Best 7-seater cars for 2024

Seven-seater cars are great for large families, especially when you need to transport extra friends home from school – or perhaps grown-up friends to the airport. 

The best seven-seaters offer a comfortable experience whether you're riding up-front, in the second row or right at the back. When the extra seats in the boot aren't needed, they'll usually stow away neatly, freeing up a huge load space. 

But you do need to choose your car carefully. As well as listing our pick of the best seven-seaters, we've also listed some that are best left alone. These models make too many compromises to squeeze in two extra seats. Whether it's poor safety, dodgy reliability - or both - these seven-seaters are not good examples of the class.

Below are the best seven-seater cars you can buy. Scroll down to see which ones you should avoid.

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Best new seven-seater cars

Don’t want to trade boot space for passenger room? The best seven-seaters will take your family and all their luggage in comfort and safety.

Looking to buy a car seat? Find out the best baby and child car seats we recommend. 

Best used seven-seater cars

If you're looking for your money to go further, buying used can be a great way to get the ideal seven-seater car you're looking for. There are sensational options to choose from too - our experts give you the lowdown.

What to avoid when buying a seven-seater

There are seven-seater cars across a range of car classes, not just MPVs. You could get a seven-seat 4x4 if you wanted, or an estate. The choice is no bad thing, but it does mean some seven-seaters share the negative traits of those classes.

Adding two extra seats to a car can mean a loss of interior space. Is a car a true seven-seater if no adults can comfortably use the rear seats? You don’t have to compromise on space, and our new and used car reviews show you which models to avoid if you want all seven seats to be suitable for adults.

If you’re more attracted to estates than tall MPVs, then you need to consider boot space. Adding two more seats will eat into how much room you have in the back. 

It’s not just estates that have this problem - our testing has found MPV-style seven-seaters with barely any boot space unless you put the rear seats down. That’s no good if you’re going on a family holiday and you’re trying to squeeze seven people’s luggage into an inadequate boot.

Our testing found a seven-seater car with just 235 litres of boot space - that’s less than a Ford Fiesta. But you don’t need to settle for a small boot, as we’ve found models with more than 1,000 litres of usable boot space.

4x4 models introduce their own problems. Choose the wrong model and you’ll be paying a fortune in fuel. Seven-seat SUVs are some of the biggest and heaviest models in the class - while no one expects them to be as frugal as a Prius, there is still a significant difference between the most and least-efficient models.

One seven-seater we tested managed a miserable 21.9mpg, while the top-performing model achieved 61.1mpg - an enormous difference of almost 40mpg.

Furthermore, our assessments have revealed a hugely popular premium model that's great to drive and loaded with tech, but is likely to leave you frustrated at the side of the road.

The large number of options across multiple classes makes our expert advice even more important. Our guides can help you choose between an estate, 4x4 or classic MPV-style seven-seater, and our in-depth testing shows you which models not to buy.

Our guide to the best large SUVs and 4x4s highlights the models class we recommend in this class.

Seven-seat cars to avoid

We test cars more thoroughly than anyone else

Our tests go further than those carried out by other organisations, and because Which? is independent, you can trust our reviews to give you the full, honest and impartial truth about every car we test.

Every car we review is subjected to more than 100 individual tests in a lab, on a test track, and on real roads – and we really clock up the miles, driving around 500 miles in every car we test.

Testing in controlled lab conditions means the results we collect are directly comparable between different cars, helping us determine exactly which models are better and why, and helping you find the perfect car.

And so you know which cars are likely to prove reliable for years to come, we also gather feedback from thousands of UK car owners through the Which? Car Survey, using it to generate detailed reliability ratings for the cars we test.

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