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Best cars for shifting gear?


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For my sins, I used to be in charge for fleet cars for the NHS, I'm also a proper off road nut who's owned far too many cars. At the NHS, we used to regularly use the demo cars for hauling stuff, so I've got a little experience with this. If you want, I'll upload some 'what fits in the boot of' photos sometime, it's amazing what you can fit in some cars.

Anyway.....

If it was me buying a car just for this, I'd buy a Renault Scenic. I've had 2, a 53 and a 54 plate as second cars over the years and they're brilliant. I bought mine for £400 and £475 respectively and ran them for a total of 23000 miles without a single repair bill. I'd still have my second if a tractor hadn't ran over it at the download festival. The 1.5 diesel gets 55+mpg and they will hold everything. Everything. I've been to download in them twice with 5 people, 5 tents, 5 lots of luggage and 5 lots of booze.

Other recommendations:
Nissan Navara - I ran one as my main car for about 2 years, they're great haulers and decent off roaders but they are expensive to run.
VW Sharan - My guitarist has a sha-van and they hold a LOT of gear, probably more than my Scenic but I've never owned one so I can't comment on cost or reliability etc.
Subaru Outback - My main car currently, massive boot. But perhaps not the best choice if it;s purely for carrying gear.

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[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1484047592' post='3212148']
I've had a pair of newer Honda CRVs and it's amazing how much you can get in there...certainly enough space for my rig, a bass, five piece drum kit and three people.
[/quote]

Got one too. With the back seats down have managed to get in for our Highland trips:

Me
A drummer
RS210 & RS112 cab
1x12 valve guitar combo
2x basses
2x guitars
2x cased pedal board
5 piece drum kit and hardware
Lighting rig with 6 par cans
smoke machine
2 mic stands
box of leads and sundries
merch
3 travel bags

Guitarist flew of course....

550 miles each way at 52 mpg with the 1.6 diesel.

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Another v70 here. Totally flat floor when seats folded down, self levelling suspension and enough room for my amp, basses, 2x pa tops, 2x pa subs, mixer, cable flight trunk, stands, 2x equinox megabar light sets and still a seat for the singer too.
I've now got a brand new transit connect lwb that would carry that lot 3x over and insurance is only £232 a year fully comp on that (I'm 40 and have clean licence).

Edited by mrtcat
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Showing how deeply uncool I am I'm on my second Fiat Multipla. With the seats in you can carry 6 adults reasonably comfortably.

Take the seats out and you have a van, I carry two bass cabs, a full PA including bass bins and 15" monitors plus the lights. It will still seat three people with that load in. the 1.9 diesel engine is a real workhorse but I think it's common to a lot of the other van based people carriers like the Citroen. The only downside is all the rubbish Fiat plastic trims that don't last and the people laughing at the weird car as you drive past. They've both been reliable and incredibly cheap to buy.

Generally though all the van based vehicles are a good way to go if you cart a lot of gear. The estates are always a little more difficult to pack as they don't have the height I find.

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Berlingo / Kangoo / Partner for me. Cheap, reliable (in my experience of the diesel ones) and you can fit extraordinary amounts of stuff in there. My current Skoda Oktavia Estate fits less in with the seats down than the Berlingo managed with the seats still up... Also nice and short for parking in crowded cities (e.g. outside gig venues...)
Of course, you have to abandon all hope of any boy-racer driving pleasure, and they are not the most comfy cars for long motorway journeys. But otherwise, fine.

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When I first started playing we could get a four piece band and all our gear in a Fiesta. Wasn't comfy, though.

I loved my C-Max, and could get my gear and a full drum kit in the back with the seats down.

My Allegro estate was also awesome.

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BTW (I might get shot for this but lets see - please remove if not allowed) I'm currently selling a tidy and reliable 2004 Citroen Berlingo Van which runs great, has in last year had new clutch, battery, radiator and starter motor. 96K on the clock and will take £1k for it.

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I've had several Mondeo estates, which are great, and currently have a Vectra estate, which isn't - load space is fine but the trim on the backs of the rear seats is held on by bits of plastic pushed into channels, which pop out as soon as you load stuff into it. Plus the tailgate switch stopped working just after I'd loaded up for a gig, so had to unload at the venue, load back up, and unload when I got back home through the back doors.

The Vectra's steering pump failed and the garage lent me a Renault Megane estate while they fixed it. What a dreadful thing that was, and only marginally bigger than a Metro. Hated the stupid handbrake on it.

Two members of the ceilidh band I was once in had a Zafira, which was an unreliable piece of crap. Then they got another one, which was an unreliable piece of crap. So I've decided that Zafiras aren't for me.

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I used to have a ford focus estate 2004. It was a rickety old thing that had terrible water ingress when it rained (rear foot wells pretty much had ducks swimming around in them!), but the boot space was astounding. Even more so when I dropped the rear seats. I could get all my bass gear which was two cabs (4x10 and a 2x10), amp head, bass, accessories flight case and pedalboard and also fit in two tall mackie 1232z speakers, a 20 channel sound desk and multicore snake which was on a wheeled rack. It was at bursting point but i could just in so close the boot!

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