Rent Hyundai STARIA 2022 in Dubai

Before the keys change hands on a Hyundai Staria, we usually fold the third row down and ask the group to stand and look at what's left. That one move settles most of the argument at the kerb. We rent the Hyundai Staria 2022 in Dubai as a nine seat van, delivered to your door or the airport in one to two hours, and the booking that goes sideways is nearly always the one where somebody counted seats and forgot the suitcases. Nine people fit. Nine people and a week of luggage do not, at least not all at once. Where exactly that line sits is what this page is for.

What actually fits behind the third row

With all nine seats upright, the Staria still leaves roughly 831 litres behind the last row. A large sedan boot is around 500 litres, so you are carrying about a sedan and a half of luggage while nine people sit in front of it. In practice that means four large hard cases stacked to the window line, plus a few soft bags wedged around them. Push toward the roof and you fit more, though you lose the rear mirror view and anything loose becomes a projectile under braking.

Nine passengers with nine full size suitcases is still not a real configuration, and nobody should book it expecting one. Seven or eight people with a case each and hand luggage is comfortable. Nine works when a couple of them travel light, or when the group is doing hotel and mall runs rather than a full airport transfer. If everyone has a big case, slide the third row forward, accept that you are now a six seat van, and enjoy a cargo bay most SUVs cannot touch.

Spec table

Nine seats, and who should sit where

The layout is three rows of three. The second row is the good seat, with proper legroom and easy reach to the sliding doors. The third row is genuinely usable for adults on a half hour run across the city, which is more than most seven seat SUVs manage, but three grown men across it for an hour to Abu Dhabi is a long hour. Put kids or the shorter adults back there.

Access is the quiet advantage. Both sides have sliding doors with a wide aperture, so people step in rather than climb, and older passengers are not folding themselves past a tipped seat back. On a trip where you load and unload five or six times a day, that adds up.

Heat is the honest caveat. This is a tall, glassy cabin of close to five and a quarter metres, and a Staria left in the sun at 45 degrees takes real time to come back down. Rear ceiling vents run over the second and third rows, so once the system is working the people at the back are not forgotten, which is where cheaper seven seaters fall apart. Give it a couple of minutes before you load passengers and drop the windows for the first thirty seconds to dump the hottest air.

What a week actually costs to run

A 3.5 litre V6 hauling a van this size is not frugal. Expect around 7 km per litre in Dubai traffic and closer to 10 on an open highway run. The 75 litre tank gives you roughly 500 km of city driving, so a busy week of airport runs, mall trips and hotel transfers is two fills rather than a daily stop.

The comparison that matters is not against a sedan. It is against the two cars you would otherwise rent. One Staria burns more fuel than one saloon, but less than two of them, and it pays Salik once per gate instead of twice. It also removes the second driver, the second parking bay and the problem of keeping two cars together on Sheikh Zayed Road.

Mileage is 300 km a day, which a Dubai group rarely touches. A run out to Hatta or Abu Dhabi and back can push past it, and extra kilometres cost AED 0.5 each, so an overrun is a few dirhams rather than a change of plan. Minimum age with us is 18, which matters for younger groups, since most Dubai desks will not hand a nine seater to anyone under 21.

The height problem, and everything else about parking

Read this part before you book. The Staria stands 1,990 mm tall. Plenty of Dubai basement car parks post a 2.0 or 2.1 metre barrier, which leaves you centimetres, and older buildings sometimes sit lower than that. If your hotel or apartment tower has a basement, check the posted height before delivery. Surface lots, valet and multi storey decks with generous clearance are the easy answer, and it is the one constraint on this van that no amount of careful driving solves.

Everything else about its size is manageable. At 1,997 mm wide it fits standard bays, and the sliding doors mean nobody dings the car beside you. The long 3,273 mm wheelbase turns U-turns into a two look manoeuvre, and reversing wants the camera and some patience. Mall ramps and speed bumps have not been an issue for our cars.

One thing to be clear about: it is front-wheel drive, so treat it as a road vehicle only. Soft sand will strand it, and no desert track is worth the recovery call. On the highway the V6 has plenty for merging and overtaking fully loaded, but a tall body catches crosswind, so leave more room than you would in a sedan.

Salik tolls and any RTA fines pass to you as the renter. Seat belts are mandatory in all nine seats, and children under four need a proper child seat, which we can fit before delivery.

The recommendation

Book the Staria when you have seven to nine people moving together with real luggage, and when you can park it above ground or in a basement you have checked. It is the rare vehicle that carries a full load of passengers and their cases at once, and the sliding doors and rear vents make a long day of stops far less painful than a packed seven seat SUV.

If your group is six with heavy bags, a seven seat van is smaller, cheaper to fuel and easier to slot into a bay, and you lose nothing you will miss. Four adults doing city errands should drop to a seven seat crossover. And if your building's basement is your only parking, take the SUV and save yourself the phone call from the ramp.