Oh dear

Exactly. In the E, I never had anything loaded up above the line of the parcel shelf/load cover. Hoping to achieve that in the Civic also when the time comes. If I had a Qashqai or some other such compromised rubbish, it'd all be dangerously piled up past that line - dangerous because I can't see out the back, and items are free to fly forwards in to the cabin under braking.

Estates over SUVs every time. And if I needed 4 wheel drive, I'd get an Outback.

Maybe so. But the Aircross is a car on a bigger platform. It should be compared to a full-sized estate car, not a mid-sized like a Civic. You're essentially proving my point that a large SUV can only carry loads equivalent to a medium estate car, rather than a large estate car.

If an Aircross can only deal with loads as well as a Civic Tourer, why would I want the extra weight, the poorer driving experience, the extra cost and extra the running costs of the SUV?

Compare an Aircross to a large estate like a Mondeo (or a second hand E), that's the comparison.

You're not getting me, tne. The fact that it's shorter is than an estate is the whole point. It is, by dint of that, less suitable for most of the sort of loading that I, and others like me (e.g. WDB), do. I don't want a short boot and then have to pile my stuff high - I want a deep boot so the load can be spread below the rear window line. I want to be able to put a dog cage in the right way round, opening at the rear and without a boot lip to lift it over - in a lot of SUVs it'd have to go crossways, and I also don't want to have to put things on top of it and I don't in an estate because there's plenty of room at the side.

A Mondeo is not a more expensive car than a C5 Aircross, and I mentioned second hand E Classes exactly because I now they're much more expensive brand new. Also, they are not in the same class, I'm comparing across classes - SUV against estate car - and my conjecture is that, if you're buying a car with large loads in mind, then an estate car is more often a much more useful body shape than an SUV.

Your X1 is surely a pumped up hatchback, as are most SUVs - again, that's my point. An estate car, for load carrying, is surely a more suitable and practical choice than most SUVs. It is the dearth of estate cars on the market now that I'm bemoaning - estates seem to be getting deleted from ranges and "replaced" with SUV type vehicles. Thus narrowing our choices and forcing us to accept these compromised and unnecessarily wasteful vehicles when an estate would be a much more elegant solution.

...no, I understand the point you're trying to make, it's just that the "facts" and statistics you've used against the original proposition (and the subsequent moving about of it) just don't stack up for me.  

(FWIW, I know people have different preferences in cars; I also get the estate thing; once given relatively free-reign over company car choice, four in a row were Mondeo Estate, Mondeo Estate, Volvo V70, Honda Accord Estate (admittedly terminated by a Honda CRV))

It is somewhat crass to compare the Aircross with either a Mondeo Estate or E-Class Estate as you did. Despite you feeling the contrary, both were/are a size and price class (or two) above (The Mondeo Estate some £4-5000 starting list price more).

Your current Tourer and the Aircross play in just about the same space, viz-a-viz overall footprint and list-price (extrapolating a bit since the Tourer is no longer available) and in this case, the boot capacity to window-line  has very little difference (though to be competitive you'd have to use the underboot space in the Tourer, and the Aircross could then trump it by moving the back seats forward).

I can't find the load-length dimension for the Aircross, but given the boot statistics above, and the fairly small difference in overall length,  I can't see that it is going to be much different to the Tourer (especially given the differences in overhang and styling - the Tourer rear-end styling looks no less compromising on boot space than my X1, and though the X1 is shorter again, it isn't far off your Tourer's load-length).

When it comes to running costs, unless the SUV you choose has 4WD - the Aircross doesn't - then you're really only worrying about fuel consumption and servicing. Honda servicing isn't, in my experience, particularly cheap, but typically the Aircross might be a couple of MPG worse than the Tourer.

For me, then, it comes down to a matter of personal preference, not a differentiation on the (IMO flawed) criteria you've quoted.   


 

Presuming you mean ‘didn’t’, neither do I. Went to the airport in a new E220 the other day. Short of headroom because of silly glass roof; back seat set low in an attempt to compensate but just left me perched on my botty-bones with my knees in the air. W212 E that brought me home yesterday was nicer all round.

As you'll know, I genuinely do use the loadspace in my cars every day more or less. Another vote for long, flat loadspace that's not too high off the ground for ease of access and most versatile space. Then of course there's my tangential preference for a low roof height to put bike racks on.