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I have a 2.5y/o and another one on the way. We are planning on getting rid of our VW EOS which is a 2dr sports car.
Our other car is a VW Passat. I want to buy a good family car. I am debating whether or not I should get a minivan, an SUV (2 or 3 rows), or another sedan.
I'm leaning towards a 3 row SUV or a minivan. I figure i'll need the room plus if I need to haul around extra passengers I'll have more flexibility than I would with a sedan.
I was wondering what you parents with 2 or more kids think and what works with you. Thanks in advanced!
We have a Dodge Grand Caravan, a blue one, the ubiquitous minivan. It's a 2003 and on its third engine. It will be paid off next year, and we're probably going to get rid of it. I'm not sure they are made anymore anyway.
Minivans usually have more seating than SUVs (ours seats seven) but don't have much cargo room. Lots of luggage or groceries? Piled in the back on top of the kids! However, you'll only have four people, whereas we have five. You can take the third row out (they usually come out very easily) and have a bigger cargo area.
A feature I really like about our minivan is the door remote. We can lock and unlock the doors, open and close the side doors, and open and close the back hatch. It comes in handy.
There's also a drawer underneath the front passenger seat that holds sunscreen, a first aid kit, handi-wipes, stuff like that. With kids, you have to look at the places you can stash stuff. One minivan has compartments in the floor, which is kind of cool. Just realize they'll fill up with goldfish crackers and junk if you're not careful.
Something else to note: gas mileage. Ours gets about 16 mpg. Minivans aren't very fuel-efficient, and noodling about town takes its toll. I think some of the newer SUVs are better in that respect.
We just got our first minivan 7 months ago (Grand Caravan, yep they still make em!) and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!
3 engines? Where do you drive?
The mileage sucks (13 around town, 21 on roadtrips) but the convenience is AWESOME! With our two kids, we took a 2 1/2 week roadtrip. So convenient and we were packed to the GILLS, but we were all still comfortable and we left both sides of the back seat up just in case someone wanted a nap. The compartments in the floor are great, but our kids are past the age of Goldfish and we rarely eat in the car (granola bars, carrot sticks, fruit rollups and apples mostly on the roadtrips).
We are a family of 4 and always have room for 3 more kids, which has come in handy. With all of the backseats folded down, my dh can work out of it when necessary and there's lots of hauling room.
We had a sedan, then a Vibe when the kids were smaller. They were less expensive to drive and big enough for us, but once you "go minivan", you'll never go back!
We had 5 kids in the house at one time, now we are down to 3 with an occasional 4th. (the grandchild) We bought a Dodge Grand Caravan when all 5 were still in the house, before that we owned a Ford Econoline Van with 4 wheel drive. The Econoline Van was great for hauling capacity and we could take it on camping trips as the back seat folded down into a queen size bed and the 4 wheel drive could get us further back into the woods, However the gas milage on the thing was horrible.
Now with the minivan we still have pretty decent hauling capacity beyond the seven passenger seating, that is if we don't take my grandmother on long trips. She always manages to load us down with all sorts of stuff she wants to take to people so it wouldn't matter how much hauling room there was she would still load us down. More room means even more stuff for her to bring along.
The minivan has come in quite handy as we always seem to have room for extra people beyond our household. But there have been times when we've really needed a Chevy Suburban that can hold 9 people instead of 7. We have had to make 2 trips several times to get kids from one place to another because we were 1-2 people short of seats. But that can happen from time to time when you have 3 kids and 2 adults that already take up 5 of the 7 seats and you host a big birthday party that starts in one place and ends at another.
I would love to get a Suburban only for the extra seating, but I am happy with my Minivan and there will come a time when I will need less seating than I currently need now and the Minivan will still be a great vehicle for hauling other things besides people around. It's especially nice that I can remove both back seats if need be for more hauling room. I was able to haul just as much stuff in my minivan as my DH could in a full sized truck when we moved. The only thing I couldn't haul was mattresses or the couch.
I'd have to echo the "minivan" vote too.....they are less expensive and more fuel efficient than large SUVs (Suburbans). They are also more versatile. We went through both a Plymouth Voyager and a Honda Odyssey.....they were both fine. It is much easier to deal with carseats and other stuff if you can actually get in the back yourself rather than hang over rows of seats....For cargo transport take the last row out (or fold it down in the case of the Odyssey). Captain's chairs rather than bench seats in the middle row do make long road trips easier on parents and kids (no "he's got his stuff on my side of the seat" arguments).....We got rid of our minivan about 2-3 years ago and I was glad to get something different but given our lifestyle (sports, carpools, driving trips) it was the right decision at the time and I don't regret having them.
I have a 2.5y/o and another one on the way. We are planning on getting rid of our VW EOS which is a 2dr sports car.
Our other car is a VW Passat. I want to buy a good family car. I am debating whether or not I should get a minivan, an SUV (2 or 3 rows), or another sedan.
I'm leaning towards a 3 row SUV or a minivan. I figure i'll need the room plus if I need to haul around extra passengers I'll have more flexibility than I would with a sedan.
I was wondering what you parents with 2 or more kids think and what works with you. Thanks in advanced!
I've got three kids. Three is the magic number that calls for a 3 row vehicle. With the size of these child car seats these days it's hard to squeeze three kids into the back seat of a sedan....unless it's like an ultra wide back seat.
Looking back...this is monday morning quarterback talk now....I would never have gotten a minivan (Chrysler T&C) or large 3 row SUV (Suburban) if we would have only had 2 kids. They are just a bulky vehicles that aren't required for simply hauling the family from point A to B. And - for me - we hardly ever have 'extra passengers'. I mean maybe every great once in a while it happens but it's just not often enough to justify a big three row vehicle IMO....again...if you only have 2 kids.
Obviously there are advantages to having a vehicle like a suburban. The utility factor is huge. I mean....so long as you actually neeeeeed something like that. I personally use mine how it's meant to be used. I've hauled plywood, sheetrock,(complete 4X8 sheets with the door closed) landscaping stones, lumber, etc, etc.....and then turned around and hauled a car load of kids to the movies in the same day. That's using it for what it was meant for. If you aren't doing stuff like that you sure don't need it...and could get by with a lesser vehicle.
When we just had 2 kids my wife drove a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP. That was a great car and we had it all of 2 years before we found out we were having kid number 3. But that car got it done just fine. It had a HUGE trunk. We could stuff the Pack-N-Play, stroller, toys, etc....PLUS luggage for the rest of us for a week long trip and there was plenty of room in there. It also had a pretty comfortable cabin. Nobody was complaining about leg room and I'm 6'2".
Just my input but if I were in your situation...with just 2 kids...I'd go back to the sport sedan in a heartbeat.
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