Ivan's new car search, '26

At €1.81 against €1.56 the price premium cancels the consumption advantage. That buys none of the DPF, EGR, injector, turbo or dual-mass flywheel risk that comes with it.

Both scale with purchase price, so the price column is also the running-cost column. A car costing €5,000 more costs roughly €650 a year more before it turns a wheel.

Euro NCAP re-tested it in 2022 and gave it four stars: 77% adult, 81% child. The 88/89 figures still quoted everywhere are the 2015 result. Nothing about the car changed; the measuring stick did. This is the clearest possible argument for ranking on the test year rather than the star count — which is what the safety score column does. Hover any cell for the breakdown.

Dropping the body-style rule was supposed to promote the VW Touran and its 834 L boot straight to the top. Instead the 2022 retest put it at four stars, and its 1.5 TSI turned out to use the dry-clutch DQ200 rather than the wet DQ381 that clears the Tiguan and Kodiaq. Two independent failures, neither about design. It sits in the rejected group below.

The Peugeot 5008 was cut earlier over the 1.2 PureTech wet-belt defect — and the same note recorded that the 1.6 THP is chain-driven and unaffected. That exemption was never acted on. Taken up, it gives 780 L, seven seats, 86/85, and a torque-converter automatic instead of a dual clutch. Verify AEB against the VIN: its 58% safety-assist score is the weakest of any front-runner.

The old 1,500 kg mass floor rejected the Qashqai at 1,445 kg and would have rejected the 5008 at 1,440 kg. Both positions could not stand. The evidence behind the rule separates vehicle classes by hundreds of kilos, not sixty, so the floor is now 1,400 kg and the weight column is shaded against that. The Qashqai still fails on boot, AEB and diesel. Change this back if you disagree — it decides whether the 5008 is a contender.

The S-Max and Galaxy post the best balanced crash result of any MPV here at 87/87, and clear the mass floor comfortably. But Euro NCAP recorded AEB as optional on the 2015 test car. "The model has AEB" is false for this one — confirm it against the VIN before viewing anything.