Considering buying a Volvo 7 seater estate

[steve lewis]

We have been blessed, albeit surprisingly, with a 4th child due some time away in October 2008.

I specialise in saab spares and am a saab nut BUT SAAB don't do a vehicle with 6/7 seats. Thus I find myself expanding my automotive collection and am considering

1 Volvo seven seater
2 Mercedes pre 1995 e class
3 Vauxhall/ford mpv .. which we don't really fancy

Any ideas guys and girls ... any advice on what to look out for would be appreciated

Steve Lewis

[Alec Dawe]

Depends a lot on your budget really.
All the Volvo 7 seat estates are good cars, from the 240 onwards, but of course the rear seats are only good for kids up to the age of about 7 or 8.
I'll get shot for saying this on this forum, but when our children were all at home, we had Ford Galaxies as company cars, one after the other, and to be honest, they were life savers for us.
The biggest advantage of the galaxy, and its clones, is the flexibility. Not a huge amount of luggage space 7 up admittedly, but with 6 up you can completely remove one of the rear seats, and then get a substantial amount of lugage in that space.
Ours were both diesels, first was the 1.9 90bhp version, which was OK, the second was the 115bhp engine which was lots better. Both would do over 40mpg. Towed a caravan all over the UK and bits of Europe with them.
Supposedly they had reliability problems, but the only non-service items I had replaced on them were track rod ends, and at about 70,000 miles on each one, not exactly excessive. No other problems at all. Not exactly a sport car, but the height and vision made overtaking possible in places you couldn't do it with a car.
I know that I'll be shot down by the rest of the Volvo forum (and I do have two Volvo estates at present!), but don't right off the Galaxy.
The zafira is too small, and the citroen/Peugeot MPV's too van like!

[JIM C]

Aa an ex MPV owner just never liked it made loads of practical sense but never settled with it and went back to anothere Volvo estate. Best Volvo estate`s we every had were our 940 turbo and the V70 T5 both had the rear seat conversion which was handy when taking Granny and Grandad out.
Best of luck Jim

[PeteV70]

Originally Posted by Alec Dawe

I know that I'll be shot down by the rest of the Volvo forum (and I do have two Volvo estates at present!), but don't right off the Galaxy.
The zafira is too small, and the citroen/Peugeot MPV's too van like!

Not at all, mate, you've gotta tell it as you see it.
We had a 240 7 seater and the kids LOVED it. Whenever we took any of their mates with us they'd be a quabble about who would sit in the rear facing seats...they ALL loved them. There are a couple of issues re; safety.
1) The seats are only suitable up to a certain weight (sorry I cannot recall what it is).
2) The 240 that I had (G reg) didn't have a middle diagonal 3 point belt in the back seat. The "lapbelt" is considered a back breaker in an accident. 900 series and maybe 700 series do I think(?)
3) Some people worry about a rear end shunt...just take a look at the back of a 240..huge aluminium "U" shaped girder for a bumper, box girders around rear facing seat footwell...little to worry about. I had a side "argument" with bus and the bus came off worse than the 240!!
4) I replaced 240 with an Espace..coz the kids were getting near the weight limit. MPV was great....just DON'T buy one with an auto box..I did, it failed..ouch!

Looking back I should have kept the 240 and just starved the kids so they'd never exceed the weight limit! Ha!

If I had my time over again I would be more than happy to put my kids in a 7 seater 240...my favourite car...although this V70 is closing in. Good luck!