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Corolla Verso

Toyota

Comments:

The Toyota Corolla Verso is a pretty beautiful car, with a great safety score at the EuroNCAP tests.

When you stand next to the car you find yourself standing next to a family car with a sleek and sporty look, that says that this car is entirely desirable.

It’s just a shame that it has been so poorly designed as a family car. It has every sense of having been designed by a man who wanted a family car to seem sporty, while entirely forgetting that a family car also needs to be practical. Even on the Toyota website, they do everything to sell the car on its looks - you have to really dig just to find a basic description.

The first concern is - storage, what storage? No underfloor compartments, no underseat compartments - in fact, just a boot and a glovebox, and that’s it.

However, the most horrific part of this car as a family car is that the windows slope up towards the rear of the car. This means that if you have any children riding in the back, they are unlikely to be able to see properly out of the windows. For children, riding in the backseat of a Toyota Corolla Verso would almost certainly be like riding in a featureless box. And you definitely do not want that in long jounreys.

And if you think I’m being unnecessarily critical about this point, simply check out the Toyota Corolla Verso accessories booklet, specifically the page about child safety seats - and note the picture of a boy, approximately 10 years old, sat on a booster seat - who *still* can’t even see properly out of the back windows.

The Toyota Corolla Verso remains a very sleek and smooth looking car - from the outside. From the inside, you are in a badly-thought out machine that you most certainly would not want to take children on any length of journey in.

A very safe car but not at all designed with the modern family in mind - and very safely removed from my list of purchase options.

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Scenic

Renault

Comments:

The Renault Scenic was one of the first cars I looked at - it’s got very good safety marks at EuroNCAP - but, unfortunately, one of the first cars I rejected.

The first issue with the Renault scenic is that although the rear seats are divided into three separate seats, they are all relatively narrow - so it’s going to still be something of a squash for anybody looking to push car seats and kiddies in the back.

Additionally, and for some inexplicable reason, the seats themselves have raised edges on their sides. I found that when testing, that this caused some real problems with the kid’s car seats I already had, as the Scenic back seats would not allow the safety seats room to sit flat, leaving them unbalanced and much less secure.

I had considered the Renault Grand Scenic for the extra two seats in the back - but it has to be said, the Grand Scenic looks somewhat ugly, and very much like an extra section of car has been ungainly welded to a better looking model. It also leaves the Grand Scenic looking too long and not really properly planned as a 7-seater model. I looked at the Espace, but that model is effectively a mini-bus with windows, which was far more than I wanted.

Also, when looking at the features list, it was very disappointing to find that so many features that you may consider integral to the needs of a modern family in a modern car, were far too often only as expensive optional extras. Electric windows, pollen filters, and satefy features such as ESPN were all available only at extra cost.

The car should otherwise seem like a good family car and I really wanted the Scenic to work - but I was additionally put off by reader comments at What Car? which complained about general faults with new Renault Scenics.

Overall, the poor planning of space and use of child safety seats in what is otherwise a fairly narrow car, made this a slow starter at best - but consumer complaints killed any optimism I had of persuading my girlfriend that this was a good choice regardless.

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Touran

Volkswagen Touran

Comments:

The Touran is an unassuming car - in fact, WhatCar? found it to be positively boring and unimaginative in terms of appearance - but still went on to vote it the best compact MPV of 2004: WhatCar? review of Volkswagen Touran.

With that sort of recommendation, it was worth taking note.

On the technical side, it’s based on the reliable Golf model, so the basic car has a reliable history behind it.

But my main criteria for choosing a car were based on safety, space, and size. In these regards the Touran was very good.

It was one of the 5-star scoring cars on the European Ncap tests, so it’s a strong safe car for the family.

Additionally, it seemed easily wide enough to take child safety seats in its stride across the back seats, and the extra 2 seats in the 7-seater model were exactly what I was looking for.

However, somehow all this didn’t seem to create a car that looked large and cumbersome - it managed to feel compact and well used for storage space on the inside, while somehow only looking about as long and wide as a normal saloon - which was a definite surprise in a 7-seater model.

Another pleasant surprise is that having seen so many other models of cars come with optional extras, it was brilliant to see that Volkswagen had included most of these as default features of the Touran, leaving the optional extras as essential vanity features such as sunroof, alloys, and accessories.

The only significant gripe I could raise is that to operate the rear sears you have to use looped cords rather than plastic handles, which seems a clumsy way to operate them. Additionally, there are some storage compartments under the roof between the driver and passenger seats, but I really can’t see what these can be used for, other than perhaps storing sunglasses - for which the compartments seem over-sized.

Overall, the car is safe, compact, and there’s a lot of storage, and I can’t find any significant disadvantage with this car - it seems a great and overall general purpose family car, with loads of room, and is definitely on my list of best.

Comments
Description
Specifications
Safety

Description:

From the Volkswagen Touran page:

The Touran, Volkswagen’s new compact MPV, takes safety very seriously indeed. Six airbags and Isofix preparation for two child seats come as standard. It’s even been built using extensive laser welding, to ensure that every two pieces of metal become as strong as one.

The Touran has a low centre of gravity to help it handle brilliantly. And its Electronic Stabilisation Programme (ESP) gives it extra precision on the road. With a five star rating for safety from the Euro NCAP, you can rely on the Touran to keep your whole family safe.

This MPV makes long journeys with the kids a pleasure. Included in this car are three 12-volt sockets, ideal for electronic games and gadgets. There are also up to 35 cubbyholes for the kids to seek out. The Touran also comes with five or seven seats, with the latter providing over 500 different seat combinations.

Specifications:

Standard specifications on all Volkswagen Touran models:

Safety:

The only NCAP tests on the Touran are from 2003, which is somewhat old and the Touran’s almost certainly have undergone safety revision since then.

Nevertheless, the Volkswagen Touran scored an impressive 5 stars.

However, on the downsize, it was noted that there remained a danger of leg injuries in the tested model, due to the possibility of hard parts in front of the driver breaking through the fascia - though this did not happen in the test.

Xsara Picasso

Citroen Xsara Picasso

Comments:

The Citroen Xsara Picasso looks like a superb family car - they’ve really thought about what a normal family needs, and provided it. Citroen have really thought about the needs of the family while driving in so many ways, from the use of storage compartments, to the big low windows that the kids can easily look out of. And the windscreen at the front slopes out creating a wonderful illusion of great space for both the driver and passenger. In these regards, the car seems to have been designed by a woman who knows exactly what she needs in terms of a family driving experience.

However, on the issue of safety, the NCAP tests were not encouraging. Additionally, another concern that worried me is that a lot of the Citroen Xsara Picasso is made of glass. It is effectively one big bubble of glass in a metal cage. In the event of an impact I would be very seriously concerned about the danger of flying glass to the occupants - ie, my family.

Also, all of the driving instrumentation is provided as an LCD display in the middle of the dashboard, between the driver and passenger. Aside from being something of an unnatural position, I was concerned that even a minor electrical fault could completely wipe out the essential driver functions in a way that couldn’t happen to something using more traditional speedometer needles.

An unfortunate factor that also came into my reasoning was when I looked for a second-hand version the salesmen tried to push a car that had serious corrosion issues on the chassis. I know little about cars, but I do know that if a two-year old car has far more rust underneath the car than my battered old 10-year old Primera had, then there is something inherently wrong. I walked out at point of sale.

I also found salesmen at a range of approved Citroen dealerships generally very pushy, and much more concerned about their commission than making a sale - they were very keen to sell me any kind of Citroen, and fast, without any regard at all for what I might actually want or on what timescale I wanted to purchase on.

Overall, the Citroen Xsara Picasso is a nicely designed car in terms of travelling comforts, but I have serious reservations about the amount of glass involved, and additionally, that the car could be made unusable by the smallest of electrical problems. Also, Citroen salesmen seemed especially aggressive to make a sale that benefited them most, rather than myself.

A cheap car for the price, but when spending that sort of money, you don;t really want niggling doubts.

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Get insurance for your Corolla Verso

There are a number of different car insurance providers out there, all of which you should check for a good deal. These include:

My personal recommendation is Nationwide Nationwide car insurance as that's what I've taken out myself, but check different providers and see who can deliver the best deal for you.

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