Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer estate (2010-2016) - Practicality & boot space

Even by the standards of the class above, the Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer is quite a practical car, thanks to its large, boxy boot and impressive space inside for the driver and passengers. What’s more, all Astra Sports Tourers come with plenty of useful cabin storage spaces, building on the car’s already decent luggage capacity.

It’s just a shame that the Vauxhall Astra estate isn’t actually the most spacious car in this class – in fact, many rivals have noticeably more room in the back than the Sports Tourer. But the Vauxhall does redeem itself somewhat by having seats that fold down completely flat, which something that not all competitors offers.

On the downside, the Astra follows the trend of compact estates suffering from poor rear visibility. While the rear window is decently sized, the window pillars are quite thick, which creates a considerable blind spot when you’re reversing. This might prove to be a problem if you choose the BiTurbo diesel engine, as (for some reason) it’s the only Astra Sports Tourer that can’t be fitted with the optional parking sensors.

Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer interior space & storage

As with most hatchbacks that have been converted into estates, the biggest advantage the Sports Tourer has over the regular Astra hatchback is the extra space in the back. Thanks to the car’s estate bodystyle, the Astra Sports Tourer also has much-improved rear headroom compared to the hatchback, so even six-footers should fit into the back seats with ease.

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There’s plenty of room up front, too. Not only is there a decent amount of head and legroom for the driver and front-seat passenger, but the cabin is also littered with storage cubbies, including sizeable door bins, a big glovebox and three cup-holders located behind the gearlever. And unlike the hatchback, all Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer models come with storage pockets on the front seat backs.

Sufficiently wide door openings also make it fairly easy to get in and out of the Astra Sports Tourer, while also helping parents who need to fit child seats to the ISOFIX mounting points on the front passenger and outer rear seats. However, although the central rear seat is wide enough to accommodate a child seat, there aren’t any mounting points to attach it to.

Boot space

Despite being quite a bit smaller than cars from the class above, the Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer actually beats some of them for boot space. In fact, with 500 and 1,550 litres of space with the rear seats up and down respectively, the Astra has marginally more room than the larger Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer estate.

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The Astra Sports Tourer scores some more practicality points with its very boxy boot shape, with no wheelarches intruding into the floor space and a wide boot opening. What’s more, the rear seats fold completely flat (which can’t be said for some key rivals, such as the Volkswagen Golf estate), with the optional FlexFold system carrying this out at the touch of a button.

While the Astra Sports Tourer is impressively practical, it’s not the most spacious car in this class. For example, the Peugeot 308 SW offers a class-leading 660 and 1,775 litres of space respectively with its rear seats up and down, while the Hyundai i30 Tourer and Kia Cee’d Sportswagon don’t trail too far behind.

The Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer does claw back some ground with the handful of storage cubbies in its boot, such as the usefully sized side pouches.

Towing

Unless you only need to tow less than a tonne, we’d recommend you steer clear of the petrol-powered Astra Sports Tourer models. Even the 1.6-litre is limited to 1,000kg, with the 1.4-litre only managing 750kg. For more serious load-lugging, then, you’ll want to consider the diesels. The 1.6 and 2.0-litre engines have respective maximum towing capacities of 1,300 and 1,400kg. The 1.3 and 1.7-litre diesels are slightly less impressive, with limits of 950 and 1,000kg.