Best used 7-seater cars

Saloons, hatchbacks and estate cars are great, but what if you have a large family or a lot of friends? If you want to carry six or seven people, normal family cars like the Volkswagen Golf or Ford Mondeo aren’t going to be big enough. You’ll want a 7-seater. 

You don’t need five kids to buy a 7-seat car. The flexibility to carry six passengers - the girls from lacrosse, mates from work, your children’s classmates, or extended family - is one of the best things about having a large car. To make things easier, we’ve rounded up the best 7-seaters on the market.

The Land Rover Discovery is one of the best off-roaders you can buy. Engineered to travel through rivers, climb mountains and tow huge loads across muddy terrain, the Discovery is also popular with families who do none of those things - it’s a comfortable and quiet cruiser that’s just as happy on the motorway as it is in the Alps or the Sahara. 

Thanks to its 7-seat configuration and spacious interior, it’s a versatile family car. Lots of storage space and a large boot make it perfect if you carry a lot of luggage, though the massive interior makes it a large car on the outside as well, so it can be hard to park and to drive around crowded town centres. Land Rover doesn’t have the best reputation for reliability either.

Read our Land Rover Discovery review

Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has always been serious about safety and the XC90 is one of the safest family cars you can buy. It’s also one of the quietest and most comfortable, thanks to an upmarket, luxurious interior finished with premium materials. There are few cars more pleasant to ride in as a passenger than the Volvo XC90, which is one of the reasons it’s so popular with large families. 

Its four-wheel drive system and good ground clearance give it some off-road ability, but it’s on the road that this Swedish superstar really shines. All versions are smooth to drive over potholes but models with the optional air suspension are particularly comfy. And while the XC90 is very much a premium car, it makes a great used buy. Some versions cost around £70,000 when they were new.

Read our Volvo XC90 review

The 5008 is a large SUV from French manufacturer Peugeot. Its eye-catching design makes it one of the more attractive cars in the segment and its interior is pleasingly futuristic. Its 7-seat format makes it a popular choice with families, who value its fuel-efficient engines and effective noise insulation on faster roads. 

Peugeot has a great reputation for building safe family cars that are perfect for long-distance journeys. The 5008 is no exception, thanks to its comfortable ride, quiet engines and low fuel consumption. Despite its hefty SUV looks, this is very much a road car - it has no four-wheel drive option, so families who want to tow a horsebox off the beaten track would be better off with a conventional 4x4.

You’ll struggle to get more car for your money than with the Kia Sorento. This large, spacious, reliable and practical SUV is the ideal car for an adventurous, growing family due to its low running costs and its comfy, hard-wearing interior. It’s inexpensive to buy, with the Kia badge generally commanding less of a premium than the more upmarket German brands.

Kia’s seven-year warranty is one of the best in the business, which gives used buyers an advantage. Buying a four year old Sorento means you still have three years of manufacturer warranty left, which is a massive advantage to price-conscious families. Kia also has a great reputation for reliability, so you’re unlikely to have to use the warranty anyway. The Sorento is a car that won’t let you down.

The Q7 is one of Audi’s largest cars. It has a comfortable and roomy interior, a huge boot and a range of powerful engines to choose from. It’s a premium 7-seater with prices to match, but the quality of the materials used in its interior helps justify the extra cost for families who want a high-end car and a fashionable German badge. 

It is pretty huge though. At over five metres long it can feel more like a van than a car and while its interior is pretty big there are cars out there with roomier passenger space. You’re paying for the brand as much as you’re paying for the engineering, so more value-conscious families can still find a cheaper - though no less practical - alternative like the Nissan X-Trail or the Hyundai Santa Fe.

Volkswagen’s Touran people-carrier is a popular MPV-style 7-seater. It’s available with two extra seats in the boot space, which are ideal for children or for adults on shorter trips. It’s a good-looking car, with a timeless, understated design that makes it stand out when compared to the endless sea of SUVs in most supermarket car parks. 

The Touran benefits from a raised driving position, giving it great all-round visibility. It comes with a choice of petrol or diesel engines, with the small 1.6-litre diesel being a popular choice with families who drive at least 12,000 miles a year. The Touran might not be the most exciting thing on four wheels, but it’s undoubtedly a practical, comfortable car.

Skoda’s first full-sized SUV is a great value family car. Comfortable, efficient, spacious and reliable, the Skoda Kodiaq is an easy model to recommend if you want a practical and versatile all-rounder. Skoda’s clean, quiet petrol and diesel engines make the Kodiaq a solid choice for families who travel long distances and the spacious boot will be comfortable for dogs. 

The Kodiaq’s chiselled features and angular design make it stand out in the car park and its interior is built using high-quality materials, which should stand up to family life. Available with or without four-wheel drive, it’s worth considering if your lifestyle takes you onto unmade roads, though anybody who tows a heavy horsebox or ventures into real wilderness would be better off with a more hardcore 4x4.

Renault’s Grand Scenic is a traditional people-carrier. Its chunky van-like shape makes it stand out compared to other 7-seaters, most of which are SUVs, so it’s a popular choice with people who don’t follow the crowd. Whereas MPVs like this were once quite uncool, now they have a sort of counter-cultural swagger to them. 

Like a lot of French-designed cars, the Grand Scenic is extremely comfortable and relatively efficient on the motorway. Families who cover a lot of miles should consider this streamlined Renault over bulkier, more angular SUVs. The efficient petrol and diesel engines make it inexpensive to run, and the fact that SUVs are more popular than MPVs at the moment make it a great value used buy.

The Ford Galaxy is as popular with minicab drivers as it is with families, because it’s one of the few 7-seat cars that can comfortably carry six adult passengers on long journeys. It’s a big car, which can make it tricky to drive and park on crowded, narrow city streets, but it’s one of the most spacious and versatile large MPVs you can buy. 

Ford has a good reputation for safety and reliability, and what the Galaxy lacks in attention-seeking styling, it more than makes up for in family-focused versatility and well-finished interior comfort. If you want a no-nonsense car to carry lots of people in, the Ford Galaxy is difficult to beat.