Being tall's a pain in the @rse sometimes!

[pigletwillie]

Each to their own PW. I drove a Renault Clio prior to this (for 7 years) paid out about £300 on a couple of repairs during this time, not bad going in my opinion. But, I have owned a few makes, including Vauxhall, BMW, Ford, Seat and Honda. My car suits me fine though.

And if it suits you fine, then thats the most important thing. I do like Honda's and did love my nissan 200sx.

[Peter]

Sorry lainey lou, I don't get it, whether I drive horizontally or upright, my legs are still on the pedals and in the footwell, so surely the injuries would be inflicted on all irrespective of their driving position?

I think she is talking abiut the long bones in your legs breaking and your legs then telescoping, with the thigh bones driving up into your torso,

I like that advert with the plonker putting his feet up on the dash of his mates new car........
Feet on the passenger airbag.

[miffy]

I thought Mr Miffy was a tall fella at 6foot 3, you want to see him try and get out of my mini! getting in no problems, getting out, lets just say it is a feet of mind over matter, he doesn't so much get out as fall out.
I know Vauxhall is a dirty word to some folk but we have a Vectra 53 plate, it has the most humungus boot you ever did see, i can lie down in it and still put the dog in too, yes we did try it.
Leg room is very good for Mr Miffy, and my son who is a six footer, both are not slight lads either. As pigletwillie said you can get an estate too, because they are a fleet car loads to choose from, ours is an sri so has more 'poke'. Lots of air bags etc..
I know it aint a sexy car but ultra practical for a family and really resonable in price now the new signum has come out.

[pigletwillie]

You can get a 2004 ex fleet model for under £3k

[tootles]

I have a French bus and it's great. The front seats are like kitchen chairs (with cushions) so are perfect for Mr T's knackered back. The newer models have sliding rear seats (ours just has two settings) so everyone will fit. The rear two seats come in and out easily and the huge dog crate fits perfectly. It will also carry an astonishing number of bags of cement too.....
One thing though, why on earth will the good LadyWayne be relegated to the back seat??? It is also worth considering that the rear facing seat will only be used for a few months anyway - is it worth a new car for just a few months?

[allotmentlady]

what about a transit, you csn fit everything you possibly need to init. You can pull out in front of car drivers whenever it suits you, pretend to be a delivery driver, put loads of soil, manure, seeds, fencing for lottie init.

Pick em up pretty reasonable nowadays.

[digthatchick]

what about a transit, you csn fit everything you possibly need to init. You can pull out in front of car drivers whenever it suits you, pretend to be a delivery driver, put loads of soil, manure, seeds, fencing for lottie init.

Pick em up pretty reasonable nowadays.

Thats what I do in my Disco

[HeyWayne]

Wrong!

The current Freelander scores 5.

I bought one June 2007 and it is very roomy and versatile, big plus is mine has heated seats which do my prolapsed discs a world of good.

My dealer just sent me a pack of loyalty vouchers, not as I hoped to get cheaper servicing, but offering two to three thousand off a new vehicle, one ticket for each type of Land Rover.

Transferrable to friends, Wayne me old buddy..........

Peter

If you want to get my attention - just tell me something worth listening to. By typing in big letters I am left feeling that you are trying to shout at me. I don't take well to being shouted at.

Besides, I am not wrong. I was talking about Land Rover Discoverys and Range Rovers as they were what was mentioned as being safe cars by a previous poster.

As for fitting into a Freelander - the ones I've been in have less headroom and leg/knee room than a lot of smaller cars I've sat in/driven.

One thing though, why on earth will the good LadyWayne be relegated to the back seat??? It is also worth considering that the rear facing seat will only be used for a few months anyway - is it worth a new car for just a few months?

LadyWayne is the one that suggested, and wants to sit in the back with the baby. As for driving the car for a few months - chances are, our children will grow into larger than average. The car is long term.

[beefy]

Right people a little reality here . Cars are all very nice sitting polised on the front drive . it's when things go wrong that you need to be thinking about . What you are about to see is what happens when a Mercedes Jeep hits a Citreon Picasso head on with a combined speed of over 70 mph . My wife was driving the Picasso and after being taken to hospital on a spinal board was released and walked out to me to go home.


Not the best picture but I assure you nothing behind the front bulkhead was damaged - her feet were not trapped etc.
And heres the jeep that hit her.




Maybe now you can see why I would recommend a Picasso.

[HeyWayne]

Glad your wife walked away relatively unscathed beefy.

Most modern cars are designed to collapse on impact, crumple zones are designed to absorb the impact of an accident and transfer the energy around the protective "cell" of the car. It forms part of the NCAP testing - cars that score highly for impact protection will perform well in this test.

The resulting crumpled car doesn't look pretty, but will undoubtedly let the occupants survive.

Plug "NCAP crash test" into YouTube and you can probably pick your car of choice and see how it fairs. YouTube can be educational too.

To see how cars fair on the various tests visit Euro NCAP - For safer cars | HOME

[beefy]

Glad your wife walked away relatively unscathed beefy.

Most modern cars are designed to collapse on impact, crumple zones are designed to absorb the impact of an accident and transfer the energy around the protective "cell" of the car. It forms part of the NCAP testing - cars that score highly for impact protection will perform well in this test.

The resulting crumpled car doesn't look pretty, but will undoubtedly let the occupants survive.

Plug "NCAP crash test" into YouTube and you can probably pick your car of choice and see how it fairs. YouTube can be educational too.

To see how cars fair on the various tests visit Euro NCAP - For safer cars | HOME

It's all very well watching You Tube HW but when it comes closer to home it's a slightly different matter . The 2 paramedics that came to the scene were expecting to be removing a body and were shocked to find that there wasn't a mark on Mrs B .
While we were looking for a replacement we had another picasso (1.4 D ?) it was averaging 50mpg+/ gallon and the one in the pic )1.9 d was averaging 45mpg+/ gallon.Actual figures not what the brochures say.
Your a 36 inch leg ,I'm a 34 so I'd say you should have room both leg and body height in one .While they will never corner as well as a Seat Leon or similar - with bean and LW on board you shouldn't really be trying to find those limits .But trust me when on your own you can thrash them on and have plenty of fun(been there - done that)

[kirsty b]

Wayne

cut your losses and go for the mondeo estate, I deeply regret not getting one, check if they are available in what you want b4 'bean' arrives as sometimes they have to order them in. Our local ford garage had a 5 month wait last year!!

My sis had a Mondeo estate until recently and its a nice motor. Masses of boot room, and leg room on the seating areas. Admittedly we are all shortarses, but my nephew is 6'4 and he got in there comfortably and he had to be driven in it a lot for first trips to UCH and back when feeling thoroughly sh*tty after chemo etc, and he now drives a Ford Focus (his mobility car specially adapted for him only having one leg now ) ok too.

I drive a Vauxhall Astra now (03 plate), used to have a Ka. Much bigger boot, space inside and I can get the dogs in too.

[HeyWayne]

It's all very well watching You Tube HW but when it comes closer to home it's a slightly different matter .

Your a 36 inch leg ,I'm a 34 so I'd say you should have room both leg and body height in one .While they will never corner as well as a Seat Leon or similar - with bean and LW on board you shouldn't really be trying to find those limits .But trust me when on your own you can thrash them on and have plenty of fun(been there - done that)

Granted, nothing compares to real life experience, but hopefully beefy YouTube is as close as most of us will get to witnessing what happens to our car when things go tats up. I'm not trying to discredit your account by any means - just highlight your point via the moving image.

As I've mentioned before - there are plenty of cars that I can fit in, it's what happens behind me that's the issue (slide the drivers seat right back and have a look in the footwell behind to see what I mean). I can fit comfortably into the current mini for example, but by doing this there is virtually no legroom for the person behind me - the back of the front seat almost touches the rear seat squab.

Yes, the Leon was quick, but I almost never thrashed it - I take great pride in my cars, and look after them (dad being a mechanic tought me that). I always put the needs of my passengers first - LadyWayne does not enjoy being driven fast (although she enjoys a good blat when driving), so I drive accordingly. Our technical director - famed for being a painfully slow driver actually commented that I was the smoothest driver he'd ever been a passenger to (I was driving us in his car to a meeting), and he asked how I could make his car drive so smoothly when he couldn't.

The Mazda MX5 (MK1) is renowned for being one of the most fun/best handling cars to drive - though not necessarily the quickest.

I guess what has become clear is that each of us has a set of requirements, and very few of us have the same opinions when it comes to what makes a car important.

[lainey lou]

Sorry lainey lou, I don't get it, whether I drive horizontally or upright, my legs are still on the pedals and in the footwell, so surely the injuries would be inflicted on all irrespective of their driving position?

I think she means due to the fact you can't see where you're going when laying flat.

I'm talking about the position your leg is in when you slam your foot on the brake. Can make a massive difference to the amount of damage done to your legs. Wouldn't have believed it before but seen a lot of it recently, not nice.

[lainey lou]

Wayne, if you're happy with the mondeo idea, go and test drive one, take your car seat and have a play. Not long to go now, you and LW wanna be all ready for your new arrival!