Trunk comparison: Ford S-MAX vs VW Touran

Key Differences

The Ford S‑Max offers significantly more usable cargo space in several situations: with the seats folded down, the trunk of the S‑Max is 7.5 in (+11%) longer, with the first row of seats upright, 4.3 in (+11%) longer, and with all seats upright, even 30.7 in (+229%) longer than the VW Touran.

Additionally, the depth from the loading edge area to the trunk floor is 0.8 in greater in the S‑Max — a large percentage difference (+200%), but only +0.8 in in absolute terms.

Impact on Usability

These differences lead to concrete advantages of the S‑Max in practical use: The significantly larger cargo space with all seats upright makes the S‑Max much more suitable for everyday use when full seating and simultaneous luggage space are required (e.g., families with luggage or shopping).

Even with folded seats and normal seating, there is more loading length for long items such as furniture trunks, skis, or bulky boxes.

The greater depth from the loading edge area to the trunk floor (+0.8 in) hardly improves space utilization in absolute numbers but can help in borderline cases with flat or low-lying loads.

Minor advantages of the Touran (0.8 in wider at the narrowest point) are slight in most everyday scenarios — however, they can make fitting very wide but short items easier.

The slightly higher loading edge of the Touran (≈+2 in) makes lifting heavy loads slightly more strenuous; this difference is under 10% and moderately noticeable in practice.

In short: Those who frequently transport with full seating or need to load long/bulky items benefit significantly from the S‑Max. Those who rarely need maximum depth/length and focus more on minimal width advantages will find no major disadvantages in the Touran except for somewhat smaller trunk volume.