Babies ≠ MPV

[[TW]Fox]

The only purpose they serve is to show other Men that you have had your balls cut off.
Real Men buy Estates if they need a family car & they buy an RS4 or summit.
Then you have no problem with the dog as he is permanently Nailed to the back window.

to be fair an MPV is no worse than a diesel Polo. Infact given the choice I would rather a Ford Smax! Not sure what that makes men in Polos if real men have an RS4

 

[Wicksta]

Kids are Never going to get Tuff all strapped in safe are they, Just sling them in the back with the dog & let them fight for space whilst they try to stop themselves being Flung into the rear window every time you boot it.
Kids these days are far to soft.

I can actually remember lying down on the parcel shelf in our mk2 Escort as a kid and later on traveling in the back of my dad's work flatbed van/pickup thing.

 

[Dogbreath]

The only Men that buy people carriers are men that are Dominated by there women, Fact.

Or, <gasp> possibly ones that have several sprogs and/or older people to transport?

Yes they are soulless methods of transporting stuff around and in no way designed to evoke any sense of driving pleasure. They are, as Fox likes to say, the equivalent of a washing machine. However, they fulfil a role in the same way that Transit vans and milk floats do.

We sometimes get MPVs as hire cars at work if there are several people travelling instead of a Mondeo etc*. If I am driving I'd much rather have the Mondeo, but as a passenger give me the MPV any time.




*apart from my recent trip to China where three of us + 2 weeks worth of luggage were expected to drive up to Heathrow in a 3 door Astra SRi. Without doubt the single most uncomfortable car I have ever had the misfortune to sit in. How did Vauxhall ever sell any of these mouldering piles of crap?

 

[4T5]

I would rather some Smax!

You just don't get the joke do you.
Never mind I am sure you are used to being the Odd one out.

I can actually remember lying down on the parcel shelf in our mk2 Escort as a kid and later on traveling in the back of my dad's work flatbed van/pickup thing.

I did the same in an old E-Type Jag when I was around 8 with my mate layed next to me, I literally had my chin on the drivers left shoulder it was Awesome.

?

It is a Joke mate.

 

[[TW]Fox]

The only purpose they serve is to show other Men that you have had your balls cut off.
Real Men buy Estates if they need a family car & they buy an RS4 or summit.
Then you have no problem with the dog as he is permanently Nailed to the back window.

doh double post

 

[monkey_boy]

I dont want to turn your post on its head but many families have to make huge compromises when babies come along and ending up with an x5 is not a realistic cost option or even the ability to change car.

It's a fair comment. I'm assuming you're aiming that at my 'why make do' statement. If so, that was aimed at when people are recommended coupes when they're looking at buying a new car and then told they'll be able to 'get by'. My point is that if you're buying a new car, why not make your life easier. And the idea behind the post title is that to make your life easier, you don't have to have an MPV. As Malc has said, you could buy an RS4 Avant rather than an M3 but you'd still be making your life easier by having 4 doors and an accesible boot.

Is it true that Isofix is purely a convenience thing and offers zero safety benefits over conventional seat mounting solutions?

Yes that's true. The only safety benefit is that because it just clicks in and has a visual confirmation that it's secure you're less likely to mis-fit it.

Also, dont forget that an ISOFIX system is going to totally ruin your leather seats if you have them

I find that because you're not moving the base around, and it has a flat bottom, it doesn't so much as crease your leather

Im an estate man myself, I think ended up with a 4x4 over a MPV is even more overkill tbh

MPVs don't tend to come in luxury (possibly excepting the S-Max Titanium and Renault Grande Espace) so I don't feel to hard done by with a 4x4
If we didn't get such a good deal on the X5 I think we would have ended up with either a Passat or A6 if we could stretch the budget for a nice one.

 

[Cyanide]

Another X5 for the school run then

 

[Skidder]

news of second baby on way got me out of my navara and into a 5 series touring - a move i have no regrets about (we have two dogs hence the touring bit)

no need to have some nasty van just because you have a family but if you are a prolific breeder perhaps building up a clan to scam the benefits system or whatever it is that makes people want more than two children, perhaps an MPV is a good idea

 

[Jonny69]

I do find it amusing how concerned people are about safety. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's your right to be concerned, but we're also too quick to forget that many of us were carted about in the back of Mini Metros with no seatbelts at all. Yup, was in a three car shunt in one of them that nearly wrote the car off and nobody was hurt more than a bit of crying.

Having said that, I'm all for belting kids in securely and things like ISOFix are awesome and can be retro fitted to old cars if you know what you're doing.

My personal opinion is that an MPV would be much more practical than a 4x4 any day. The floor is lower, it turns into a van, it's got height, massive boot and most importantly it's an excuse to have a second much more fun car in the garage

 

[LizardKing]

It's a fair comment. I'm assuming you're aiming that at my 'why make do' statement. If so, that was aimed at when people are recommended coupes when they're looking at buying a new car and then told they'll be able to 'get by'. My point is that if you're buying a new car, why not make your life easier. And the idea behind the post title is that to make your life easier, you don't have to have an MPV. As Malc has said, you could buy an RS4 Avant rather than an M3 but you'd still be making your life easier by having 4 doors and an accesible boot.
.

Your making do with a MPV, realistically a baby will spend VERY little time in any car unless you go on holiday every weekend so why make do with a MPV 90% of the time, it makes no sense in having a car that will increase outgoings, money that could be spent on the baby.

 

[Cuchulain]

Now I've got a handful of kids I'm tempted by an MPV once I dump the vectra next year, wife has no say in it as anything bigger than a Ford Ka is "too big, I can't park it" territory for her so I can take my pick, sorely tempted by a Zafira VXR but will probably go for an S-Max.

 

[Bar]

Unless you need 6 seats you shouldn't really need to go the extremes of an MPV. Until our latest came along we were more than comfortable in a Mazda 6 estate. It had the power that I wanted and I loved the handling. It also had buckets of space and gave everything we asked of it.

Baby number 4 however meant that we were solidly in the world of MPVs. We had a simple set of criteria:

Must have individual seats (no bench seats)
Must have sliding doors (a god send in any car park)
Must have a reasonable boot (harder than you may think to find)

We ended up with a 2.5 litre Mazda MPV automatic Jap import. Its got leather seats all round and to be honest its perfect for our needs. Yes its not the most powerful car in the world and you cant throw it around corners. But with 4 young kids do you really want to be driving like that?

 

[monkey_boy]

Your making do with a MPV, realistically a baby will spend VERY little time in any car unless you go on holiday every weekend so why make do with a MPV 90% of the time, it makes no sense in having a car that will increase outgoings, money that could be spent on the baby.

Wow, both your posts seem to suggest I have an MPV. You know an X5 isn't an MPV right?

 

[Diesel]

Can't we relegate posts about Isofix, babyseats and MPV's to the Mother & Baby subforum or something!

 

[LizardKing]

Wow, both your posts seem to suggest I have an MPV. You know an X5 isn't an MPV right?

SUV, MPV pretty much the same thing

 

[melbourne720]

Good OP, worth putting a bit about rear-facing car seats. IN Scandanavian countries, they keep them rear facing till 25kg.

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/facts.php

Children in Sweden are extremely unlikely to die in car accidents. Between July 2006 and November 2007 not a single child under the age of 6 years old was killed in a car crash in Sweden (Source: VTI Sweden). According to the AA’s website, 205 children are injured in car crashes in the UK every year and 21 are killed.

 

[monkey_boy]

Good OP, worth putting a bit about rear-facing car seats. IN Scandanavian countries, they keep them rear facing till 25kg.

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/facts.php

Children in Sweden are extremely unlikely to die in car accidents. Between July 2006 and November 2007 not a single child under the age of 6 years old was killed in a car crash in Sweden (Source: VTI Sweden). According to the AA’s website, 205 children are injured in car crashes in the UK every year and 21 are killed.

I was about to put something in about rear facing car seats, but then I realised that all Group 0+ car seats are rear facing and I know sod all about the other groups .