Ladies - what do you drive that is family friendly?

[ThreeMenAndALAdy]

I know you said you refuse to drive a minivan, and I said the same thing. But I now own a 2012 Honda Odyssey Touring. It pretty much does everything but drive itself. It's my second one, and I can now say I do really like them.

[cvd]

Ha ha us too - we would need to use finance over like 5 years so probably wont bother since our merc is owned out right we may as well run it into the ground until it dies or we win the lottery.

I would have to finance a Q7 over about 15 years lmao. I can find 2009 Q5's in the $25,000 range which is what we want to be around. And I know, we have owned our Jetta's outright for about 3-4 years now so it's tough to all of a sudden to be thinking of ANOTHER payment, which want to be paid off before our mortgage renews in 2016.
Oh such tough decisions!!! I hate vehicles LOL

[jennaesue]

We also said we would never buy a mini-van, but after months of cramming three kids and their gear into a Nissan Sentra, we broke down a bought a Toyota Sienna. I LOVE it! But if you are totally opposed to the whole mini-van thing, I would consider a Toyota Venza or Highlander. My dh drives a Prius C and he is very happy with it. Have you considered the Prius V? I haven't actually seen one, but I hear they are more family-friendly than the regular Pruis.

[cvd]

Thanks for all the comments ladies!
If we were going to have more kids I'd be more into looking into minivans but since we are only going to have 2 we would like an suv/crossover or DH wants a truck (although since I will be mainly driving it, I don't!! haha!). I know a lot of people who love their minivans, it's just not for us

Jennaesue - I have seen prius' but it's not really up DH's alley lol he wants something closer to a truck!
We have been talking about a new vehicle for about 6 months now, I just wish we could agree. But in the meantime our down payment keeps growing as we keep arguing which is good! LOL

[LacePrincess]

We were able to jigsaw puzzle 3 car seats in the back of our Honda Civic (no joke!). Cramped but we fit, lol. Unfortunately the Civic's tranny started to go last year so we had to suck it up and get a new vehicle.

I too did NOT want a minivan. Not with the price of gas these days and living 20 min drive away from town. Yikes. We ended up with the Mazda 5 - it's like a petite minivan on a car frame. It's PERFECT. Drives like a car, turns and parks like a car, packs like a van. Unfortunately since it has all bucket seats and no bench it only seats 6 instead of 7. We chose it because it's almost like a wagon and with the seats folded down in the back you can get a tonne of cargo in (we're working on a lot of home improvement stuff so we need the capacity). And, we wanted a standard tranny since we prefer that and no minivan comes with a stick.

Great mileage but the tow capacity is that of a car and not a truck/van, but I can live with that for the fuel savings! And the Mazda 5 was less than $30k new and beats the pants off the reputation of any Dodge Caravan so a big winner in my book.

[Butterfly Spirit]

We were able to jigsaw puzzle 3 car seats in the back of our Honda Civic (no joke!). Cramped but we fit, lol. Unfortunately the Civic's tranny started to go last year so we had to suck it up and get a new vehicle.

I too did NOT want a minivan. Not with the price of gas these days and living 20 min drive away from town. Yikes. We ended up with the Mazda 5 - it's like a petite minivan on a car frame. It's PERFECT. Drives like a car, turns and parks like a car, packs like a van. Unfortunately since it has all bucket seats and no bench it only seats 6 instead of 7. We chose it because it's almost like a wagon and with the seats folded down in the back you can get a tonne of cargo in (we're working on a lot of home improvement stuff so we need the capacity). And, we wanted a standard tranny since we prefer that and no minivan comes with a stick.

Great mileage but the tow capacity is that of a car and not a truck/van, but I can live with that for the fuel savings! And the Mazda 5 was less than $30k new and beats the pants off the reputation of any Dodge Caravan so a big winner in my book.

Oooo a Mazda 5!!!!!! :}

[LacePrincess]

Oooo a Mazda 5!!!!!! :}

We love it! We were going to go with used, but the cheapest financing was 6-7% and purchase financing from Mazda's 2012 models was 0%. So kinda a no brainer. Unfortunately got stuck with silver, not my fave colour, but oh well.

I read that this new form of "mini" minivan is getting very popular in Europe because it has good capacity without being a total gas hog. I think I read something about GM developing its own version because of how popular the Mazda5's have been.

We considered SUV's like the Toyota Rav4 but the capacity if all of us were in the vehicle just isn't there. I really like how the back of the Mazda5 is like a big rectangular box so you don't have stupid awkward rounded inner corners that limit how much stuff you can cram in there. Unfortunately when we have one of the back seats folded down and crammed with stuff, the load does tend to fall over whoever is sitting in the other back seat, which is usually poor DS1. We heard his yelps going around every left turn last time, LMAO.

[Atsaukina1]

well we had 3 stuffed in a tiny car so when number 4 came we had not choice but to get a bigger car since there wasn't another seat for him lol
we chose a minivan that has 7 seats which was 1 extra for friends but now I'll be cramming another carseat in and already have 2 in it lol.

[auroara78]

We still need to make a decision on our cars! I'll keep my tiny honda fit (can only fit two car seats) for me to drive to work...it's a great car for work....

but my husband's car is a 96 nissan sentra and when he tried to get the 3rd car seat installed at the fire dept, they said it was impossible...I guess the size of the booster seat was too big and it woudln't fit in the tiny spot in the middle....what year was your sentra???

So we still need to get a family car, and my mom and dad were wanting to help us out, but didn't want to pay the 30K for a minivan...I just looked up the Mazda 5 and starting at low 20s they may be more inclined....what model of mazda 5 do you have...sport or touring? I'm sure "touring" probably has more room? i guess I need to do more research! But I wanted a car big enough to fit another car seat in if we one day have a 4th...and this does look big enough. I need to do more research I guess.

Any other suggestions?

[cvd]

We were able to jigsaw puzzle 3 car seats in the back of our Honda Civic (no joke!). Cramped but we fit, lol. Unfortunately the Civic's tranny started to go last year so we had to suck it up and get a new vehicle.

I too did NOT want a minivan. Not with the price of gas these days and living 20 min drive away from town. Yikes. We ended up with the Mazda 5 - it's like a petite minivan on a car frame. It's PERFECT. Drives like a car, turns and parks like a car, packs like a van. Unfortunately since it has all bucket seats and no bench it only seats 6 instead of 7. We chose it because it's almost like a wagon and with the seats folded down in the back you can get a tonne of cargo in (we're working on a lot of home improvement stuff so we need the capacity). And, we wanted a standard tranny since we prefer that and no minivan comes with a stick.

Great mileage but the tow capacity is that of a car and not a truck/van, but I can live with that for the fuel savings! And the Mazda 5 was less than $30k new and beats the pants off the reputation of any Dodge Caravan so a big winner in my book.

I'm impressed at 3 car seats in a Civic!!! Thats too funny! and I'm complaining about a second in my Jetta! I just looked at the Mazda 5, I'm glad you like it so much!!! I think it's a touch still too much like a minivan for us! I'd be more into their CX5 but I haven't looked for those before so thank you! I forgot about Mazda for some reason lol