to the m3, what's the problem. Just cause you have kids doesn't mean you need to go full old person, I dailyed a 911 with 2 kids for 4 years without too much problems, including when they were rear facing.

I semi agree. I had my S3 Saloon during the time my son was 0-3 years old, we took it on two domestic holidays and managed just fine, even without the practicality of a hatch. As he was getting older you find that you need the space for larger toys so we replaced the wife’s Polo with her Yeti plus a roof box which now deals with family outings and will continue to do so now my daughter has arrived (born last week at 7 weeks premature!). I have no immediate plans to replace my 440i convertible as for shorter family drives and day trips it’s more than big enough, and I’m happy to put up with the faff of two doors for the amount of times we’ll use it as a family of four.

So if you have the option of a more practical car to sit alongside your less practical one, I’d not necessarily jump jnto bed with a replacement just yet.

 

[iamdjdz]

M340i touring

This would be my shout. Useable (mostly) power, you could still track day it and from my experience with a 3 month old and a 320d estate you can fit everything in, although we managed with the parcel shelf cover on so M3 may be equally manageable.

 

[dlockers]

E43 here. Works really well. Saloon too so delaying the dad vibes for Uber exec vibes.

 

[fastwunz]

Golf R estate, quick, pretty rare and a decent boot - kind of ticks all the boxes really

 

[Figo]

Are you going to have 2 cars or 1?

Best thing car-wise I did was buying a 308SW as soon as our first was born.
https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/PEUGEOT-308-SW-GT-6089_9.jpg

**Do Not Hotlink Images **

Still Loadsa space for 2 now we have our second and the boot space was larger than a 5-series estate perfect for 2 prams or whatever else.

Reasonably priced, looks decent and you just know that when you or your SO is half cut on sleep deprevation there will be some some kerb rash etc and you wont feel it's a big deal because the car is there for doing the parenting job...

dunno what your budget is like but if you could squeeze in a dedicated family bus then it might mean you also get to have something nice to play around in.

 

[GinG]

Skoda Superb Estate Sportline? Can get 4x4 and 240bhp, more room that you will ever need and in my opinion looks good and goes well.

Depends if you still want quick but the 190bhp diesel is decent or could even look at their plug in hybrid.

Skoda Octavia Estate VRS? Smaller than the above but still decent spec for the money.

Source: I have 2 children, a dog and a caravan and the Superb Elegence we have is a great all round car. Its a 2015 and having owned since 6 months old, it's now at 82k miles and been faultless.

Struggling to change the car at the minute so decided to get an ID3 ordered for the second car as the Superb just does everything we need currently.

 

[Tinders]

Is it your 1st kid? problem is your mrs will go utterly loony and buy the worlds biggest pram and baby seat and the rest of the crap that goes with having kids. My kids are 8,7 and 3. This was the 1st year i could really go back to a normal car after estates and suv's. Ive now got a 3 series saloon, a roof box and a bike rack.

An Audi A3 5 DOOR HATCH sized car would be ideal for you. Most estates in this segment arent all that big, even my A4 avant wasnt that big.

 

[chroniclard]

Its your Mrs that may need something more practical for lugging the kit around. We had no issues with 2 kids in a Civic sized car.

 

[bimbleuk]

Probably won't be available soon enough but a Model Y long range (7 seat option) seems like the best compromise for a fast family car

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

when ours came along that was the end of the Mazda 6mps, the boot simply didn't have enough room for all the kid crap haha - still miss the car

Had a Ford C-Max for a couple of years and the space was awesome, moved to a ford Tourneo on a cheap lease deal, utterly terrible vehicle haha.
That bad that Ford agreed I had been mis-sold and took it back

Ended up in a Kodiaq 2.0 TSI 4x4 and love it Really missed the 7 seats from the C-Max and the cavelike space
Had the 7 seats not been a deal breaker then Id have 100% been in a Superb or Octavia Estate they look awesome, potentially a Mazda 6 as I still have a soft spot for them.

As it stood I wasn't overly sold on any of the EV options due to the lacking range, already have a charge port from when the gov was fitting the bill.
I reckon I'll be in this Kodiaq until a nice Skoda EV comes up with decent range and will then chop it in.

If yer purely after summit cheap...
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ssangyong-tivoli-xlv-ultimate-ps16395-ps3750-off-3700967

 

[inflames]

Is it your 1st kid? problem is your mrs will go utterly loony and buy the worlds biggest pram and baby seat and the rest of the crap that goes with having kids. My kids are 8,7 and 3. This was the 1st year i could really go back to a normal car after estates and suv's. Ive now got a 3 series saloon, a roof box and a bike rack.

An Audi A3 5 DOOR HATCH sized car would be ideal for you. Most estates in this segment arent all that big, even my A4 avant wasnt that big.

I agree with you here, your other half will most like buy the biggest pram and car seat. The car seat rules have also changed over the years, so that they have to remain rear facing for longer. So you also have to take that into consideration.
On a 3 series touring, I went down this road myself with after we had our first. I always found the boot to to small and the pram would fill it very quickly and then I would just fill the gaps with what ever shopping we had done.
Personally I would go for something a little bigger, 5 series size. The biggest issue here most these sized estates tend to be diesel. What’s your budget anyway?

 

[ttaskmaster]

Perhaps look first at what car seat you want for the child, and then look at what cars it will fit in.
For example - The Joie 360 is an excellent choice but it's very long, so if you have an Octavia and need the front seats quite far back, the baby seat won't fit. That was a few hundred quid almost wasted.

 

[Simon]

Just move over to the m3, what's the problem. Just cause you have kids doesn't mean you need to go full old person, I dailyed a 911 with 2 kids for 4 years without too much problems, including when they were rear facing.

agree you could even get a M4. Easy to post the baby seat thru the door.

I got my E92 as all I needed was a rear seat over the s2000. The E92 boot is massive too. People do seem to buy a los of stuff though and obviously prams seem to be a way to show how rich you are by getting all these silly modular things. I just got some second hand one for £200

 

[lordrobs]

Congratulations on the pending arrival! I always read these threads with interest these days as we are expecting a baby in July and I'm not sure how my wife is going to find it with her Polo. Future family trips shouldn't be an issue as I get issued an estate as a company car.

My main concern is car number 3, my mk1 MX5. I was all set to sell it but decided I'd keep it and just go out to a club meet occasionally or take it for a run on my own. The hysterical laughing from my parent work colleagues tells me that might not be realistic...

May as well keep hold of it until we sort a new house now. If that has a double garage I'll keep hold of it, if not I'll move it on.

 

[adam cool dude]

Honestly if your BMW has isofix just keep it. You can get plenty of prams that fold into small spaces. Plus our baby seat doubled as a travel cot so could mount it to the pram so the only thing that needed to go in the boot was the pram frame itself and maybe a small bag.

Sure it's a piece of pie just chucking everything in the back of my Saab Estate but doesn't mean you need to buy a specific car just for a baby. People tend to waste so much money of rubbish they don't even need. I bought a bottle warmer that I used maybe once and that was for my cup of tea! It was also my second child so I should have known better!