Rose Chap
MB Enthusiast
Happy news in the Rose Chap household. My wife is expecting our third child and he's due to arrive and meet his two brothers in May.
Some of you correctly surmised this after this thread: Three child seats in S212? so hats off to you, budding Lieutenant Columbos.
Like all petrol head fathers I greeted this news with obvious delight as it gave me justification for spending even more hours on AutoTrader doing speculative car searches. It's quickly become clear however that the current Rose Chap fleet of a Toyota Prius and a Lexus GS450 are not suitable for three kids and two adults on the basis that hardly any cars are wide enough to fit three child seats across the back row (2 x high backed booster for Boys 1 and 2, and an infant seat for Boy 3).
High backed booster seat looks like...
The busy-ness of our "lifestyle" dictate that we kind of need both cars to be able to transport everyone if need be, though we could cope with only one of our cars able to take all five of us for a while (the duration of maternity leave for example).
The Mrs won't compromise on the high backed boosters. She was driven into by an old duffer asleep at the wheel when Boy 1 was 6 weeks old which wrote off the 3 Series we had at the time and child safety in cars is paramount. I don't really disagree with her on this either.
I did look seriously into the MultiMac seats but they don't really have an answer for when you outgrow their infant carrier (after maybe 9 months tops) yet still want to be rear facing, it's forward facing only from then on. Multimac works best if you have three or four kids pretty much the same age in my view.
Obviously the rational and sensible thing to do is to buy a Ford SMax, but I'm too shallow and demonstrably stupid to be either of those so clearly am looking at more interesting alternatives.
My thinking is to replace my Lexus GS in 18 months or so (once the Mrs goes back to work and we have two salaries again) with a GL420. This seven-seater behemoth should easily fit everyone in and would be my day to day car and the vehicle we'd take on family trips to visit relatives and so on when we need to carry not just people but also stuff.
Working plan for the Mrs (who does 10,000 business miles per year) is to replace the Prius with a S211 - the S212 is ruled out on cost terms - with the two extra seats in the boot (unfortunately mine wouldn't be an AMG).
The thinking being that Boys 1 and 2 could potentially sit in the boot in their high backed boosters, with Boy 3 in in the back in his infant seat, then in his extended rear facing seat until he's about four.
This working plan raises some questions though, for which I'd be extremely grateful for any assistance.
* Does anyone use their S211 with third row seats for carrying their kids? Do you use high backed booster seats and if so is there room?
* Any obvious reasons why a S211 (I'm thinking E280 CDI or E320 CDI) from around 2008 or 2009 is a terrible idea? I'm assuming not but am happy to be enlightened!
* Does anyone know the proper, legal Mercedes-Benz wording for the ratings of these seats and what is allowed relating to them and what isn't?
* Does anyone have any comments relating to the lunacy or conversely the immense wisdom of my plan? Don't just tell me to buy an S Max, this is a Mercedes forum, at least humour me.
Some of you correctly surmised this after this thread: Three child seats in S212? so hats off to you, budding Lieutenant Columbos.
Like all petrol head fathers I greeted this news with obvious delight as it gave me justification for spending even more hours on AutoTrader doing speculative car searches. It's quickly become clear however that the current Rose Chap fleet of a Toyota Prius and a Lexus GS450 are not suitable for three kids and two adults on the basis that hardly any cars are wide enough to fit three child seats across the back row (2 x high backed booster for Boys 1 and 2, and an infant seat for Boy 3).
High backed booster seat looks like...
The busy-ness of our "lifestyle" dictate that we kind of need both cars to be able to transport everyone if need be, though we could cope with only one of our cars able to take all five of us for a while (the duration of maternity leave for example).
The Mrs won't compromise on the high backed boosters. She was driven into by an old duffer asleep at the wheel when Boy 1 was 6 weeks old which wrote off the 3 Series we had at the time and child safety in cars is paramount. I don't really disagree with her on this either.
I did look seriously into the MultiMac seats but they don't really have an answer for when you outgrow their infant carrier (after maybe 9 months tops) yet still want to be rear facing, it's forward facing only from then on. Multimac works best if you have three or four kids pretty much the same age in my view.
Obviously the rational and sensible thing to do is to buy a Ford SMax, but I'm too shallow and demonstrably stupid to be either of those so clearly am looking at more interesting alternatives.
My thinking is to replace my Lexus GS in 18 months or so (once the Mrs goes back to work and we have two salaries again) with a GL420. This seven-seater behemoth should easily fit everyone in and would be my day to day car and the vehicle we'd take on family trips to visit relatives and so on when we need to carry not just people but also stuff.
Working plan for the Mrs (who does 10,000 business miles per year) is to replace the Prius with a S211 - the S212 is ruled out on cost terms - with the two extra seats in the boot (unfortunately mine wouldn't be an AMG).
The thinking being that Boys 1 and 2 could potentially sit in the boot in their high backed boosters, with Boy 3 in in the back in his infant seat, then in his extended rear facing seat until he's about four.
This working plan raises some questions though, for which I'd be extremely grateful for any assistance.
* Does anyone use their S211 with third row seats for carrying their kids? Do you use high backed booster seats and if so is there room?
* Any obvious reasons why a S211 (I'm thinking E280 CDI or E320 CDI) from around 2008 or 2009 is a terrible idea? I'm assuming not but am happy to be enlightened!
* Does anyone know the proper, legal Mercedes-Benz wording for the ratings of these seats and what is allowed relating to them and what isn't?
* Does anyone have any comments relating to the lunacy or conversely the immense wisdom of my plan? Don't just tell me to buy an S Max, this is a Mercedes forum, at least humour me.
