People Movers

[doug99]

Need to look toward a new family car - yes you can get three kids in the back of a car, but our Autistic son Kurits gets too crowded and this will only get worse. So the plan is to go toward the seven seat arrangement to give him more space, and his brother and sister some safety. Our youngest is 22 months so the car seat will be around for a while longer....

I am leaning towards Honda Oddessy or Toyota Aventsis - I have never driven large cars and these seem to have seats but not bulk. There is however a Subaru Tribeca that has caught our eye (second hand) which even though is not compact, we seem to be going back to...

Plan was for the car seat to be in the very back - but we have found out today that the anchor points for the vast majority of people movers now must be in the middle row (to do with access to retrive people in case of a rear end accident) We were going to Oscar and Anastasia in the very back, and Kurtis in the middle row, passenger side. I may just be paranoid but I am hesitating now and putting Oscar in the very back if we do get an older car....

Bascially:
Does anyone have experience with these vehicles?
Am I worrying too much about anchorage points & accidents?
Should I just buy a bus and be totally boring?

[Santaria]

For transporting our clients around we've used:

Kia Carnival:

Not too bad actually. It's only 6 seats though from memory. 2 front, 2 middle, 2 rear. They have loads of space, lots of little nooks and crannies to hide stuff in. They have a flat floor from front to back and the middle seats are easily removed and the very back seats fold down, and if memory serves me correctly, removable as well. It does however use a bit of fuel, it's turning circle is absolutely shocking, the side doors can become hard to close. Had about 270,000k on it and had no major mechanical faults.

Hyundai Trajet:

Absolutely the biggest shitbox I've ever driven without a doubt. There's no driver space, not much cabin space, the door handles break easily, it wanders all over the road. It's done 120,000k and it's had replaced: Seatbelts, brake calipers, brake booster, gearbox (auto), door handles, suspension bushes. It's heavy on fuel and the gearbox doesn't know what to do half the time.

Toyota Avensis (Current):

Great little car, it's done 20,000k. It's no where near as big as the Kia, it is a little difficult to get to the very back seats. It is a comfy ride, it drives well, fair amount of storage spaces, it's quiet and pretty good on fuel. However, it's a genuine part car, therefore there's no 3rd party spares available for this vehicle. We just had the rear window replaced (stupid staff members didn't secure a mower in the back) and it cost: $1434. That was just the window, no other damage was done.

All the vehicles have anchor points for car seats.

Personal opinion: I really like driving the Avensis, it's just a raised roofed corolla with 7 seats, but when it comes to loading 5 high needs clients into a vehicle, the Kia just did it. If it's just to create some space for your high needs lad, then the Avensis is good (good price point too). The Kia will set you back a fair bit.

Any questions, just ask mate. I'm personally investing (lol) in a Pajero for my needs in the near future.

[Big Kev]

My brother has a VW Touran. Very solid and capable people mover.

[bengatta]

if you can afford it, I would look at the VW van also... we had one in a race team a few years ago, it was a diesel version, and it was impressive.

[Exar Kun]

We don't get the Touran over here (although there was a weird stuff up recently where a few Tiguans were sold with Touran badges!). The Odyssey is considered the most car like. Not much power in recent versions (no V6) but great handling.

[Hazelb]

Im on my second CX9 and totally love everything about it.

Heaps of room, Heaps of power and heaps of comfort.

Seats 7 easily and drives like a car, sticks to the road like s**t to a blanket...

Take one for a spin, or come to Tassie and drive mine!