But only for the last week in Menorca. Hire car was a 1.9TDi Touran, which was chosen as there were four adults and a 14 month old. Car had done just 700km when picked up.
Good points
Loads of room for four bags, four rucksacks and the buggy.
Plenty of space on the back seats for two adults and a baby - good job, see bad point below!
105PS more than enough where the speed limit is 90kmh, but more often 60kmh. It did get noisy when I pushed it to 120 kmh.
Engine noise not too intrusive when not pushed above 2500 revs
Did 44 mpg over roads where getting into 5th and 6th is a rarity
Higher driving position was a bonus as road markings could be seen earlier. Menorca has a system where you turn left into the middle of the road, then wait in a small slip road until you can pull into the right hand lane.
Very comfortable seats
No major body roll when thrown around
Bad points
6 speed box - not needed
Two seats in rear - difficult to get in and out of, when up our buggy wouldn't fit in the boot! The Aygo boot took the pushchair, one holdall, two rucksacks and a baby changing bag on the trip to the airport. The Touran wouldn't have managed it with the rear seats up.
With rear most seats down the shopping fell out of the bags and rolled all over the place - some sort of 'shopping solution' (boxes fixed to the floor) are required to put bags in.
No spare - some of the roads on Menorca aren't too well maintained and this made us nervous
Very noisy once above 2500 revs - but being a diesel not a problem as these revs aren't required.
Difficult to manouver in tight parking spots - no sense of where the front is and the rear corners are hard to see when the car is full of passengers - reversing sensors should be standard.
Despite the cockpit being like every other VW I still thought I was driving a van.
All in all for a week of transporting 5 around on a small island it did the job well, but I can't see me buying an MPV anytime soon.
Menorca is recommended, but I'd avoid Cala n Bosch, unless you like curry houses, The Britannia pub and you have an England flag for your hotel balcony railings. Thankfully we were miles away!
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Wouldnt argue with much of that.
Re shopping, you use the support bolts in the side where the two rear seats clip back to to hang your shopping bags on. With the two rear seats up, there is no room for anything anyway. There are curry hooks hidden under the rear aircraft tables.
Re the handling and roll, you can actually hustle this thing really quite hard. Very hard in fact, I can leave drivers behind - suprised - on the twisties.
No spare - a bottle of goo. Last time I got a puncture I called out the emergency tyre people. What about the goo they said, I dont doo goo I replied, get out here and fix it.
Re the 6 speed box, yup its not needed, the 105 in the SEAT has 5 and the engine is much more flexible.
Parking? I have done 40k miles in this thing I have not yet got the back reversed where I thought it was.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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And how often did you use the word "yup"? That's the real test. :)
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My concern with reversing was not seeing children who may be stood close to the back of the car. We were in tourist areas and I was concerned a small child could run behind the car and be unseen. In busy areas the local car parking attendents were excellent at parking cars leaving little room for already parked cars to get out!
Another problem was the rear tailgate - it came up with some real force and could give you a nasty bash on the chin if you weren't expecting it. Conversely closing it was a problem (especially for the ladies in the group - who commented on it) as the gas struts were too pressurised and the rear door is huge.
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You get large biceps shutting the tailgates on Touran's. Its embarising when you forget and shut a "normal" tailgate with the same force :-(
The rear blind spot is not too bad, but I have nearly hit an adult who decided it was a good idea to walk behind a *moving* reversing car.
Joe
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'The rear blind spot'
Have you thought about a fresnel lense? They're the opaque looking, translucent panels, with annular rings you often see on the back windows of buses, motorhomes etc.
I've got one in my hatchback, although it took the missus a while to understand it. Poundland do a cheap version if you want to try one first.
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Fresnel lens - invented by a mate who doesn't work any more! Just lives on the income..
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mr fresnel? by any chance
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Or possibly Fred Resnel?
(that's enough now - Mod)
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'Fresnel lens - invented by a mate who doesn't work any more! Just lives on the income'
"According to Smithsonian, the first Fresnel lens was used in 1822".
Some of us are younger than others :>).
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older than milky joe then ;-)
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'Fresnel lens - invented by a mate who doesn't work any more! Just lives on the income'
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I assume this is the plastic version we see on vehicles.
"According to Smithsonian the first Fresnel lens was used in 1822".
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photonotes.org/cgi-bin/view.pl?letter=f says
Fresnel lens. Pronounced ?fruh-NELL.?
They?re commonly used on high-brightness viewfinder screens, overhead projectors, etc. The lens design was invented by French physicist Augustin Fresnel (1788-1827), who used them in lighthouses.
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