Post by Martin on Jun 15, 2020 14:03:23 GMT
As I've mentioned already, fitting a child seat and two adult sized teenage boys (eldest is 6'3, youngest is catching him quickly) in the back of the BMW is proving to be a challenge. It's just about OK for very short journeys with the baby in the small (group 0+) car seat, but it's tight and he's just not as comfortable in it as he in in his bigger seat and the older two are a bit squashed (they are used to being spoilt for comfort....). I tried the middle seat out and headroom will be an issue soon as my head touches the roof and the middle seat is pretty uncomfortable. It's not physically possible to get them in with the larger car seat that should see him through the next 3 years or so. The iSize car seats are great from a a safety perspective as they're properly tested for side impact protection, but because of that they're really wide and as they sit right in the centre of the seat they take up quite a bit more space than an adult would.
I can't say the thought of getting a family truck/bus filled me with any sort of joy, but my thinking was to shuffle the budgets a bit and help that along by taking the annual mileage down to around 15k which should cover family duties and occasional work use easily. That means there would still be a reasonably budget to keep the other car interesting, quick and good to drive. The one thing Lindsay was clear on was that we'd have to continue to have something good to drive. I love driving the Golf and twice a month I do a 3.5-4 hour journey in it to drop the kids home, so I know what it will be like using it a lot more for work. It's just over a month off its second Birthday and feels wrong to change that right away, so the plan would be to keep it for a year or so and probably put another 20-22k miles on. The budget shuffling part isn't going to work, because I've ended up looking at things that even with the reduced mileage will cost about the same over 3 years as the BMW....but I'll cross that bridge next year.
Having had a good look at a few options and test driven a couple on Fri/Sat, my thoughts are
1) I knew it would be really difficult to replace the 750. The biggest problem is most suitable cars (vehicles?) feel like a step down/backwards and that's difficult for me to get my head around, as for years I've felt like every new car has been a big improvement over the old one and I have been excited to change. First world problems I know, but I felt a bit fed up when I got home on Friday.
2) I can kind of see the point of Fast SUVs when it's your only car, but they just don't quite make sense to me. I'm sure you'd get used to driving one, but the economy is eye watering (teens mpg at best) and you don't get the comfort you'd expect from a large SUV
3) Most SUVs aren't really that much wider than my car across the back seat, but the headroom on the middle seat is a lot better which will help a lot. To get all 5 of us in comfortably, you really need a 7 seater, which means you don't have much luggage space even with one of the rearmost seats folded. A roof box is a non starter for me....I'd rather take 2 cars on holiday/weekends away!
4) Most of the potentially suitable options are not attractive (imo)
Couple of the cars we looked at:
- SQ7 Vorsprung. Would have to be new to get the latest interior and there aren't any registered ones available, but there are a surprising amount of unregistered ones. That makes it a bit more than I'd want to spend (they are £85k), but the residuals are good which helps. It's an ugly thing though and it failed the 3 across the middle row test, so one of the rear seats would have to be used and I wasn't a huge fan of the interior either. I didn't drive it.
- Cayenne Turbo. My local dealer has a black one, they've just increased the price by £3k but it was still in budget. Big boot and would just about work in the back, but it is a bit tight. I couldn't resist a drive and it's a really impressive thing. This one has PDCC (active anti roll) and rear wheel steering and it does drive well (steering and corner speed great, ride less so) and goes incredibly well.... it's much quicker than mine. Fuel consumption was terrible even when driving sedately along the A43, which isn't enough on its own to put me off, but I don't use all the performance in mine often enough (even less now), then there's the crazy cost of replacing pads/discs, I didn't like the exterior colour or the dark grey interior and the rear seat is still a bit too tight. It's a car that I thought I would definately want to buy, but when I reflected in it properly, I didn't.
- X5 M50d. I spent a week with a X5 and it felt great getting back in mine, so I didn't go into it with high hopes. The M50d will be a lot faster than the 30d, but it will still drive the same. Space was on a par with the Cayenne, so not ideal and even with Full Merino leather (so lower dash in leather, which the optional leather dash doesn't give you) and a huge number of options (£25k worth) I couldn't get excited about it. I really don't like the instruments, the controls around the gear selector/iDrive all feel very cheap, the rear seats aren't adjustable and I know I won't be completely happy with the way it drives. It was a decent deal though, registered in March 2020 with a list price of £100k (discounted would be £85k) and they wanted £71k.
- X7 M50d. In many ways, the ideal family truck. The only downsides in terms of practicality are that (like the Q7) you'd have to use one of the rearmost seats on anything other than short journeys, when you fold the seats down you're storing luggage in a passenger compartment and it's a really long car.....5.2m! It feels like a nice step up from an X5 and the 6 month or so old cars are very well specced, from what I've read / watched, it's supposed to drive better than the X5, but it still has the instruments and cheap area around the gear selector which does spoil it a bit. However and it's a big one.....it's such an ugly thing. I'm starting to get used to the grille (a bit), but I just couldn't spend that much on something I don't like the look of. Lindsay was very understanding, she was positive about the interior and the practicality, but admitted to being relieved when I said I hated the way it looks!
Part 2 to follow....I need to go on a call!
I can't say the thought of getting a family truck/bus filled me with any sort of joy, but my thinking was to shuffle the budgets a bit and help that along by taking the annual mileage down to around 15k which should cover family duties and occasional work use easily. That means there would still be a reasonably budget to keep the other car interesting, quick and good to drive. The one thing Lindsay was clear on was that we'd have to continue to have something good to drive. I love driving the Golf and twice a month I do a 3.5-4 hour journey in it to drop the kids home, so I know what it will be like using it a lot more for work. It's just over a month off its second Birthday and feels wrong to change that right away, so the plan would be to keep it for a year or so and probably put another 20-22k miles on. The budget shuffling part isn't going to work, because I've ended up looking at things that even with the reduced mileage will cost about the same over 3 years as the BMW....but I'll cross that bridge next year.
Having had a good look at a few options and test driven a couple on Fri/Sat, my thoughts are
1) I knew it would be really difficult to replace the 750. The biggest problem is most suitable cars (vehicles?) feel like a step down/backwards and that's difficult for me to get my head around, as for years I've felt like every new car has been a big improvement over the old one and I have been excited to change. First world problems I know, but I felt a bit fed up when I got home on Friday.
2) I can kind of see the point of Fast SUVs when it's your only car, but they just don't quite make sense to me. I'm sure you'd get used to driving one, but the economy is eye watering (teens mpg at best) and you don't get the comfort you'd expect from a large SUV
3) Most SUVs aren't really that much wider than my car across the back seat, but the headroom on the middle seat is a lot better which will help a lot. To get all 5 of us in comfortably, you really need a 7 seater, which means you don't have much luggage space even with one of the rearmost seats folded. A roof box is a non starter for me....I'd rather take 2 cars on holiday/weekends away!
4) Most of the potentially suitable options are not attractive (imo)
Couple of the cars we looked at:
- SQ7 Vorsprung. Would have to be new to get the latest interior and there aren't any registered ones available, but there are a surprising amount of unregistered ones. That makes it a bit more than I'd want to spend (they are £85k), but the residuals are good which helps. It's an ugly thing though and it failed the 3 across the middle row test, so one of the rear seats would have to be used and I wasn't a huge fan of the interior either. I didn't drive it.
- Cayenne Turbo. My local dealer has a black one, they've just increased the price by £3k but it was still in budget. Big boot and would just about work in the back, but it is a bit tight. I couldn't resist a drive and it's a really impressive thing. This one has PDCC (active anti roll) and rear wheel steering and it does drive well (steering and corner speed great, ride less so) and goes incredibly well.... it's much quicker than mine. Fuel consumption was terrible even when driving sedately along the A43, which isn't enough on its own to put me off, but I don't use all the performance in mine often enough (even less now), then there's the crazy cost of replacing pads/discs, I didn't like the exterior colour or the dark grey interior and the rear seat is still a bit too tight. It's a car that I thought I would definately want to buy, but when I reflected in it properly, I didn't.
- X5 M50d. I spent a week with a X5 and it felt great getting back in mine, so I didn't go into it with high hopes. The M50d will be a lot faster than the 30d, but it will still drive the same. Space was on a par with the Cayenne, so not ideal and even with Full Merino leather (so lower dash in leather, which the optional leather dash doesn't give you) and a huge number of options (£25k worth) I couldn't get excited about it. I really don't like the instruments, the controls around the gear selector/iDrive all feel very cheap, the rear seats aren't adjustable and I know I won't be completely happy with the way it drives. It was a decent deal though, registered in March 2020 with a list price of £100k (discounted would be £85k) and they wanted £71k.
- X7 M50d. In many ways, the ideal family truck. The only downsides in terms of practicality are that (like the Q7) you'd have to use one of the rearmost seats on anything other than short journeys, when you fold the seats down you're storing luggage in a passenger compartment and it's a really long car.....5.2m! It feels like a nice step up from an X5 and the 6 month or so old cars are very well specced, from what I've read / watched, it's supposed to drive better than the X5, but it still has the instruments and cheap area around the gear selector which does spoil it a bit. However and it's a big one.....it's such an ugly thing. I'm starting to get used to the grille (a bit), but I just couldn't spend that much on something I don't like the look of. Lindsay was very understanding, she was positive about the interior and the practicality, but admitted to being relieved when I said I hated the way it looks!
Part 2 to follow....I need to go on a call!
That's an answer and could have well been the right answer if we didn't do 40,000 miles a year. It is likely to be the answer next time around when we don't need quite as much space and the combined mileage will be more like 30,000, as I won't need to do the regular Swindon trip
