Do you have people, things and people with things to move? A seven-seat car is the simplest and best solution to your problem.
A decade ago, this market looked slightly frumpy, due to the MPV. But today, most of the best seven-seaters are fashionable SUVs, meaning you won’t feel silly in the school car park.
Some cars on the list have a third row best suited for occasional use and massive boots. Others can comfortably carry a group of adults but sacrifice some luggage capacity. A few manage to do both.
We think the Dacia Jogger is the best seven-seater on sale in the UK today, thanks to its unrivalled value and cavernous practicality. It's followed closely by the Kia EV9, which offers electric power with an excellent interior, decent third-row space and a sizeable electric range.
Our list features several other great seven-seat options, so read on to find out which cars can challenge the well-priced, spacious Jogger.
Best for: Value
It's perhaps no surprise that the biggest breath of fresh air the seven-seater has seen for a while comes from Dacia.
The Dacia Jogger is a fully equipped people mover, but more importantly, it will cost you less than the price of a mainstream supermini - and is the cheapest car on this list.
Straddling the lines between estate, MPV and SUV, the Jogger contains enough space for seven adults, although the third row is best left to children on longer journeys.
With the rear seats lowered or removed completely, there's up to 2094 litres of carrying capacity available, plus several nearly packaged storage compartments tucked away around the cabin.
Driving the Jogger is a mixed bag, but it's not bad. There's a supple, languid gait to its ride, while its turbocharged 1.0-litre petrol triple is a smooth and willing accomplice.
Light and accurate steering combines with a subtly raised seating position to make the Jogger easy to place on the road, and while it can roll like a drunk when cornering hard, the grip is strong and the handling always remains faithful.
It's far from a scalpel-sharp street fighter, but there's enough character in the way the Jogger goes about its business that it really should be considered if you're in the market for seven seats.
Read our Dacia Jogger review
Best for: Electric motoring
Electric cars are beginning to muscle in on the seven-seat act, and the Kia EV9 is one of the first of the bunch.
You certainly won’t struggle to find it in a packed car park. It's roughly the same size as the Range Rover Sport and has a really bold design, so it possesses genuine presence.
The sheer size of it and its clever packaging means it can offer six- and seven-seat cabin layouts. The former swaps the second row’s three-seat sliding bench for a pair of swivelling ‘captain’s chairs', a bit like you would find in the Mercedes-Benz V-Class.
Those third-row seats are big enough for small adults and kids with booster seats, which is useful as four of the five rear seats get Isofix points. The rearmost seats stow and deploy electrically.
With all seats up, the boot is big enough for a reasonable amount of shopping cargo, while five-seat mode makes it very generous.
The EV9 comes with a 99.8kWh battery. In the 200hp single-motor, rear-wheel-drive model, official range is 349 miles. Kia quotes efficiency of 3.0mpkWh and our testing achieved 2.8mpkW - impressive for a car with such a large, block-like frontal area. The official range of the dual-motor, four-wheel-drive model is 313 miles.
In cooler conditions, the top-of-the-line EV9 achieved 259 miles on our 70mph touring efficiency test and gave us reason to expect it would cover a little over 300 miles in exclusively urban and gentler out-of-town motoring.
Read our Kia EV9 review
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Take out that VW and replace it with the Ford Tourneo Custom.
Once you put those side by side (and drive for a few hundred miles), you will never choose the VW again. (Power usability, comfort, infotainment, versatility, price, gearbox, noise, dealer experience, faults and problems, cost, MPG,...)
Probably also because it's infotainment had rebooted on you at least 10 times.
I have driven multiple VW multivans/transporters and Ford Custom's or Tourneo customs. But now Ford has upgraded it's tech, there is absolutely no reason to buy the VW (or the Mercedes V for that matter). And thats before even comparing the prices...