|
Having researched etc many MPVs we have narrowed down our choice to 2 cars. The Ford S-Max and the Toyota Corolla Verso. The one 'need' we have is that we need three child car seats in a row and an added bonus is the 6th/7th seats for grandparents! Does anyone know which we should buy?! Does anyone know of any common faults with either of them? Which is nicer to drive? We will be doing mainly town driving with a few long jouneys throuhout each year. Any advice greatly received! Thanks, Georgie
|
Hi,
I've recently gone through the same decision as you and am expecting delivery of my car on March 30th. I was between the Touran, Verso and S-Max. I finally chose the S-Max.
Main reasons were the fact it was bigger, better equipped for the cash, more economical, more comfortable and a more involved drive. Quite a few reasons actually!!!!
If you want true owners thoughts of the S-Max, visit www.smaxownersclub.co.uk for as much info you need on this car. There is also a Toyota owners forum that I visited when I was looking, I'm sure it will come up on google.
Hope that helps.
PS - My car is a company car so the renowned virtues of Toyota reliability/depreciation didn't count for me.
Good Luck
|
|
that's really helpful, thanks very much. i'll look at those sites. I take it you're really happy with your S-Max?
|
|
Wot Car? tested the S-Max against the Verso, Touran and C8 (8/06). The Ford won but I remember I rather fancied the Verso out of them all - it came second overall. The Ford was marked down for road noise at speed (that did it for me) and some trim a bit below par. The Toyota lost out on space - poor boot with all seats up and rearmost seats cramped; otherwise a good all-rounder.
|
|
|
that's really helpful, thanks very much. i'll look at those sites. I take it you're really happy with your S-Max?
It's not being delivered until the 30th, I'll let you know then!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Georgie - the S-Max is quite a bit longer than the Verso, so should have more room in the boot. I think I've seen people on here say that folding the seats in the S-Max is fiddly: it's very easy in the Verso. The Verso can give you a flat, if rather high, floor: not sure whether the floor is flat in the Ford with all seats down.
I should think it depends on how often you take the GPs in the rear seats, and how easy they'd find it to get in. The more often you take them, the better the Ford is as an option: the more mileage you do in town wthout them, the more you'll like the smaller, nippier (with the 2.2 diesel engine) Verso.
Do let us know how you get on.
|
|
An ex colleague has a 1.6 Verso and complains about stodgy handling, he drove an old model 1.8 Zafira and said it was much more entertaining to drive. Also locally the Toyota dealer has not got a great reputation and a friend has had Yaris problems, that being said my wife likes the Verso because she perceives it as being smaller.
|
I think I've seen people on here say that folding the seats in the S-Max is fiddly......not sure whether the floor is flat in the Ford with all seats down.
I'm not an S-Max owner (yet) but I've had a good play in the showroom. There's a knack to folding the third-row seats, which is mostly to do with putting the flappy covers in the right place but I worked it out in a couple of attempts and I'm sure you will too - once you've had the car for a couple of weeks I'm sure you'll have no problems. It's certainly not a reason to reject the car, and once the seats are all down, the floor is completely flat and about 2.1m long to the backs of the front seats. This, to me, is what makes the S-Max truly multi-purpose - it can take five people to Ikea (if you're that cruel) and have room to bring home a long bookcase or a garden parasol as well.
|
Friends had a (current) Verso, but with the back seats up there is very little room left, and the seats really are for midgets. On family outings, (Mum, Dad and two toddlers), they used to have to store stuff inbetween the two outer seats in the middle row.
SMax is bigger and reportedly nicer to drive too.
Of the two, I would go for a SMax, but would look at a C4 Grand Picasso before deciding.
|
|
I'd guess that if the OP is really worried about size, the Verso wouldn't have made his shortlist. The S-Max and Verso and different size classes of car. The Verso is based on the Corolla whereas the S-Max is based on the New Mondeo and it shows.
|
The Verso with the 177hp turbo diesel is an astonishing car - a boring, diesel-powered MPV which will hit 100 km/h in under 9 seconds and do over 200 km/h flat out (not that I've tried). The driving postion even for long periods is excellent but town driving needs care: visibility over the rear threequarters is not wondeful and the short sloping bonnet means the front corners are invisible. I don't transport much stuff or many people so I'm not bothered about the boot or rear space size. My only real gripe (which may seem minor to many people) is the seriously stupid place for the CD changer - under the passenger's seat.
To change the CD's:
1- get out and walk round the car
2- open the rear passenger's door
3- squat down beside the car (and get your trousers dirty on the sill)
4- reach under the seat and try to find the changer (pretty much invisible now that your arm and hand are in the way)
5- open the changer, extract the magazine and change the CD's
Repeat steps 1 to 5 in reverse order
A variant between steps 1 and 2 is to open the front passenger's door and move the seat as far forward as it can go. This facilitates step 4
Final step: get back into the driver's seat and wonder how a major manufacturer can have done something so daft, particulalry as the dash is massive and must have space for a CD changer.
Despite this, I'm very satisifed with the car
|
Do you happen to know, Mchenry, (or does anyone else) if there's a lot of difference between the 177 bhp version of the Verso and the 140? There's about £2,000 difference in price, partly because the 177 has the video screens in the back of the front headrests (which we don't need as the kids are grown-up).
This is a similar point to the one some of us discussed a few weeks ago on here about the Skoda Octavia. It may be that the extra performance is mainly at the top end, so that in normal driving you wouldn't notice much difference - or the extra oomph vould be evenly spread across the rev range.
|
Haven't driven a Verso but there are similarly powered versions of the Avensis and I've tried both. The 140 (or is it 150?) feels plenty powerful enough for my needs - and I'm used to a 163hp Volvo diesel. The 180 probably didn't get a fair trial because I was only in it for 20 minutes and found rather a lot of tractors and other slow traffic on my rural test route. I also found the 'sports' seats in the T180 rather less comfortable than the standard T3 items.
I'd be interested in trying the T180 again, though - it was the first of the two that I tried before. It has more torque than the 150, so you ought to feel it right through the rev range, although I still suspect the 150 would be more than adequate.
I've assumed in writing this that the Verso diesels are both 2.2s, like the Avensis. If the 140 is not the same as the Avensis 150 I tried, you may want the 180 after all!
|
|
I have driven the Avensis T180, very refined (say by PD standards) though lacks torque below 2000rpm compared to my current 2.0 Mondeo and in comparison the Ford / Jag 2.2 is simply stonking at low revs, also the T180 perhaps never really felt like 177 bhp. As I have said before I thought its piezo injection / 177 bhp etc etc would have moved the game on though that was not my experience, the 100,000+ mile Mondeo was/is virtually as refined, more torquey at low revs and really not too different in overall performance.
|
|
|
|
I can't comment on trim/equipment levels because mine is a French market model where the importer has a different policy from Britain. Here there are few company cars so the driver of a car is likely to be paying for it with his own money and will be more prone to saying "I'm not paying for X, Y or Z when I don't really want it". Example: the CD changer, parking aids, Satnav and video screens are all factory options or dealer-fitted accessories here.
|
|
What a lot to think about! I prefer the S-Max because it's more spacious etc but my husband prefers the Verso because they are cheaper as we can buy a 2nd hand one and also we can add more space by adding a roof box for the occasional trips we do where we need to take the entire house with us! We are going to test drive them this weekend hopefully, so we'll see!
|
|
|
|
|
|
