What's the best 7 seater for $25K ?

[Matty4]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

Unless you have 2 legless dwarves in your family NONE of the wagons , 4 WD's or even the Territory stack up .

Lucky for his mate that he only needs the 7 seat option on the few occassions to take a couple of their kids friends to and from soccer....
Any one of those for occassional use stacks up far better than any van/MPV etc.

For daily family duties a Terri is fine.
Maybe even look at the Volvo XC90, better 3rd row than a lot of others and still has more room behind the seats than a lot of other wagons too!!

[Nic85]

Problem with the Territory is they're thirsty as hell. My sister was recently in a similar position to this as she has just started her own child care business from home, and needs the 7 seats to cart the kids around in. She looked at a lot of different cars, most of them mentioned already in this thread.

She ended up with a 2004 Territory Ghia RWD with 80,000kms on it. It was in really good condition and the low kms sold her. She bought it and traded her 2008 Ford Escape for it. Compared to the Escape, the Territory drives like a bucket of crap. I'm sorry to all you Territory drivers/lovers, but the thing rattles like crazy, all the suspension creaks and groans, and the engine is woefully underpowered and coarse in a 2.1 tonne Territory. Her average over the last couple months is around 16L/100km - given she does do a lot of short trips, but there are better options out there, IMO.

[Rodge]

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. It turns out I'm not sure how serious my friend is about changing as I spent most of the day with him out on my boat fishing yesterday and shared a 12 pack of beer he didn't bring the subject up once.

My advice if he asks again is to keep what he's got and let his kids friends make their own transport arrangements. That and /or convert the Lexus, (rebadged Toyota Landcruiser) to 7 seats amd swap vehicles with his wife when the odd ocassion requires it. He'll tear up a heap of money trading that Audi Allroad in and its not a bad wagon for the money he spent.

I'd be looking into getting a really thorough service and tune incl a new air filter, there's no logical reason why he should be getting the same range as me (low 400 km's from a tank) as his Allroad has a 80 litre tank and the SC GT-P has a 68 litre tank so he's buring around 17% more fuel than me, go figure ????