Friday 19 March 2021

How big is the boot space? Every SUV in Australia in 2021, ranked

Susannah Guthrie

Journalist

We like big boots and we cannot lie.

If you're shopping for an SUV, it's likely you want to know a few important things. A good number of seats, an ample amount of power, an affordable price point, reliability, safety and – possibly most importantly – how much of your life you can cram into the boot.

Supermarket bags, golf clubs, the family dog, old furniture, new furniture, half of a hardware store – plenty of us will put our car's cargo space to good use throughout its lifetime.

In such a competitive SUV market, buyers are spoilt for choice and sometimes purchase decisions can come down to the millimetre. As such, we've rounded up some of Australia's top-selling compact, medium and large SUVs and ranked them according to boot size alone.

That way, if you want a small SUV but happen to own a Bernese Mountain Dog, you can see if you're really able to squeeze into that Toyota C-HR, or whether you need to make the leap up to a Nissan X-Trail.

However, not all boot sizes are equal and there are two different measurement standards for boot size currently in use in the automotive industry.

VDA (Verband der Automobilindustrie) standards – also known as ISO 3832 standards or DIN 70020 standards – are generally regarded as the most relevant measurement of space as they use simulated 'blocks' of a certain size to measure useable cargo space, as opposed to filling every tiny nook with liquid. It typically measures space to the parcel shelf, rather than to the roof.

SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) is a measurement standard used mostly in the US that measures wet value, because it takes into account every bit of available space. Both VDA and SAE are measured in litres (L).

To keep things fair, where possible, we've used VDA measurement standards and quoted minimum cargo space (i.e. the space available with all seating rows in play), unless the car is a seven or eight-seater model, in which case we've quoted figures both with and without the third row in play.

Unfortunately, some manufacturers still use only SAE measurements for their cars, so we have marked these brands accordingly with an asterisk. Please note, quoted SAE figures are, by nature, likely to be higher than VDA figures – but this doesn't necessarily mean their cars' boots are bigger than their VDA counterparts (in fact, quite the opposite).

Similarly, some brands that purport to use VDA standards also measure boot space to the roof so, where possible, we have pointed this out so you can fairly compare them against those that measure only to the parcel shelf.

Here, our 2021 cargo showdown.

SUVs ranked by smallest to biggest boot space (in litres)

NB: We've listed only the boot space figure with all seating rows in play, unless the car is a seven or eight-seater vehicle, in which case we've listed both the boot space with the rear row up and with it stowed where available.

* Denotes brands that use SAE standards – measurements are likely to appear higher. Some manufacturers were unable to supply minimum boot size measurements.