My wife has a very different approach to cars than me. Rather than the stress and upheaval of changing cars on a regular basis she’d rather have one car for the next 50 years. But imagine my surprise and delight when she mentioned that she was getting a bit annoyed with the family hack we’d had for less than 12 months, a 2010 BMW X5. I could legitimately spend the coming weeks browsing autotrader, reading reviews, test driving cars and generally immersing myself into the process of sourcing a new car.  But a bit of background first… 

Prior to the X5 our family hack was a 2010 Freelancer which, despite its appetite for rear differentials and inability to hit 60mph in under 12 seconds, had served our family well.  With the arrival of our second child I started thinking about our needs and ‘what made a good family car’. After some deliberation the answer was ‘space, and lots of it’ so a fairly obvious SUV shortlist was drawn up – Range Rover, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, VW Touareg and BMW X5.  After deciding that having 7 seats would be useful I adjusted our shortlist accordingly (X5 or Q7). Realising that the Q7 was just too big left a choice of two X5s local to us and within our budget. One was a poverty spec black SE with 7 seats, the other had only 5 seats but it was an M Sport whose first owner had spent the GDP of a small country on options, and it had a 3.0 litre twin turbo diesel engine, which meant it was capable of hitting 60mph in under 6.5 seconds… a must for a family of 4.  After convincing my wife that we no longer needed 7 seats we took ownership of the M Sport X5.  

Life started out well.  We marvelled at how we could fit a Costco AND Tesco shop into the boot.  We enjoyed the panoramic sunroof, the spacious interior and the 360 degree reversing camera.  However the ride on the 20” wheels fitted with run flats tyres was fairly terrible – creating the undesirable combination of a large, should be wafty SUV which was as comfortable as going down a flight of stairs in a wardrobe.  I tried fitting non-runflats, which improved things marginally but it was still damn uncomfortable. Next was parking the thing – modern car parks weren’t too bad, they were designed with modern cars in mind however trying to park in to a multistory which was built in the last century and you may as well have left your car at home and walked, it would have been quicker than finding a space big enough, and then getting the X5 into it.  

So, back to my wife mentioning she wanted to get rid of the X5.  On reflection I’m pretty sure she just mentioned that it was a bit big, anyway, I took that as a mandate to change cars.

After revisiting the question of ‘what makes a good family car’ space was depriotised at the expense of park-ability and comfort, as a result the shortlist looked quite different this time round; Audi Q5, Land Rover Discovery Sport, BMW X3 and the Volvo XC60.  After being familiar with the BMW iDrive system, which was also in my 330D company car, I decided that the X3 was the choice for us. With minimum warning I left early one day to take the 6 hour round trip down to Brighton and returned home with a 2014 BMW X3.

It’s a lovely thing, its combination of SE specification and 17” wheels means it glides down the road.  Admittedly it corners like the Leaning Tower of Pisa but it’s as comfortable and cosseting as a bubble bath. It has options too, panoramic roof, big screen sat nav, electric memory seats and most importantly a big, powerful 3.0 diesel engine. I have no idea if my wife is aware what engine it has, or that it is even quicker than the X5 (0 to 60mph in under 6 seconds) but it is far more comfortable and a lot easier to park. 

So to answer the question of ‘what makes a good family car’, I think the answer is better acceleration.