SUV sizes compared! Small/medium/large/XL tested...which size should you buy!?

CarExpert

I know, it's confusing. What size of SUV should you buy? A Small SUV, a Medium SUV, a Large SUV or an XL SUV? There are a lot of choices out there, so we wanted to get four sizes of SUVs together and perform a number of tests to figure out what size of SUV you should buy.  The tests:  - 1: The adult test. Can you actually fit three adults in the second row of a small, medium, large or upper large SUV? - 2: The bicycle test. Can you fit your bicycle into the boot of a small, medium, large or upper large SUV? And, if so, can you fit an additional adult into the second row as well? - 3: The Christmas dat test. Can you fit ALL of your Christmas day luggage and stuff into the boot of a small, medium, large or extra large SUV? And, how much room is there in the second row with a baby seat?  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Fitting Adults 03:00 Bicycle Test 08:47 Christmas Day Test 12:19 Outro: 19:10  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #audi #suv #comparison

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. 12 months ago I became a dad, and that meant getting a dadmobile, a

00:06 family-friendly car. So we bought a Tesla Model 3. I never wanted to be an SUV person,

00:11 but about six months into becoming a daddy I realised there is just so much stuff you

00:16 need to carry around with you when you have a child, or heaven forbid, children.

00:21 So I think you've probably realised the inevitable by now. You need an SUV, but it's probably

00:26 a little bit confusing when it comes down to SUV sizes. So what I've done is assembled

00:31 a bunch of SUVs here that sit in different size categories on the market to give you

00:35 a better idea of exactly what you can fit in these things and which size of SUV is right

00:40 for you. So I know what you're thinking, they all pretty much look the exact same, but the

00:43 way it works here in Australia, these cars are all classified into size segments, and

00:48 then you go shopping based on those size segments. And this is pretty much where you want to

00:52 start if you have a kid or kids and you need to transport things around. This is a small

00:57 SUV, it's called the Audi Q3. This is probably where I'd start if you are looking for a family

01:02 SUV. Anything smaller than this is probably going to be just a little too compact.

01:06 We then move up to a medium-sized SUV. This is called the Audi Q5. It is slightly longer

01:11 than a Q3, it has a bigger boot, so you are getting bigger road dimensions, which means

01:16 you're going to be able to store more things. We then step up to the large segment, and

01:19 this is at the lower end of the large segment. This is called the Audi e-tron. So again,

01:24 this is longer than a Q5, has a bit more boot space, but it isn't quite super-sized.

01:29 This is where we get to super-size. This is called the Q7. So this has seven seats, but

01:33 it also has a much bigger boot. It is longer than all of these, and this is going to be

01:38 about as big as you want to get before you get into something like the big four-wheel

01:41 drives like your Land Cruiser and stuff like that.

01:43 So today we're going to be doing some tests here, and if you do want to skip ahead to

01:47 some of the tests that are coming up in this video, you can use the time codes on the screen,

01:51 or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't

01:55 done so already, press the bell icon, subscribe to our channel. That's going to tell you every

01:59 single time we do one of these fun tests.

02:03 Now before we start our testing, I wanted to explain why we're inside the laboratory.

02:07 That is because it is raining, the weather is feral outside, and we needed to be somewhere

02:11 warm and dry. But let's kick off with our testing. Test number one is going to be all

02:16 about adults. Yes, I know, you probably have kids and all that sort of stuff, but I think

02:20 adults in the second row of each of these SUVs will give you a good idea of exactly

02:24 how much room there is. Test number two, the bicycle. I know some of you like exercising.

02:30 I don't, but we want to see how well this fits into each of these SUVs. I think a lot

02:34 of people use these on weekends and ironically drive them to places, so we want to see how

02:39 well they fit.

02:40 And our final test is the Christmas Day test. This is just a sample of some of the stuff

02:45 I had to take with me on Christmas Day. There was a whole bunch of other bags and all that

02:48 sort of stuff, but it was virtually impossible to fit into our Model 3. So we'll test this

02:53 out in these SUVs and see whether they actually have enough room to take all of your Christmas

02:57 Day things. But let's get cracking with test number one.

03:01 Okay, so we are in the Q3. Before we get started, I just wanted to mention how we've got this

03:08 set up. So the passenger seat and the driver's seat, they're set up in the exact same position

03:12 and they're also set up to my standard driving position. So if you do watch some of my other

03:17 reviews, you will know that this is how we do things and this is how we're going to tell

03:20 how much room there is in the second row.

03:22 Guys, come on in. I'll introduce you to everyone. So we have Sean, who is our second superstar

03:29 video man. We have Scott, who is our deputy editor and also the world's tallest man. And

03:35 then we have James, who is our production editor.

03:38 Now, I can see that there isn't a great deal of room. Scott, start by telling us how tall

03:43 you are.

03:44 I am six foot seven.

03:45 Yes, which is infinite centimetres tall. So obviously you don't have a great deal of room

03:50 and you wouldn't in any car. So I'm not saying that you need to fit Scott in all of your

03:54 cars to know if you have room, but clearly not much room there.

03:57 Yeah, no knee room really. And my head is on the roof.

03:59 Yeah. Okay. Sean, the second seat there, the middle seat, doesn't really look all that

04:04 comfortable. Am I right?

04:05 No, no, I can't feel a seat at all.

04:08 It's kind of like a bit of a bench and you can see when the seats are empty that really

04:11 just looks like it's designed for two seats as opposed to three. James, shoulder room,

04:15 what's it like?

04:16 It's a bit tight with someone in the middle.

04:18 Yeah. All right. So we knew that this would be pretty cramped here in the small SUV, but

04:23 it is worth keeping in mind that if you do go down the path of something this size, if

04:27 you are predominantly going to be carrying adults, it's probably not going to be the

04:30 ideal fit. Obviously, kids will fit perfectly fine, but adults not so much. So let's work

04:34 our way now up to the Q5. Now this is a medium-sized SUV, so it is bigger than the Q3, but this

04:40 is the sportback version, so it has a slightly sloping roofline. Come on in, guys. We'll

04:44 see how they fit into here. All right, here they go. Sean on his very flat second seat

04:51 there as well. Okay. Still looks a little cramped to me. All right, around the table,

04:58 Scott's room?

04:59 Legroom is better. There's less of the top of the seat cutting in. Headroom is about

05:04 the same in this because of the sportback roof, though.

05:06 Are you still sitting on a plank of wood, Sean?

05:08 Yeah, very much so. Yes, it's a softer plank of wood.

05:11 James, leg and shoulder room, what's that like?

05:14 Legroom's good. Shoulder room's a little bit better. I could probably put up with this

05:18 for a little bit longer than in the Q3.

05:20 Are you leaning forward, Sean?

05:22 Not by choice.

05:23 Okay, go back. Yeah, okay. So if you realistically do that, you can see that it is still quite

05:28 a bit cramped. So, okay. What we've learned from this is medium-sized SUV, slightly better

05:32 for adults, still probably only ideal for children, but more room than the small SUV.

05:38 So let's move it up now to the large segment and the e-tron. We'll give that a shot.

05:44 We're in the e-tron now. So this is in the large SUV segment, but it's at the lower end

05:47 of the large SUV segment. It's before they get kind of supersized like the Q7 is. Guys,

05:52 hop on in. I think it's worth calling out as well that this isn't common to all large

05:57 SUVs, but because the e-tron is electric, it has a fairly flat floor, which means you

06:01 get a little bit more leg room there. And that's going to be common to most EVs as well.

06:05 So keep that in mind. If you're shopping for an EV SUV, you get slightly more floor room.

06:09 Okay, this looks a bit more accommodating. Let's start with you actually this time, Sean.

06:14 Shoulder room?

06:15 Still none, but a lot more on where I sit.

06:19 And sort of leg room with that low hump?

06:23 Incredibly easy to get in. The other cars are very difficult.

06:26 Yeah. Okay. Slender man.

06:27 Hello. Thank you for using my preferred name.

06:31 Knee, head?

06:32 Knee room is the best of all of them so far. Head room is really good, but I do feel like

06:36 I'm being pushed into Sean more because of the bolstering on the seats.

06:39 Ah, yes. Because they sort of taper out a bit, don't they? James, what is your room

06:44 like? You look quite comfortable back there.

06:46 Yeah. Like Scott said, I think because this one's the S with the sport seats, the bolster

06:51 on the side is pushing me into Sean. But other than that, I feel like there's a lot more

06:55 space, particularly in terms of width.

06:57 Yeah. Okay. So that is actually probably worth pointing out as well, that when you do shop

07:00 for an SUV, if you go for one of the sporty ones, you will find issues like that where

07:04 they try and taper in those seats. That's simply because it is a sports car and they

07:08 want your second row passengers to be comfortable if you're going for a faster drive.

07:11 Whereas a standard version of an SUV like this will have flatter seats without that

07:15 sort of bolstering on the side. So keep that in mind.

07:18 Let's move up to the big daddy Q7. Righto, it is Q7 time. Hop on in, guys. Now, this

07:24 is in the upper large SUV segment. So this is pretty much as big as it gets before you

07:29 hop into things like a Land Cruiser. This is seven seats, so it gives you a little bit

07:33 more flexibility. And by the look of it, there is a stack more room in here. So Scott, you

07:38 actually look comfortable for once.

07:39 I am. Yeah. Lots of leg room, lots of headroom. And this was the easiest car to get into by

07:43 a mile, wide doors.

07:45 And shoulder room as well looks pretty good, Sean. But I'm just thinking that middle seat

07:51 slides as well. So if you did want more shoulder room, you could slide that forward. There

07:55 you go. That's actually really good. So you now have room. Is it any more comfortable

07:59 in the middle, though?

08:00 Actually, yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. I can sit here.

08:04 Be careful. You're going to have to sit there for six hours. James, you look like you're

08:08 relaxing.

08:09 This is great. I can sit here for ages.

08:12 Good. OK, so as you can tell, I mean, obviously, the bigger the SUV goes, the more room you

08:18 have. But this should give you a bit of an indication. If you've got big, giant, freakish

08:22 children, this is probably going to be the SUV for you. Or if your kids are growing at

08:27 an exponential rate, you need to carry friends and all that sort of stuff, it is probably

08:30 worth considering this.

08:31 When you drive one of these, it does feel a little bit bigger out on the road. But for

08:35 the most part, it's not going to be too much of a leap forward from something like an e-tron

08:39 or a Q5 to manoeuvre. So if you do need more space, you're going to have to go for a large

08:44 SUV.

08:45 But let's move on to our next test.

08:48 Now, it is time for test number two. This is our bike test. So Igor, come into the frame.

08:55 Now, Igor is the other faceless man behind the camera, the other video extraordinaire.

09:00 Now, he has a very fancy bike. It's expensive. And I know some of you like riding bicycles

09:05 for some reason, even though you have a car. And we want to see how the bike fits inside

09:10 the car.

09:11 Now, obviously, with the bike in this sort of configuration, we can fit them in each

09:15 car. But this test is going to focus on whether you can actually get a seat up and use part

09:19 of that second row when you do have the bike in. So, Igor, do you want to take the wheel

09:23 off that? And then what we're going to do is Igor is going to load it in with each one

09:26 because I don't want to break his expensive bike. And we're going to see whether we can

09:30 actually get those seats up.

09:31 OK, Igor, off you go. Try and get your bike in without that front wheel. OK, cool. So

09:37 that is inside now. So while that's in there, let's see if we can lift this up. No, so we

09:43 can't. So you can see there that we're basically going to hit this gear thing when the seat

09:48 goes up, which means you can't have an additional passenger in there in your small SUV. So let's

09:55 move up to the Q5 and we'll see if we can actually get that seat up with the bike inside.

09:58 OK, so Q5, our medium SUV. We'll give this a shot, Igor. Give it a crack. We'll see how

10:04 this works. I'm hoping that this being a bigger SUV means we can actually lift that a little

10:10 bit and it looks like we're going to be in luck here. I think if I was to lift that up,

10:15 look at that. So you can actually fit your bike plus have an additional passenger in

10:21 there as well. And you've got enough clearance for the whole bike to be sitting in there.

10:25 So good news if you do need to carry a bicycle around for whatever reason, you can have a

10:29 passenger in your second row as well with a medium sized SUV.

10:33 So large SUV, let's give this a shot. Just before you load that in, Igor, I will mention

10:37 that because this is an EV, you get storage here beneath the floor so you can have your

10:43 click clacky shoes and spare Lycra just in case. Let's see if our bike fits in. OK, alright,

10:51 that is looking good. OK, let's try our seat test here again. So I can't lift this centre

10:58 one because these things are in the way, but I can lift that very easily and easily fit

11:05 an additional passenger in there, which is kind of what I expected. I wouldn't want this

11:09 to be any less sort of spacious there in terms of size. So yes, tick for the large SUV fitting

11:15 a bicycle with one of the seats up.

11:18 Finally, our big SUV, Igor, do the honours. I'm hoping with this we can actually get two

11:23 seats up in the second row. We'll see how we go. So clearly there's a stack more room

11:28 in there. Look at that, you can see all the way down that cabin. I'll just see if we can

11:34 lift two seats. No, so see, these things are in the way again for lifting that centre.

11:40 But the versatility here with the bigger car is that you can actually drop this out of

11:46 the way and in theory I guess you could drop your forks into here if you needed to load

11:51 those two seats up. You do have just a few more options in terms of getting everything

11:56 configured and into place, but at the very least you can just lift one of your seats

12:01 up so that you have more than enough room there to fit at least one passenger. So yeah,

12:07 clearly big SUV has a whole lot of room, but it does show you that you can fit the bicycle

12:12 in all of the SUVs and if you do want a passenger in the second row, you can at least get one

12:16 seat up from a medium SUV onwards.

12:19 Now test number three, this is our luggage test. I'm going to split this into two parts.

12:25 Number one is going to be fitting the luggage in. Will our Christmas Day luggage actually

12:30 fit into the boot? But then I've also set up the baby seat in the second row to give

12:33 you an idea of how much room there is with an adult next to the baby seat and also how

12:38 much room you have on the passenger seat in the first row when you have a baby seat in

12:42 place. So let's get started.

12:44 [Music]

12:59 Okay, so you can clearly see this is not going to work. There's probably not many combinations

13:06 of this that will actually fit all our stuff. Golf clubs are our limiting factor. They kind

13:10 of don't even fit sideways. They have to go diagonal and then you have to build up on

13:14 that. The pram takes up heaps of room and then if your cargo blind was in place as well,

13:18 there is just no way you'd fit any of this stuff in.

13:21 Now what about the baby seat here in the second row? I've got a rearward facing baby seat

13:27 set up. This is typically what you'd use up until the baby is around 12 months old and

13:31 then after that you'll flip this around to be forward facing. This is probably going

13:35 to be the most space consuming configuration as well because it takes up the most amount

13:40 of room and it means also that you have to have your front passenger seat slightly forward.

13:45 Center armrest here will go down with the baby seat in place and me here in the second

13:49 row next to the baby seat, there's enough room to be quite comfortable but you're not

13:53 going to fit another passenger in here without it being extremely cramped.

13:56 And in terms of the room you have on the front passenger seat, it has to go forwards so you

14:01 are slightly cramped there as a front passenger but you can still fit someone in if you need

14:05 to and this seat here, yes while you could have a baby seat behind your driver's seat,

14:10 given I have mine quite far back it actually wouldn't be able to fit a rearward facing

14:14 seat without me having to compromise my driving position or going to a forward facing seat

14:19 behind the driver instead.

14:21 So medium SUV time, this obviously has a bigger boot than the Q3 but both the Q3 and the Q5

14:27 don't really have any meaningful underfloor storage, you've just got a space saver tyre

14:32 here so let's try and fit our Christmas Day stuff into here and see if we have any further

14:37 success.

14:37 Okay so it fits but does the door close?

14:57 I think that's about as sort of tightly packed as I can get there especially with that suitcase

15:01 so let's try shutting that and see how we go.

15:03 We have success, it actually closes, good, no valuables in there which is also good.

15:15 Let's jump to the second row now.

15:16 Being a bigger SUV you have more room here, I've got the baby seat set up and I'll mention

15:21 as well that I haven't totally secured this in each of the cars but I've put it in enough

15:24 there just to give you a visual of how much space it takes up.

15:27 So you can see there's more sort of width here, I basically have more room between me

15:31 and the baby seat.

15:33 You can still put this centre armrest down, you probably still couldn't fit somebody here

15:37 in the middle, I guess you could but it would be very cramped.

15:40 The thing I do find interesting though is there still isn't a great deal of legroom

15:44 in the front passenger seat so you're still quite far up against that dashboard.

15:49 That also means that if you did put the baby seat behind the driver's seat you'd still

15:52 have to compromise your driving position just a little bit there so it is worth keeping

15:55 in mind if you do plan on having two kids down the track you're going to have to look

15:59 at putting a forward facing seat on the driver's side and a rearward facing seat on this side

16:02 if they are close together in terms of age.

16:05 But I think this is quite comfortable, we've got all our stuff crammed into there, obviously

16:09 it's not entirely safe to do that sort of thing but it does actually fit in there and

16:14 it means that you can go on your road trip if you need to.

16:17 It is now time for our large SUV, the e-tron.

16:20 I mentioned earlier that because this is an EV you have a little bit of storage under

16:24 the floor here so I'm going to tuck this under here just so we don't have to worry about

16:30 putting that inside and then let's start off with our Pram, we'll give this a shot.

16:51 Look at that, that actually fits really nicely but will the boot close, that is the question,

16:55 let's give that a shot.

16:58 It's looking close, Bob's your uncle.

17:04 OK, second row of the e-tron, this is good because with the baby seat installed I didn't

17:10 have to move anything in here so the front passenger seat was able to stay where it was

17:14 when the guys hopped in which also then means we could fit a rear facing child seat behind

17:19 the driver's seat in my regular driving position without it having to be moved forward or anything

17:23 like that.

17:24 There's also more room side to side here than the Q5 but it is worth keeping in mind those

17:29 side bolsters that we mentioned earlier eat into space for your baby seat so it's kind

17:33 of tilted on a bit of an angle so you really have to tighten that nicely to get that nice

17:38 and secure.

17:39 The center armrest goes down as we thought it would so yeah, pretty impressive space

17:43 here as you go to a large SUV which is kind of what I guess you expected but let's give

17:48 the Q7 a try now, I'm getting the feeling that's going to be the easiest to fit all

17:51 of our stuff in.

17:52 So, time to load the big boy Q7.

18:13 There is so much room to spare in there so obviously if you're travelling with all of

18:17 your family equipment, all of your stuff, this is going to be the ideal car for packing

18:21 everything in.

18:22 Let's see if that all translates to more room in the second row as well.

18:26 Now that we're in the second row I think it's worth calling out this actually moves forwards

18:30 and backwards so if you did have a lot of luggage you can actually move your second

18:35 row forward to give yourself slightly more boot room.

18:37 I mentioned also earlier that the seats tumble as well so you've got even more space there

18:41 if passengers aren't exactly a necessity.

18:44 So child's seat fits in perfectly there, I didn't have to move the front passenger seat

18:48 at all, that also means it's going to fit behind the driver without compromising your

18:52 driving position.

18:53 The other cool thing here with Q7 specifically is that you've got ISOFIX points on this centre

18:57 seat as well so in theory you could have three baby seats across here, you could even have

19:02 someone here in the middle seat next to that baby seat too.

19:06 So there you go, the ultimate proposition for space.

19:13 So I know that today we proved that a big SUV is big, I get that, but I'm hoping that

19:17 out of this video you got an idea of what size of SUV you need to go for.

19:21 Like I said at the start I never really wanted to be an SUV person but after living with

19:25 a sedan, having a baby and realising just how much stuff they bring with them, it's

19:30 not just you and your partner anymore, you really do need a bigger vehicle and an SUV

19:33 also makes it easier to load kids in and out of those because once they get heavy it's

19:37 a bit of a pain in the back to get them in the car.

19:39 So I hope that gives you a good idea of the size you need to go for.

19:43 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it, share it with your mates and

19:47 if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.

19:51 Let me know in the comments section below, do you want to see other videos like this

19:54 where we give you a bit of an inside look into the type of vehicle you need to be buying

19:58 or do you just want reviews?

19:59 Let me know in the comments section down there.

20:01 But until next time, take it easy.

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