Family cars....

[Old Greg]

Are you high? They are minging looking!!

And you wake up next to Churchy every day!!

We drive around in a Peugeot 5008, which is great if you want plenty of space and don't care what it looks like.

[bobspud]

We are looking for a new family toy to replace the disco3. Unfortunately the fact is there are no real 5 seat cars any more because the EU set the standard to ban bench seats in the rear of new cars a while back. The xc70 gets close but the reviews suck.

You are stuck with mini vans or git panza's now

That said the new S-class is flipping awesome if it wasn't for the need to move a large dog as part of the family I'd go for one of them.

Screw driving cheap shiite cars.

[PurpleGorilla]

Mk 3 Skoda Octavia vRS estate tdi ticks all the boxes IMHO.

[sasguru]

Mk 3 Skoda Octavia vRS estate tdi ticks all the boxes IMHO.

There's an echo in here ........
But true enough, although I would go for the petrol version in this case - its the Golf GTI engine and it's a gem

[lukemg]

Lot of people end up in this zone and try to find a solution. I just couldn't face a 'people carrier' so went 4x4 and I love it.
I suspect a lot of people do the same, nice high driving position and you barrel along at the speed of traffic quite happily and plenty of room for all the gear + kids.

Tiguan, Q5, Kuga, CR-V, Freelander, X3.
My freelander is slow, thirsty and apparently unreliable (fine so far) but I really like it, prob look at a Q5 next.

[Mich the Tester]

Screw driving cheap shiite cars.

I agree, but here in Clogland we pay income tax at 52% over 25% of the catalogue price of a company car, every year, even if it's turning into an old banger. The catalogue price in NL is already more than half tax, given 42% car sales tax and 21% VAT (although the VAT can be recovered for company cars). That means an S class is going to cost me at least 12,500 euros of extra income tax, even if I buy one that's 10 years old. The exception is cars that are over 15 years old, where we pay income tax based on 35% of the day value; the result of this act of genius is that many contractors drive 15 year old luxury cars with 4 or 5 litre engines, like the 7 series, S class, or in my case a 19 year old Daimler Six (Jaguar XJ6), and we cheerfully pump whole oil wells of petrol into them because that reduces our income, thereby reducing our income tax. Of course, I pay about 70% tax at the pump but at least I get some fun in return.

Of course, you can go for the eco-friendly electric cars or for me preferably hybrids, but the starting prices are astronomical and you then pay I think 14% income tax on them, or 0 for 100% electric cars, which are not yet practical in many people's cases.

If anybody in the Hague actually gave a tulip about the environment instead of just fleecing us all for wheelbarrows full of money to keep the 1,000,000+ government apparatus living in comfort, there'd be no VAT, no car sales tax and no income tax on hybrids and electric cars. But they don't, so I'll stick with my old gas guzzler for now.

[sasguru]

Lot of people end up in this zone and try to find a solution. I just couldn't face a 'people carrier' so went 4x4 and I love it.
I suspect a lot of people do the same, nice high driving position and you barrel along at the speed of traffic quite happily and plenty of room for all the gear + kids.

Tiguan, Q5, Kuga, CR-V, Freelander, X3.
My freelander is slow, thirsty and apparently unreliable (fine so far) but I really like it, prob look at a Q5 next.

SUVs/4x4s have 3 problems as a family car :

1) Handling is poor, even if they have all the electronics, you still wallow about - this is true even of a Range rover (compared to a low-down, planted car).
2) US stats suggest that in an accident SUVs are more likely to turn over due to a higher centre of gravity - they don't keep stats here on type of car AFAIK.
3) For all their size, they don't have much boot space generally

I'd rather get a sporty estate/shooting brake any day. More practical and depending on which estate, a better drive than any SUV.

Quite apart from the fact that you look like a complete cock driving an SUV in an urban environment.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

wow quite a lot of posts on here since I last checked!

aside from the entertaining humour you would expect in General, some excellent points made.

I was wanting to do the impossible - big car + economical. I am thinking to adopt an approach another poster mentioned earlier. When current car of Mrs NWP2C dies we will replace it with a nice big SUV (Q7/X5 most likely). I will replace my current car with something that continues to make large amounts of profit for my business and me personally (through mileage). Current car is costing me 20p/mile to run and I am claiming 45p/mile for most of the year. Perhaps getting a low mileage older BMW diesel (under 8k) would make more sense and then keep the money for the eventual large SUV in a year or two......

[sasguru]

wow quite a lot of posts on here since I last checked!

aside from the entertaining humour you would expect in General, some excellent points made.

I was wanting to do the impossible - big car + economical. I am thinking to adopt an approach another poster mentioned earlier. When current car of Mrs NWP2C dies we will replace it with a nice big SUV (Q7/X5 most likely). I will replace my current car with something that continues to make large amounts of profit for my business and me personally (through mileage). Current car is costing me 20p/mile to run and I am claiming 45p/mile for most of the year. Perhaps getting a low mileage older BMW diesel (under 8k) would make more sense and then keep the money for the eventual large SUV in a year or two......

So you lied then, you're not really looking for low costs at all.
Quite the opposite, you want to pay out oodles of cash on maintaining 2 expensive cars, one because it's big, German and expensive and the other because its old, German and expensive.

Why didn't you say so in the first place, FFS?

the definition of a chav: someone who pays more on maintaining his depreciating motors than his appreciating house

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

So you lied then, you're not really looking for low costs at all.
Quite the opposite, you want to pay out oodles of cash on maintaining 2 expensive cars, one because it's big, German and expensive and the other because its old, German and expensive.

Why didn't you say so in the first place, FFS?

the definition of a chav: someone who pays more on maintaining his depreciating motors than his appreciating house

To be fare I have been very frugal in my first 4 years of contracting - firstly saving to buy a house, secondly sticking with initially 1 and then 2 cheap cars.... The expensive SUV won't cost much as the whole idea is it is a local car and for weekends. The other car will be low mileage and cheaper to maintain than a high mileage BMW. Surely you got it a bit wrong there SAS?