New Galaxy.....

[catso]

Wife wants a new car, currently got a 5 year old Galaxy which has been good - a few (VW) electrical Gremlins aside, but now she's bending my ear about it being too old.

We need an MPV (4 kids) and the new Galaxy is on the shortlist, anyone got one?, any recommendations? good, bad or indifferent? Looking for a Diesel btw as she currently has the 2.3 petrol which goes very well but drinks fuel quite heavily (and I need to save the Petrol 'allowance' for myself ).

[Podie]

Massive improvement... if you don't need as much space then take a look at the S-Max...

[catso]

Podie said:

Massive improvement... if you don't need as much space then take a look at the S-Max...

Better than the old one then .

Space however is a problem, actually the old one is a bit too small. I'm going for a test drive etc but just wanted anyone's experiences first as I more or less know about the other 'contenders' just this Galaxy that's new (I've not actually seen one on the road yet).

[ledger]

catso said:

Wife wants a new car, currently got a 5 year old Galaxy which has been good - a few (VW) electrical Gremlins aside, but now she's bending my ear about it being too old.

We need an MPV (4 kids) and the new Galaxy is on the shortlist, anyone got one?, any recommendations? good, bad or indifferent? Looking for a Diesel btw as she currently has the 2.3 petrol which goes very well but drinks fuel quite heavily (and I need to save the Petrol 'allowance' for myself ).

I may be interested in your old one if you do upgrade.

[capri]

I was passed by a Galaxy the other day. It was the first time in a while that I looked at a people mover and thought 'Actually, that does look pretty cool.'

That said, the S-Max is a whole heap cooler, while being more sprightly to drive, so if you don't need the space of the Galaxy, is definitely worth a look.

With both models, though, be prepared to get stopped by the old bill a few times for driving with your foglights on, and to have to prove your innocence - the sidelight bulbs are in the front foglight housings!

Also worth a look is the Espace. One of few people movers that actually look quite cool and have a certain amount of road presence - especially in silver, all body colour, with tinted windows, and with xenon headlights turned on!

Edited by capri on Tuesday 3rd October 17:33

[catso]

Well the Espace is on the list, especially the Grand Espace (but it's a bit pricey) but we've had Renaults before and I've not been impressed with them, we chose our Galaxy over the (previous model) Espace because it was a far better drive and appeared better built, although I've not looked closely at the new Espace.

Actually I'd be happy to keep the current one for a another year or two but 'er indoors wants a new motor, she also likes the Chrysler Grand Voyager but I've ruled that one out.

Ledger; Regarding my old Galaxy, my intention was to p/ex (unless their offer is insulting) because I don't know if I can be arsed with 'tyre-kickers' but I would happily sell it privately if there wasn't too much hassle involved (or maybe ebay?) anyway I'll let you know if/when etc.

[DennisTheMenace]

S-max Oh , you can get the sprogs in no probs and they look fantastic and being a ford will handle fantasticly . dont bother looking at vauxhalls as they have a habit of falling off the road and vws are bloody dull , the S-Max is selling extremely well apparently , saw one today in machine silver with the 18" alloys

[DennisTheMenace]

oooh also try the 1.5 105ps grand scenic , had one for a couple of months and i reckon its the best thing renault have made , fantastic tool , but here is a piccy of an s-max to lure you away

Edited by DennisTheMenace on Tuesday 3rd October 21:50

[Wacky Racer]

Well last year I bought a new Hyundai Trajet 7 seater, just coming up to 16,000 excellent completely trouble free miles, in fact just come back from a 1500 mile trip to Stuttgart 5 up with everyone's luggage in the back, great for towing,5 years 100,000 mile warranty on everything, even including the exhaust.....

Highly recommended,

[DennisTheMenace]

Good call if you can deal with people calling it a tragic , in the same boat as the kia sadowner , the s-max may look a kiddy carrier but you can hustle it down your favorite b road like you would a sports car .

[catso]

S-max looks good (like those wheels) and I must admit I didn't realise they were a 7 seater, but the problem is not so much the people carrying ability as the luggage space - The last 3 years we've been to France, Italy etc on Holiday and 6 people need a lot of luggage for 2 weeks, I don't really want to use a roof box and we've struggled with the Galaxy for space, it's OK cramming stuff in every corner but on the first trip we discovered we'd blocked all the A/C vents in the rear with bags and the sprogs were 'cooking' in the back

But I'm going to look at the new Galaxy tomorrow and will take a look at the S-max while I'm there. I saw a Grand Scenic today as a friend of the wife's got one and it's OK but I'm thinking the same as with the S-max that it might be too small, the Espace is OK, especially in Grand version but I don't want to spend that much cash, I also drove a Zafira a while back and thought it was too small and I wasn't impressed either.

Although I might try to convince 'er indoors to 'cram' into a Scenic to save some cash......

[Podie]

DennisTheMenace said:

the S-Max is selling extremely well apparently , saw one today in machine silver with the 18" alloys

Struggling to meet demand...

[prelude4ws]

Well we have an s-max, got it 2 months ago as we got the dealers demo car only 200 miles on it and not yet reg'ed, since then we have covered some 6k miles and its fan-bloody-tastic! we got a diesel 2.0 titanium with the panoramic roof. while it does look a fair bit smaller than a galaxy its only 75mm lower in the roof and some 50mm shorter overall, so compared to the galaxy I don't think you'd really see a lot of difference 6-up on holiday. But can confirm its really good to drive and can be hustled quite enthusiastically. When we first got it, we used to get a lot of looks from people some even came and asked what it was, we still get the odd look at the traffic lights and its often guys pointing it out to wives/partners along the lines of "when we have kids we are getting one of those.."

[cj_eds]

I can see well made people carriers seriously hurting the family hatch/estate market. The days of them looking like mini-buses are gone, and they seem to take a more enviroMentalist-friendly position than out right 4x4's that would be the other common choice for size.
Ones like the S-Max (that I'd agree looks great) could end up becoming a big share of the sales of companies like Ford. More practical than a standard hatch for ferrying big loads around.