Welton wrote:I don't know why people with kids think the need an estate
When the wife was preggers with sproglet #1 we went to buy a pushchair, sorry, "travel system"

. Got back to my lovely grey D8 saloon car with this HUGE box and it just wouldn't go in the boot, don't get me wrong, the boot would have accomodated it but it wouldn't go through the openning! Having recently changed from a Mondeo hatch (which had a similar sized boot but obviously much better access) this was pretty annoying! So I found myself unpacking the thing at the side of the road in the rain with a stroppy fat-bellied wife giving my ears a bashing. Over the subsequent year or so several such things came to light, like buying a new telly (again wouldn't go in the boot, again had to unpack it but also had to carry it on the back seat), or a washing machine (fitted hapily in a corsa but not in my 406

). There were other things too, like once the pushchair was in there it took up about 50% of the space, but if you put it at the back of the boot (near the bumper) you couldn't reach the rest of the boot so had to remove this bloody monstrosity before you could get anything else in or out, or if you pushed it to the front of the boot then put your other crap in behind it you had to unpack everything to get the bloody pushchair out, twas very annoying! Not the end of the world I know but just inconvenient

.
I liked the 406 very much but the saloon was winding me up, had there been a 406 hatch I'd have probably got it, but there isn't, so I got a 406 estate. Now the same pushchair will go in there longways and standing on it's side, leaving 70% of the space free and perfectly accessible. I'm sooo impressed with the versatility that I'm now an estate addict. I've had a single divan with mattress in there and closed the tailgate

, you'd need to rent a van to move that otherwise!
I suppose I could return to a large hatchback, but I think I'd still prefer an estate. One thing's for sure though, I won't be getting another saloon for a very very long time.