Best Vehicle With a Kid
- Thread starter heyguy85
- Start date
It's not cool, it's not sexy but just get a van. You could do an SUV if you are only going to have two kids, but three kids in booster/car seats in an SUV is tedious. Both of my sisters are currently fighting that battle and looking at vans.
For ease of hauling children, especially starting where you are, definitely a van. We have a 10yr old Sienna we bought brand new, and will probably be trading that one in for a new one soon. The auto slide doors are a must. You can be carrying an infant carrier, holding a toddler's hand, and open the doors without having to let go of either one. No worries about dinging the vehicle next to you if someone parks close when opening doors. We got the van when we had our second and now we have 4 kids (2 still in carseats). My husband has no issues driving a van when we are all together. He has a Malibu he drives to work and picks up our older kids with it--we never put carseats in his car.
If you aren't manly enough to drive a minivan and know for sure you won't be having more than 2 kids, something like a CRV or RAV4 are great vehicles (or equivalent domestics). Drive and handle like a car, easy to park, decent mileage, don't have to bend over to get car seats in/out, etc. Of course a minivan does all of this as well and holds more stuff. Plus minivans are good enough in snow because they have enough weight to get traction, and for 90% of "off-road" that people actually drive because they have enough ground clearance to handle grass parking lots or dirt roads.
1. The third row seating GMC Acadias are perfect. We have three kids all under 4 and its great.
2. Also Ford F150 for yourself.
Agree with the minivan, but stay away from the Chrysler products. Toyota or Honda are much better products. No offense.
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We've got a Mazda CX-5. We like it. I wish we had gotten something with the automatic rear liftgate, but I was impressed enough with the CX-5 that it's not a biggie.
What did shock us is how freakin' huge car seats are. We just make sure that I'm not sitting in front of the car seat on long trips.
What did shock us is how freakin' huge car seats are. We just make sure that I'm not sitting in front of the car seat on long trips.
Minivans rock for kids. Hard to beat the space and value combination. Have an O7 Honda that still runs like new.
Minivan is not needed for 1 kid. If I got to the point where I had enough kids to warrant a minivan I think I'd just sell off the ugliest ones until I was under the threshold before I had to actually purchase and drive a minivan.
I agree that the Honda/Toyota are better than the Chrysler/Dodge, but the domestics are a LOT cheaper and I think the reliability concerns are overblown.
1. The third row seating GMC Acadias are perfect. We have three kids all under 4 and its great.
2. Also Ford F150 for yourself.
I've heard that the third-row seats are only suitable for small kids - most teenagers will be too big to be comfortable back there. And with the third-row up you lose most of the cargo space. Make sure to check that the third-row seats will meet your needs.
