Chevrolet Tacuma The Day-To-Day Choice

Chevrolets Tacuma Has Been Designed Around The Needs Of Active Family Lives. Graham and Natalie Motuel, Along With Their Five Children, Have Been Putting The Car To A Long Term Test

The only way to properly test a mini-MPV is to pitch it straight into its intended environment. So we handed our long term Chevrolet Tacuma over to the Motuel family and their five children and waited to see if wed get it back in one piece. The Motuels family transport normally gets a hard life and there was no let-up for the Chevy in its time with them.

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With a large family, an MPV-style car is a practical solution to the challenges that daily life brings. At least five spacious seats, large storage areas, controls that are easy to find and operate, along with good visibility are all essential attributes that a vehicle of this type must possess. Natalie used the Tacuma during the week to ferry the kids around and to do the weekly shop and was generally impressed by the way it performed. Natalie particularly liked the fact that all the five seats had three-point belts.

She also thought the car very well equipped for the money (around £12,300 for the 2.0-litre petrol variant they tried), with cubby-hole spaces that were extremely useful with her children in the car. Nice touches she liked included the way that the Tacumas front passenger seat could swivel to face those at the rear to facilitate family conferences. And the way that the centre rear seat could slide forward by 120mm to increase shoulder room for passengers in the outside pair of seats.

According to the Motuels, Chevrolet seem to have created a vehicle that can carry both people and a degree of their luggage at the same time. Often with people carriers its either one or the other, unless an ugly roof box is employed to carry the luggage. In total, theres 347 litres of loadspace, a figure that rises to 1155 litres with all three rear seats tumbled forward. The Motuels also found they could take the three rear seats out completely and increase luggage capacity to a whopping 1,847 litres almost commercial vehicle proportions.

Unfortunately however, as Graham pointed out, theres a high rear loading lip to overcome before you can get to the space on offer. Nevertheless, the clan seemed to find the flexibility of the Chevy very much to their liking. The three rear seats, they noted, folded flat into the floor with the minimum of fuss, which made the Tacuma a boon for husband Graham when he wanted to use it to transport an awkward load or take the bins to the local re-cycling centre. This also meant that Graham didnt need to risk a herniated disc lugging the seats into his garage.

On the road, Natalie found the car to be a delight to drive. Its high driving position gave really good all round visibility and she found parking and manoeuvring really very easy. The 2.0-litre engine made driving effortless and the car pulled away, she thought, in an assured manner.

Despite the relatively powerful engine, Natalie found that she had to make very few trips to re-fuel the Tacuma, making it very economical for the family to run. Equipment levels are very good on the CDX model the Motuels tried, with air-conditioning, ABS, twin airbags, remote auto locking, an immobiliser/alarm, electric windows, the provision to connect a trailer, coat hooks in the back, body-coloured mirrors and bumpers, alloy wheels and colour-coded bodyside mouldings. Natalie found that the controls were easy to find and very intuitive to use, a factor that is very important for a busy Mum driving an unfamiliar car. The last thing you need with a car full of excitable children when it starts to rain is to be fumbling for the windscreen wiper switch.

Being a large family, the Motuels are well used to the MPV format with all its pros and cons. One feature that Natalie found particularly pleasing about the car was its high roof line at the back which made securing both the child seat and her young daughter a much more comfortable experience than with other MPV models the family had tried. On the downside, though she didnt particularly like the styling, Natalie was hard pressed to find fault with the Tacuma. The only point she could really think of was that the kids had complained that with either the child seat or a booster seat in place, access to the seatbelt catches was very restricted and made belting-up a tricky exercise.

Overall though, the Motuel family ended up pretty well pleased with their mini-MPV. Moreover, the price tag of under £13,000 would seem to give good value for this well-equipped and comfortable family hatch. On this evidence then, it would seem that Chevrolets under-rated people carrier might well have plenty of life left in it yet.



Facts At A Glance
CAR: Chevrolet Tacuma 2.0-litre CDX
PRICES: £12,295 on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 10
CO2 EMISSIONS: 236g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 10.8s / 0-60mph 112mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (urban) 23.5mpg / (extra urban) 39.2mpg / (combined) 31.4mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front airbags / ABS
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Heightmm 4350/1755/1630mm