Every SUV in Australia Ranked by Boot Space

Boot space is the SUV spec buyers check last and argue about first, and it is the spec where brochure numbers are least comparable: two SUVs quoting the same litres can be measured to different fill lines by different methods. This page lists the boot volume we hold for every SUV on Australian sale, split into three size bands by length, seats up and seats down. Every figure is read live from our database each time the page rebuilds, so it matches the car pages it links to rather than a number typed in once and left behind. For cars, wagons, coupes and people movers, see the companion boot space by segment page.

Read this before you read the tables

A boot litre is not a fixed unit. Most Australian brochures use the VDA method, where one-litre blocks are stacked to the top of the rear seat backs. Some use SAE, which fills to a different line. Some publish a load-to-the-roof figure, which is much larger for the same physical boot. Of the 237 SUV nameplates below, only 34 record which standard their figure uses, drawn from 124 car rows whose source document names it. The rest do not say, and no honest ranking can be built across an unstated basis. The tables are sorted by the published figure, biggest first, so you can find an SUV rather than crown a winner. A 20-litre gap between two SUVs that do not name their method is noise. A 200-litre gap is real.

The seats-down column has a second problem on top of that. Folded volume depends on where the manufacturer stops measuring and on whether the seats fold flat, so two SUVs with the same folded litres can swallow very different loads. It is also the number nobody publishes: 61 of 237 nameplates here have one, about 26 per cent. Where it is missing the cell says No data, never an estimate, and the SUV keeps its place in the table.

4 nameplates publish no seats-up figure at all in the Australian documents we hold: Chery Tiggo 7, Forthing Taikon 5, GMC Yukon, Jaguar F-PACE. They are listed with the cell marked No data, because showing the gap is more useful than hiding the car.

The size bands

Bands are vehicle length, printed under each heading, so you can check where any SUV falls rather than take our word for which one is "medium". 233 of 237 nameplates publish a seats-up figure. EVs are tagged, and a front boot is noted separately rather than folded into the total. A band needs a length: where we hold none for a variant it borrows its siblings', and an SUV with no length at all gets a table of its own at the end rather than disappearing. 3 nameplates appear in two bands, because their variants sit either side of a band line: Jeep Wrangler, Mercedes-Benz GLC, Porsche Macan. Each entry carries only the variants that belong to that band.

What the numbers actually tell you

Three patterns survive the measurement noise. The first is that size band beats badge only loosely: the biggest small SUV boot on the page, the Skoda Karoq at 521 L, out-carries 75 of the mid-size nameplates below it, so a shorter car is not automatically a smaller boot. The second is that a six or seven seat SUV quotes a number most owners never see, because the brochure figure is usually taken with the last row folded. With every row in use, 5 of them here drop below 150 L, which is a school bag and a shopping bag, the smallest being the GWM Tank 500 at 98 L. The third is that folding the rear seats roughly triples the space in a five-seat SUV: across the 39 five-seat nameplates that publish both figures the median is 3.0 times, but the multiple runs from 1.8 times (Suzuki Vitara) to 4.8 times (Geely Starray EM-i), so it is not a rule you can apply to an SUV whose folded figure is missing.

The practical test is not litres at all. It is whether the boot floor is long enough, wide enough between the arches and tall enough under the parcel shelf for the thing you actually carry, which is why a 400-litre boot can fail on a pram that a 380-litre boot swallows. Use litres to build a shortlist, then check the shape.

Compare two SUVs properly

Once two or three are on your shortlist, put them side by side, where boot volume sits next to rear legroom, kerb weight, price and running costs.

• Tesla Model Y, the largest published mid-size figure on the page at 2,158 L
• Land Rover Defender 130, the largest published large-SUV figure at 1,329 L
• Mazda CX-5 vs Toyota RAV4, the mid-size pair where one publishes a boot figure and one does not
• Kia Sportage vs Hyundai Tucson, 543 to 586 L against 539 to 582 L, close enough that the boot should not decide it
• Browse every SUV on Australian sale
• Boot space for every other segment

Boot volumes are manufacturer-published figures held against each car in our database, read live at build time from the 845 on-sale SUV rows this page covers. Where a manufacturer document names the measurement standard it is shown; where it does not, the basis is unstated and figures should not be compared closely. No figure on this page is estimated, converted or inferred, and SUVs with no published figure are listed with the gap visible rather than removed.