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its time to buy a new car for my wife. We have 130K on the Honda odyssey and I have 160K miles on the saab that I own. She really like the odyssey because of the periperhal view ie. windows that you can see all around you. I test drove the kia, Hyundai, Honda small SUV's and the windows are really closed off and it is hard to see. Any suggestions on Small/Medium SUV with good windows?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We considered the Subaru Forester but ended up with a 2014 Ford Escape, which we have had 2 years now with no problems and love it. It has good visibility, but even better is the larger Edge, which we have driven on a trip (rental).
I have a 2016 Mazda CX-5. Fun to drive, peppy, comfortable, great cargo area (I can haul 4 bales of hay in it) and I'm averaging a little over 27 mpg in Ocala, which is a ton of stop and go driving. For example, my average speed is 31 miles an hour. If you hit one red light in Ocala, you hit all of them. We took it to Pensacola and averaged about 38 mpg on the open road doing 70-80+ mph.
It has a warning system that has little lights in the side mirrors if there is a car nearby and if you turn on the turn signal and something is in the way, it beeps to let you know. It also has a great rear backup camera, better than my previous Equinox had. It doesn't have great window visibility, but the warning system makes up for it.
I went to this car from a 2012 Chevrolet Equinox, which has absolutely the biggest blind spots in the world and a turn radius of a semi truck. The Mazda will turn around in basically its own length. I've had it 2-1/2 months and I love this car. I may never give it up. It was right at $30K. You can probably pick up a 2015 model a bit cheaper.
I was going to mention the Volkswagen Tiguan, as it seemed to have really good sight lines the few times I drove one, turns out I'm not the only one who thought so.
Took a neighbor lady car shopping. She had a 2003 Honda Odyssey with 30,000 miles on odometer. Purchased new. Too big for her now.
She wanted another Honda. Honda CR-V. We looked at many from Ford to Chevrolet to Buick to KIA to Hyundai.
She ended up with a Subaru Forester. Her opinion was a visibility issue. The Honda was more difficult to see out the back/side windows.
Whereas the Subaru was perfect for her.
A former co-worker recently got a Subaru Forester also, and one of her biggest concerns with a car is being able to see around and out of the vehicle. She test drove it and was immediately comfortable with driving it.
Good luck on your search!
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