In reply to RonnieFnD :
And if you want a little longer wheelbase and legroom the Seltos. We are almost back after a 3 day roundtrip to crystal river. It's been fantastic.
In reply to RonnieFnD :
And if you want a little longer wheelbase and legroom the Seltos. We are almost back after a 3 day roundtrip to crystal river. It's been fantastic.
2011 Subaru Outback 6MT 124k miles at replacement no major issues just normal maintenance- Good back seat space sufficient for 2 rear facing car seats. We saw ~27 mpg.
Then
2017 Hyundai Santa Fe 3 Row AWD V6 132k miles at replacement no major issues. Decent space in all 3 rows, interior held up well, a little behind it's competitors in NVH and ride quality but overall was good. Not great resale, so could be a used bargain. Towed a lot, rear suspension was always a little crashy and spent plenty of time on the bump stops. 23mpg average could eek over 25 all highway.
Now
2024 Honda Pilot. Too new for any long term impressions. Initial quality and features are comparable to the other 3 rows. A little behind some, but the largest physical volume and good payload at 1350lbs yellow door sticker. MPG appears a bit behind the Santa Fe, so far at 400 miles we are at 21.5 but it's new still so.. who knows. Fuelly says comparable to the 3.3 Santa Fe.
We looked at almost all the 3 row SUVs. I needed 5k towing so the Hybrids were out. Highlander availability was non existent in my area and we didn't like it a lot anyway.
Telluride / Palisade were both super nice and offered a bit more features then the Honda but the payload is pretty low for a 3 row that can tow 5k lbs at 1150lbs. Also after our experience with Hyundai resale even at the Hyundai dealer we went elsewhere. Maybe the Telluride will buck that trend but we decided everything made the Honda make the most sense this time. Will let people know how to goes as the mileage increases.
We had an odyssey- but if I were doing it today I'd bite the bullet and buy the hybrid Sienna. Extremely proven drivetrain- check out how many Toyota hybrids are nyc taxis.
also- strollers take up a ton of space.
we started with a Passat wagon and found that once the stroller was in- we had no other space.
For driving two kids around town, my answer was Mazda5.
pros: practical, ZoomZoom fun, maneuverable, mechanically reliable
cons: Mazda rust, not comfy or refined like the some of the big minivans, slow
In reply to Colin Wood :
Something diesel, like a smaller SUV/Crossover like an Audi Q5? We've had the larger cousin, the Porsche Cayenne diesel for 6 years and 90k miles. It's been pretty darn reliable, to the point that I think I'm going to buy a VW Touareg diesel as my next daily
I'm going to say the minivan was way more practical than the Forester or Elantra.
The ability to climb right in to get out of the rain while buckling the kids in their car seats was priceless. Combine that with the functionality, cargo space (strollers, porta cribs, etc), towing capability (3500lbs) for a great family hauler.
The key intangible feature is the emotional detachment that comes with the minivan.
Unlike trying to make a desirable vehicle (fun, luxurious, good looking) work for the family, and stressing when someone spills a soda, drops sticky snacks, or someone dings it in the parking lot, the minivan is different. Spills, messes, and shopping carts get shrugged off after the first time, and that lack of stress over the vehicle lets you focus on the stress of the kids 
I was in a similar situation and now have 2 and 5 year olds. These were the questions for us:
Our solutions so far:
Ford Flex Ecoboost. It has a ton of room in the first two rows. It was one of the few cars where I was completely comfortable in the second row and nearly comfortable infront of a rear facing child seat. We used it as a tow vehicle while we owned it as it had 350hp and could tow 4500lbs. We sold it because it started having Ford problems around 80k miles (cam phaser rattle, turbo oil leaks, hard shifting indicating transmission issues, potential ptu replacement, potential water pump replacement). The only change we would have made was sliding doors. Otherwise, it was the perfect kid hauler.
Toyota Tundra Crewmax. This partially replaced the Flex. We went for the older, less fuel efficient engine instead of the new turbo hotness intentionally. It has even more room for child seats and I fit in the middle seat for an hour or two if I need to. This thing is hard to park and does not work in parking garages. No complaints otherwise.
Mazda 5. This is now my wife's daily driver. It fits the 4 of us and all of the kids junk better than any hatchback I have seen. We have used the third row 4 times in two years so the size works for us. It isn't great on gas but the purchase cost was low. I think it needs an aftermarket seat for more knee room, a limited slip diff, and a manual transmission but my wife is pretty happy with it. It drives like a Mazda and is actually fun to drive. We are fully converted on sliding doors.
For our next car, we are taking a serious look at the VW ID Buzz if the price is competitive with plugin hybrid minivans and we get the short wheel base version in the US.
In conclusion you should buy a Mitsubishi Expo LRV/RSR or Plymouth Colt Vista/Eagle Summit wagon and swap in an 4g63 awd drivetrain.
Peabody said:ProDarwin said:
If I were choosing a family car at this point it would be a GTI or a Mazda 3Thatt'll never work
I was pretty sure that, because of our economic situation, and my penchant for practicality, when our kids were small we had a series of 2dr hatchbacks. But I must be mistaken because every time I mention it I'm told how that would never work, and I'm pretty sure it worked rather well. Sadly, that's not really an option these days, so I'd recommend some sort of full size truck, preferably something with 2500, Ranch or HD in the name.
You are right. I had a rear facing car seat in my Saturn SL2 and in my Veloster, which is not possible according to most of the internet.
Honestly, if you want to go full #AMERICA, just get a full size van. They make the space inside a minivan look downright comical, plus you can easily tow a house with you wherever you go. When I was little we had a 3/4ton GM Van. My sister and I each had a row to ourselves to sleep in on road trips. The two dogs came with us, along with half of the berkeleying house, and either a 21ft boat, or a 30ft camper.
The thought of taking a trip like that now absolutely disgusts me.
ojannen said:In conclusion you should buy a Mitsubishi Expo LRV/RSR or Plymouth Colt Vista/Eagle Summit wagon and swap in an 4g63 awd drivetrain.
This is the correct answer if minivan is a requirement.
BlueInGreen - Jon said:For driving two kids around town, my answer was Mazda5.
pros: practical, ZoomZoom fun, maneuverable, mechanically reliable
cons: Mazda rust, not comfy or refined like the some of the big minivans, slow
I'll second Mazda5. For a minivan, it is fun to drive. However, for its size, mileage is horrendous, especially around town. Also, the newest ones are now 9 years old. They seem to be a little hard to find for sale, between low production numbers, and the fact that owners tend to hold onto them.
Dark horse suggestion would be Toyota Prius V. I think they were sold in the US through the 2018 model year, so you can get one slightly newer. Just don't expect it to be fun to drive. Should meet the other requirements wonderfully, though.
We do still love our 2nd Gen Mazda 5. Interestingly, we live the salt life here pretty hard in the winter and there isn't any real rust to speak of on ours. There's a tiny bit of surface rust starting on the outside of the bottom of the spare tire well, but it's more scaling than rust at this stage. Which reminds me that I need to go scrape that off and touch it up to keep it from developing into an actual problem.
The other problem with the 5 is that they can haul the family or they can haul the family's stuff. Not both. We can't do a grocery trip with all 5 of us in that car without a pretty uncomfortable ride. We used it to do Christmas with the in-laws a couple years back and the only way we could make that happen was with a rooftop carrier.
Tim's right though, they're getting up there in age now and they're not easy to find. If you want the three-pedal version, those are even harder to find and were not available with things like leather seats and bluetooth.
A 3-row SUV can be a good choice - the GL350 is pretty good at moving kids around when it isn't actively attacking your wallet - but most of them have a 3rd row that is so small that the only people that can fit there are not physically capable of working the mechanism to fold the 2nd row out of the way to get in and out. We looked at the Pilot a little bit back when the kids were small and opted out because of that. Maybe one with 2nd row captain's chairs would get the job done.
With small kids, the vans were really the best for us. The full size conversion vans worked really well because we could open the barn doors on the side, throw everybody and everything in, then climb in and work on getting the kids strapped in. We were out of the cold, the wind, and the rain to do so. There was a ton of room in the back to stow the strollers and other accouterments and family trips were easy. Things like soccer games were pretty nice because there was a place where kids could take naps, play games, or whatever between matches or while their sibling was playing. The Oddity minivan was okay - drove like a car, got better mileage than the full size van - but you were still stuck outside to strap kids in. At least the remote power doors meant that the kids could get a head start on getting in to the car when your hands were full.
The thing is that there's no real hit comparing a minivan with any modern SUV/crossover thing. The minivan wins on every objective measure. You might eek out some benefits on a Eurowagen of some form, but with anything beyond a kid or maybe two, the minivan is going to be better at daily things.
Our "Family Car" is a 2023 Mazda CX-50.
My wife and I don't have kids, but we do have two medium-sized dogs and often "borrow" our little nephew for weekends, so we wanted something that had a decent amount of room. We had a CX-5 before this, and while it was a good car, the CX-50 is wider, longer, handles better, and more comfortable to drive. It's somehow both shorter than the CX-5 and has a taller ride height. We opted for the turbo engine, and it's no slouch. Absolutely fantastic highway cruiser, and we knocked down 30+mpg on a road trip last year. It will even do light off-roady things; we tried it on a muddy trail in "off-road" mode and it blasted right through. It feels like a giant version of my old 2002 WRX wagon, honestly.
That said, it's had a few small quality issues: one of the dealer-installed stick-on sill plates fell off (double sided mounting tape failed), the HVAC blend door computer unit died, and one of the steering wheel switches for selecting music tracks cracked off in the corner of the switch. All were fixed by the dealer under warranty except the steering wheel switch, which is annoying. It's a 1st year vehicle, and it was a "Covid build" so I expected a few hiccups. Mechanically, it's been fine.
The other elephant in the room is the price: MSRP on these in this configuration is around $42k. That's a lot, but it's competitive in its class and punches above its weight. It has just about everything I would want in a vehicle and then some.
Would we buy it again? Yes. Despite the small hiccups, it's been great. I love driving the thing.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Love the looks of the CX-50, and that's awesome you were able to get 30+ mpg with the turbo engine. I'll make sure the CX-50 stays on my list of potential buys.
In reply to tuna55 :
I wish we had more compact MPVs in the states. We got a few with the Mazda 5, Ford C-Max, and Prius V but nothing interesting since then (I refuse to count the Fiat 500L). They make so much sense for hauling the classic mini sized strollers that we use these days.
On a side note, liftback sedans do almost everything a 2 row small suv can do except pack it to the ceiling on a trip. The two good ones are the BMW 4 series grand coupe and the Kia Stinger. Kids don't need the headroom lost from the sloping roof. They are worth it just for trunk access but they also drive better than all the other standard options.
So far here is what we have had
Each has its shortcomings, but I'll put it this way, my wife steals my Maverick whenever she can.
My wife is seriously looking at a minivan for her next, as long as its not FWD as she would like the 3rd row and access that sliding doors provide as an option. Basically so we can take friends/family places (her mom is afraid of driving on highways, so extended family outings...)
Back in my day, my parents only had a few choices, with a full-size wagon making the most sense. This was pre-SUV, pre-minivan.
So, what did my parents cart us around in? Initially a Toyota Corona but, soon after, a succession of two-door Cutlasses.
Mazda RX-8.
Drop the kids off at school, take the car seats out in the paddock, turn laps at track of your choice, put car seats back in, pick up children from school.
I've been doing it for nearly 5 years now. The only thing I've actually broken was the driver's rear shock absorber (replaced all 4 with Koni adjustables)
(Saab 9-3 Aero "Sport Kombi" also gets an honorable mention, but GM V6s in FWD variety do have their drawbacks.)
In reply to Colin Wood :
That 30+ MPG rating... let me explain. At home, we get about 22MPG in mixed driving. This is acceptable considering it's AWD, turbocharged, and my lead foot wife is driving. 
But again, that's at home in New England, with hills, traffic, and our terrible roads. On the road trip, we went down to NC, and once we got to flat, straight stretches of highway, we were able to cruise along and sip fuel. We duplicated this tank after tank while down there, and we were both astonished! So, to coin a term literally, YMMV.
I had a Chrysler minivan and really liked it - Stow-n-Go seats that folded into the floor for when you wanted to carry a lot of stuff, engines with pretty good fuel mileage and reliable. Good ride quality too.
tuna55 said:The thing is that there's no real hit comparing a minivan with any modern SUV/crossover thing. The minivan wins on every objective measure. You might eek out some benefits on a Eurowagen of some form, but with anything beyond a kid or maybe two, the minivan is going to be better at daily things.
Except towing capacity. I am a diehard minivan evangelist, and even I freely admit that towing is the minivan's Achilles' heel.
Duke said:tuna55 said:The thing is that there's no real hit comparing a minivan with any modern SUV/crossover thing. The minivan wins on every objective measure. You might eek out some benefits on a Eurowagen of some form, but with anything beyond a kid or maybe two, the minivan is going to be better at daily things.
Except towing capacity. I am a diehard minivan evangelist, and even I freely admit that towing is the minivan's Achilles' heel.
True. Or really tough off roading. Very people do either, though. I did say, in fairness, modern SUV/crossover thing. Something like an Equinox or CRV is going to be about the same as a minivan for towing.
tuna55 said:Something like an Equinox or CRV is going to be about the same as a minivan for towing.
Minivan's in general will tow MUCH better than any Equinox or CRV class vehicles. They're built on the same platform as the up-to-5k tow rated 3-row CUV's, with the main deficiency being the same-as-3.5k tow rated 3-row CUV (weaker) FWD transmission. Compared to either though, the minivan has a longer wheelbase, higher payload, and weighs a little more. So if anything is MORE stable than even the equivalent 5k rated CUV. I frequently towed a travel trailer at the ~3.5k max weight with ours, and while not ideal in the mountains, stability was never a problem and it worked far better than most people might otherwise expect.
For a primary family family vehicle with 2+ kids and at least one infant or toddler, I maintain that nothing beats a minivan. Sure almost anything else can be made to work, all the way down to a 2-Miatae solution, but that quickly gets into the territory better suited to secondary family vehicles. The further the deviation from minivan, the more compromised it becomes at its main function.
We've now entered a phase where a full-size truck is the right tool for the job, but the only reason I'd have done different than a minivan then would have been needing to tow more than 3.5k.
When I first saw the thread title, I immediately thought of the 1971 Dodge Demon that served as the main family car during my youth. Granted, it was only the three of us as I am an only-child. But the A-Body has a giant trunk that can hold a lot of stuff. In the late 70's, my father added another 2-door car to the fleet in the form of a Datsun F-10. It got better gas mileage and was a hatchback, so it became our trip vehicle, despite the fact only my father could drive it (mom never learned to drive a manual).
Ironically, today I daily a minivan (Grand Caravan) and have no family. I prefer it for the utility although I'll admit in a money-no-object scenario and not needing to be concerned about fuel costs, my old conversion van was even better, although I do enjoy the creature-comforts of a relatively modern (2017) minivan. Is it perfect? No, but it does what I ask of it and it's paid for.
Sometimes I dream about a business converting big-3 full-size vans into EVs with a EV-optimized replacement frame, but I know the final product would be too expensive to be a profitable venture. Fun to think about, tho...
We were in that category about 15 years ago -- our daughter was 3 and our son was on the way. My wife was driving a Focus wagon at that point, and it was pretty clear that we wanted something with more space. We drove the minivans on the market at that point and decided on an Odyssey. That minivan was the most reliable vehicle we've ever owned -- had it 105K miles and it needed nothing more than fluid changes and brake pads (well, bodywork, but that wasn't Honda's fault). Our '07 was in a sweet spot after they'd fixed the transmission but before the VCM started killing rings.
Driving dynamics was the biggest factor for us, far better than I'd have expected from a minivan. Unlike the Toyota or Chrysler it didn't rub your face in the fact that you were driving a minivan, it felt like a bigger Civic or Accord. I wasn't about to take it to an autocross or track day (although there are pictures of it doing parade laps at Laguna Seca!), but it didn't punish you either.
We moved on to a CX-9 after the Odyssey, and as a Mazda fan in general (we have 3 Mazdas) I have to say I was pretty disappointed. It's coming time to replace my wife's car soon, and I suspect we'll probably head back to Honda this time.
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