4 person family with minivan or 3rd row SUV?

[cricketwife]

So I’m car shopping today and I’m all over the place. 

Option 1 : replace our Camry with another Camry or a Forester - these are less expensive than ..
option 2: Sorento, Telluride, Ascent, Pilot, Sienna, Odyssey...

We have two boys, 3 and 6.   I really, really want to be able to pickup friends, drive them with us, etc.  But it’s a lot more expensive to get a car that will seat 7-8, than one tat seats 5. 

Id love to hear from families that have larger cars, but smaller families.  Are you glad? Is it worth it?  Barring someone crashing into us, we keep cars 10+ years, so I want something that fits have older kids. Fwiw, we don’t have grandparents that visit and that we need space for.  This really is just for doing things with friends.  

[madringal]

I don’t think you’d regret a minivan with captains seats in the middle row. I love my 2015 odyssey. They historically last a long time, so check out some that are a few years old with low mileage.

[mainelyfoolish]

I have an 8 passenger Sienna and two kids. We use the extra cargo space more than the extra seating, but both are valuable to me. We have plenty of room to bring everything plus the kitchen sink when we travel. Hauling home stuff from the home improvement store is no problem. I use my minivan to pick up all the cases of cookies my Girl Scout troop sells and I also drive my troop (6 girls and 2 leaders) to events. When my parents fly to visit us, we can drive around my family plus them in one vehicle (and my parents are comfortable in the middle row). We also use our minivan to occasionally pull a small trailer. It fits our lifestyle.

[IrishBelle]

Its not what you asked for but since you mentioned wanting something that works as your kids are older I thought I would share what we have. We have 2 DDs, 14 and 9. Both of our vehicles seat 5. I drive an Accord and DH has a truck and it works for us. Usually if we have more than 1 friend with us, its unlikely that both DH and I would be going anyway. DD1 has been able to ride in the front seat for a while so that means we have room for 2 friends in the back.

Also, I can fit so much in the trunk so that isn't an issue for us either.

[jayhawk5]

We have a 4 person family and have had a Honda Odyssey for 9 years. It was 2 yrs old when we bought it and have been really happy with it, and it’s still going strong. It’s been really reliable, and as much as I hate the size sometimes it has been very handy for carpooling or when we’ve needed to haul things. The ease of flipping the back seat down has been so convenient when we need the cargo space.

We had sticker shock too with the price, especially since Hondas and Toyotas hold their resale value. We went with the base model to keep cost down. That meant the sliding doors aren’t automatic, but we figured the plus side of that is it wouldn’t be an expensive fix if they needed repairs. It was only a pain with that when the kids were super young and I had my hands full.

[Deleted]

We are a family of 3 and have a Pilot. I got our first one when I was still single. It’s admittedly too much for our normal day-to-day driving. H drives him and C to school every day (about two miles).

But we do a LOT of road trips. We drive 7 hours to see my ILs probably 5-6 times a year, and do other road trips in the 3-12 hour range annually. And the Pilot is AMAZING for road trips. It would be perfectly comfortable for two adults/two kids on a long drive. We did me, my parents, and C when we moved from CO to FL, which was a 4-day trip, and it was plenty big.

The other time it’s really nice is when either set of grandparents visit — we can fit all 5 of us in one car so we don’t have to take two cars to go places (my FIL doesn’t drive anymore and MIL hates driving in unfamiliar places, so this is kind of a big deal for us).

Could we get by with a smaller car? Of course.

Not sure if this was helpful.

[jackie011]

We’re a family of 3 with a Honda Odyssey. My ILs live a street away and it’s nice to have 1 vehicle that fits everyone comfortably. 70+ y/os are not climbing in and out of an SUV’s 3rd row. DS is still in a 5 point harness and I think until he’s completely independent and I’m no longer concerned about him hitting doors when he gets out, we’ll keep the van. We can easily carpool with friends and I love having a roomy vehicle for road trips.

The only time I don’t love my van is when it’s snowy, as I have a job where I’m expected to be there, no matter what. Our 2nd car is an AWD SUV, and as long as I have that option, we’re fine. (The van is ok in the snow, it’s just that we live in a hilly neighborhood and they clear residential roads last when it snows around here.) We’ll either get rid of this in 2-3 years while it’s still worth a good amount or keep it until it dies, I’m undecided right now. DH will likely need a new car well before I do, and as you know, even the best plans change unexpectedly.

[cricketwife]

Feb 1, 2020 12:26:24 GMT -5 @villainv said:

We are a family of 3 and have a Pilot. I got our first one when I was still single. It’s admittedly too much for our normal day-to-day driving. H drives him and C to school every day (about two miles).

But we do a LOT of road trips. We drive 7 hours to see my ILs probably 5-6 times a year, and do other road trips in the 3-12 hour range annually. And the Pilot is AMAZING for road trips. It would be perfectly comfortable for two adults/two kids on a long drive. We did me, my parents, and C when we moved from CO to FL, which was a 4-day trip, and it was plenty big.

The other time it’s really nice is when either set of grandparents visit — we can fit all 5 of us in one car so we don’t have to take two cars to go places (my FIL doesn’t drive anymore and MIL hates driving in unfamiliar places, so this is kind of a big deal for us).

Could we get by with a smaller car? Of course.

Not sure if this was helpful.

This is where I’m a little stuck.  We’ve always had smaller cars, of course we can get by with a smaller car, so how much is added convenience of s bigger car worth to me?  Basically is being able to haul a few extra kids, having a more comfy ride to the beach once a year, etc worth 10k- ish.  I’m leaning in a half hour to go see/drive a few of these options o I think that will help me know more what I want. We used to be a one-car couple with an old compact so I’m always wrapping my brain around wanting a bigger car. 

But yes, it is helpful to hear multiple experiences and opinions. 

[dcn]

I have an ascent and 2 kids who are 7 and 4. The 3rd row comes in really handy. It is by no means a must have but it is really nice to have. I was able to take our neighbor’s kids to school the other day for example.

We keep the 3rd row folded down most of the time but it is quick and easy to pull it up.

[melsbels]

Family of four with a minivan here. I drive a 2017 Dodge Grand Caravan and I love it. We have captain seats in the middle, which to me is a must.

It’s so nice to have tons of space for road trips/camping and even trips to the grocery store since we have a big double stroller. We use the third row quiet often with my FIL and/or BIL come to visit as well. Always nice to not have to take two vehicles if we go somewhere!

We’ll eventually move to an SUV once the boys are older, but I can bet we’ll still end up buying something with a third row.

[Deleted]

We have 3 kids, but i can’t imagine not having a car where I couldn’t bring friends if each kid with me/us. We actually have both a minivan that seats 7 and a pilot that seats 8. Even if both DH and I go all the kids can bring a friend in the pilot. And if DH isn’t going I can still bring all the kids plus one friend for each in the minivan. I haul a lot of kids around and it important to me to be able to do that... but there are plenty of families who don’t do that and it isn’t important to them to do that. I think you just have to decide if that is something that you think will do a lot. I carpool 2 extra kids to school every day because we choiced into a school without a bus. Maybe you already know you won’t have to carpool for school so that won’t be a consideration. My kids don’t really do team sports so carpooling for that was not a consideration for us. Maybe you already have an idea whether that will be a consideration for you. When we go skiing we almost always bring my mom with us, maybe you have situations like that that are a consideration. We like to drive the kids’ friends for birthday parties instead of having a huge party at a place we often do a couple of friends to somewhere and then take them back for a sleepover. Maybe you prefer the bigger parties at a place so that’s not a consideration. I just think it’s dependent on what you do or don’t do.

[humpforfree]

Up until a month ago we were also a family of 4 with an odyssey. Like someone else said, we definitely used the cargo space more than extra seats, but I had several times that we used the extra seats also. The extra space is just fantastic for road trips, camping, bringing the dog, and knowing we’ve got the space to bring friends with us to the zoo, etc. We actually went to a car show before picking the odyssey and H (engineer 🙄😂) brought a tape measure to get a real visual of the cargo space. The third row suvs just didn’t compare, especially since we also use the van basically as a pickup, carrying lumber and drywall sheets lol.

[chedifuen]

We have a VW Passat and a Toyota Rav4 Hybrid. My kids are 13 and 9 and we considered a 3rd row this year when we bough the Rav but ultimately the MPG is way different on the larger vehicles so we went with the Rav.

We can still take one friend and that's generally plenty. On the VERY rare occasion that we'd need to transport more than that, we do have a second car. We just couldn't justify the environmental impact and cost of the 3rd row. We'd had our car for 9 months and we've yet to need a 3rd row.

[ilikedonuts]

Feb 1, 2020 12:26:24 GMT -5 @villainv said:

We are a family of 3 and have a Pilot. I got our first one when I was still single. It’s admittedly too much for our normal day-to-day driving. H drives him and C to school every day (about two miles).

But we do a LOT of road trips. We drive 7 hours to see my ILs probably 5-6 times a year, and do other road trips in the 3-12 hour range annually. And the Pilot is AMAZING for road trips. It would be perfectly comfortable for two adults/two kids on a long drive. We did me, my parents, and C when we moved from CO to FL, which was a 4-day trip, and it was plenty big.

The other time it’s really nice is when either set of grandparents visit — we can fit all 5 of us in one car so we don’t have to take two cars to go places (my FIL doesn’t drive anymore and MIL hates driving in unfamiliar places, so this is kind of a big deal for us).

Could we get by with a smaller car? Of course.

Not sure if this was helpful.

Basically ditto all this except we have 2 kids. I love my pilot and the 3rd row and space comes in so handy. I did have a van before actually too but prefer SUVs. We use the space a lot in the pilot and I use my 3rd row for carpools more and more often as my kids get older

[kellikans]

We recently bought a 3 row SUV after having kid #2. I had an Audi SQ5 prior to that and it was way too small, even for when we were a family of 3. But we also have a giant stroller that took up most of the cargo area. It was also a pain when we had family come to visit and we needed to take 2 cars everywhere.

When we were looking, our short list ended up between the Telluride and the Volvo XC90. I really liked both, but wasn't too sure about having the captains chairs. I just preferred the bench seat in the back better (and the trim level we were looking at didn't offer it). We ended up going with the XC90 and I really love it. The third row is actually one of the roomiest on the market, and it's easy to get in and out of. There's a ton of cargo space (we also have 2 100+ pound dogs that we need to take places occasionally). Plus, Volvo safety has always been really good. I also like how Volvo is moving toward going all electric at some point, which is important to us (we have one electric vehicle now and would like both of cars to eventually be electric).

[acr]

2 kids and got a minivan (Kia Sedona) in the last year as a size upgrade from my mid-sized suv. It’s fantastic. Easy to take friends with us places, though one of the main motivating factors was the ability to take our parents with us if we went somewhere.

But plus to being able to pack so easily for a road trip or taking the kids to camp.

[arehopsveggies]

Family of 4 with a suburban. I needed something that would pull our camper. I like being able to take extra kids after school or whatever. I like if we have grandparents with us we can take one car. It actually gets better gas mileage than my dad’s mid-sized suv. Although, if it’s just me and the kids on short weekend trips sometime I will take DH’s car to save on gas

[CloudBee]

I just posted in 2 car threads about the Honda Pilot we purchased today. (3rd row)

We have ONE kid, but practically live out of our car. My 6 year old's martial arts gear back is HUGE, we expect he will be signing up for late season hockey after receiving clearance from his doctor this week (more gear), and often have a suitcase in our car for hospital trips.

I currently drive a CR-V, which I love. But I am excited to have more space. DH's parents recently moved into an assisted living facility, and he's been at their old house weekly doing work. Cutting down trees, cleaning out the attic, etc. He's always hauling things and is looking forward to having a lot of cargo space for his tools and such. We've also had to move some furniture.

I am envious of those driving minivans with small kids and sliding doors. If we had 2 kids I would probably own one.

[CloudBee]

Feb 1, 2020 14:51:35 GMT -5 kellikans said:

We recently bought a 3 row SUV after having kid #2. I had an Audi SQ5 prior to that and it was way too small, even for when we were a family of 3.

I'm happy to see this feedback, because that was in our top 5 list before going with a Pilot today. (Also a family of 3.)

[Susie]

We're a family of 4 (+ dog).  Our kids are 4 and <1 year.  We have a Jetta and an Atlas (seats 7).  

We drive the Jetta primarily when we don't need the space of the Atlas, but the Atlas or something of comparable size is a must have for us for road tripping, which we do a lot of.  We drive 5-6 hours regularly to my dad's beach house, and need space for 4 people + stuff, our dog, baby gear, etc.  Even with a 7 passenger SUV (with the 3rd row folded down) we still use a cargo box on the roof + a bike rack on the back.  We used to have a Jetta wagon, and before that a Forester, and it just wasn't enough space for trips when we added a 2nd kid.

But for the road trips, we could probably get away with a 5 seat crossover/SUV.  A Forester, Outback, CRV, RAV-4, etc. would certainly be fine for us for daily use, although the gas mileage wouldn't be as good as our Jetta.  We got the Jetta primarily because I like driving stick shift, but our next "small car" may be a hybrid or electric.  That's mostly how I balance the big car ownership.  I would not want to drive the big land yacht full time.  I don't really like parking it, driving it in tight spaces, etc.

[expectantsteelerfan]

I went from a honda CRV to a Toyota Highlander in Sept. this year. The highlander has captains chairs in the 2nd row, and then an option 3rd row with 3 potential seats, so it can seat 7. I've had 4 adults and 3 kids in it. The kids can fit in the 3rd row, but I wouldn't want to have adults sit back there.

I have seriously never been happier with a big purchase. The trunk size is awesome when the 3rd row is down, and the captains chairs in the 2nd row are easy to move/adjust so I can really have space if I need to buy something huge like a dresser or bike lol (done both so far). And the 3rd row is also super easy to put up/down. I'm 5 ft. tall, and can reach the strap to do it easily.

We have driven my kids friends a TON already since getting it in Sept. I'm seriously so glad we have that option now. In the CRV, we could only fit something like a bubble bum in between 2 boosters, so we could take 1 extra kid if we used that, but I always hated doing it.

My kids are 8 and 10, and still in boosters when they use the captain's chairs, but the 3rd row is shorter, and has a raised foot area, so my 10 year old can sit there without a booster no problem. I do make my dd move her booster if she wants to sit in the 3rd row.

I researched ALL the 3rd row SUVs before buying. We have a short garage, and unfortunately a lot of the bigger ones are too tall for our garage (almost bought the Ascent without realizing this!). If size of garage wasn't an issue, I would have been happy with the Ascent, the Telluride, or a Honda Pilot too. I wanted all-wheel drive and captains chairs in the 2nd row, so those were the ones I focused on.

I also liked the Kia Sorento, but it did not have captain's chairs as an option for the 3rd row, so you would have to put down a seat in the 2nd row or move it and climb to the 3rd row. Overall it wasn't much bigger than a CRV, so if I hadn't wanted to go bigger, I would have gone with that.

But I really do feel like the Highlander is the perfect size for our family of 4 right now with all the schlepping we do of kids and kid stuff.

[ECB]

We are a family of 3 with a mini-van. I love it. I actually totaled our 2007 van this past September and it wasn’t even a 2nd thought that we’d get another one.

We can take people without worry, we road trip a lot and don’t have to think about what we’re packing, etc. when we need to haul stuff - we throw a tarp down and haul.

We love it. We have a 2019 odyssey and i plan to drive this van a LONG time. As mentioned, our last van was 12 years old and we had owned it 10 years and had no plans to replace It if it weren’t for my dumb accident.

[boiler717]

We have one kid, 4y. We recently did the van / 3rd row SUV search when we needed to replace our CR-V. I thought for sure we would get a van, specifically the Odyssey, but we wound up with a VW atlas. We got the option with a bench in the second row, but I think either than captains chairs or the bench is a good option but the bench worked better for our specific situation.
I was disappointed so much in the minivans. I thought I would love them. Our favorite was the Pacifica, but we just didn’t love it. The biggest draw to the Odyssey was the sliding second row (we kept tripping) and we preferred the stow n go of the Pacifica.
We had looked at the Pilot and Highlander when van shopping, and the back end was too small. We looked the XC90 and it was also too small.
On a whim we went to VW to check out the Atlas and LOVED it. It’s far bigger than the other 3rd rows but doesn’t feel huge like a suburban or Yukon XL. We often travel around town with my parents, and with the bench second row it’s super easy. My son is in the middle and an adult can easily fit on either side. If someone does need to sit in the back, the 3rd row is 50/50, so it feels much roomier than the minivan third rows that seat 3. The 5 of us have done an 11 hour road trip in both the Atlas and Odyssey and everyone preferred the Atlas (2 in second row and 1 in third row for both).
The backend has a lot more storage than the other third row SUVs. We figured we didn’t often needed to haul both a lot of people AND a lot of cargo, so the cargo storage of a van vs. SUV didn’t matter as much. We were able to use a car topper for a FL trip for the 5 us easily.
Back to your question on the bigger car for a smaller family, YES DEFINITELY. If the 3 of us are going somewhere we will take our more fuel efficient car. But it’s so nice to have the bigger option for bringing along my parents. It’s helped so much with picking up friends after school, play dates, etc.

[jewel]

I have 2 kids and bought my highlander when we had just one kid.

I actually had a CRV before this, which I loved, but it was totaled and I was traumatized into buying a bigger car.

Anyway, I love the highlander. My older kid (5) prefers to sit in the way back, so I have the single side up and plenty of cargo space still. That leaves one second row captains chair empty too. We just did a 16 hour round trip drive with 3 adults and 2 kids and it was perfect.

[mmmomof2]

I have two girls and drive a 7 seater SUV. Now that they are older and boosters are less than a issue I could probably get by with a 5 seater SUV, but I do enjoy being to take more than 4 kids if I want. I’m a SAHM and play dates and carpooling is a big part of our life. We also ski and it’s nice to have the cargo room when the third row is down.

[penguingrrl]

We’re a family of 5 with a pilot and while I love my car, it’s almost too much car for 5 of us. Most of the time there are only 1 or 2 people riding in it (me and DS) because my girls’ school is directly across the street from our house, so they both frequently don’t get into a car at all during the week. On my 35 minute commute it feels so wasteful in terms of gas for me alone (I wasn’t working when we bought it).

We love it for road trips. Two kids in the middle row, one in back and plenty of storage space for luggage. Back when my girls were in elementary school and we carpooled a lot we often had 6 kids in it. I don’t carpool with my son because we moved and are only a mile from school, so we bike if it’s dry and over 40, which made planning a carpool impossible since it would only be for winter mostly.

I briefly had a Toyota Sienna and it was far too big for only 5 of us, and I hated having captains chairs because it meant I could never ever have decent storage capability with all 5 of us, so it was simultaneously bigger and less efficient than the pilot with bench middle row.

I would seriously consider if you really are going to need the third row as frequently as you’re going to be in the car alone or with only 1 or 2 other people. Then the finances of the purchase cost plus the often significant difference in gas costs over the life of it. My H drives a Jetta and gets double my gas mileage and can fit all 5 of us. We’ve considered downsizing me and renting another vehicle if we truly needed because it feels so environmentally wasteful to drive such a big car with usually only 1 person.

[InBetweenDays]

We are a family of 4 (kids are 13 and 11, plus a big dog) with a Mazda3 (my commuter car) and a Toyota 4Runner (our road trip car). We actually just bought a new 4Runner a few weeks ago (our last one was a 2003) and opted to get a 3rd row. In two weeks we've used the 3rd row 3 times - to bring kids home from a school event, to take DD and friends up skiing, and to bring DS' friends out for his birthday party.

I will say the 4Runner definitely does not have the best 3rd row on the market, but that wasn't our main reason for going with that vehicle. We've owned them since 2000 and love them so H wanted the same car - getting the option of the 3rd row was an added bonus. Our main reason for having a bigger car is because we do many ski days/trips and camping trips and often need the space and the 4WD.

[waverly]

We got 2 cars that were both 5 seaters, one was a small SUV. Then we decided we wanted a bigger vehicle so then we had to pay for the depreciation so don't do that.

We decided on a 7 seater Subaru Ascent because of family in town, road trips and carpooling. Sometimes it feels big and somehow it ended up being DH’s car haha. But we are glad we have it. I was thinking we would use the extra seats about once a month, and we are mostly hitting that. Also when my mom comes with us I was always the one in the middle between 2 car seats. It’s been great not to have to do that anymore. Of course now DS just graduated to being out of the booster.

[ilikedonuts]

Feb 1, 2020 15:27:34 GMT -5 CloudBee said:

Feb 1, 2020 14:51:35 GMT -5 kellikans said:

We recently bought a 3 row SUV after having kid #2. I had an Audi SQ5 prior to that and it was way too small, even for when we were a family of 3.

I'm happy to see this feedback, because that was in our top 5 list before going with a Pilot today. (Also a family of 3.)

You will love the pilot!!

I seriously love my pilot so much. Unless they change it drastically, I’ll probably just keep buying them. I have 36k miles on my car in 15 months so I drive a lot and it’s perfect.

I love that I can fit all 4 carpool kids in car seats/boosters plus 8 huge bags (both swim bag and gear bag for each kid).

[lilac05]

Just to offer a different perspective, we have two kids and a 5 passenger vehicle. (My H’s truck seats 6 if needed, fine for in town.) We partially chose the 5 seats because I DIDN’T want to be hauling everyone’s kids everywhere. I’m a SAHM and will usually go way out of my way (often literally) to help out a friend. People know (think) that I have the time and like to help, so I’m sure be asked often. Getting a car that mostly just fit my family means that I have a built-in excuse to just worry about my own kids. We can still take one child with us, but that doesn’t happen too often. My oldest is 9 now, so I may change my mind, but when we bought this car 2.5 years ago, a 5 passenger vehicle was what worked best for us...plus it has better gas mileage, is easier to drive, and was cheaper!