I have a similar problem. We have three kids with the oldest being three. The oldest is still a long way from being in a booster seat. We currently have a 2 year old Volvo XC 70 Wagon. Decent car, but it won’t fit three kid seats. Most kids seats are so bulky. The cars are the lesser problem. The kids are the real problem. They are so over-engineered.
We don’t have long work commutes, so we may buy a large SUV. Wife is averse to the minivans.
Let mom decide when the time comes…our daughter really appreciates being able to step into the sliding doors with two or three kids and immediately lock yourself inside.
Then, at your leasure, make sure all the kids are appropriately buckled in their seats and car seats. Then walk down the isle to the front, arrange the toys, set the OH tv view screens for extended trips, then drive out of a crowded parking lot, safetly, with room for cribs, diaper bag and toys still accessable by all in the back. Do that in your oversized sedans if you can. You are all talking from a male red neck point of view without considering the vulnerable mother with three kids in tow running errands.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Minivans are the safest way to transport families, hands down !!! Anyhting else is a selfish sacrifice of function over form.
My wife loves our minivan, she was the one who wanted it. I don’t really like them as far as looks go (and cramped engine compartments) but I can see how practical it is. Not much else can meet the needs it does. And it does ride really nicely for long trips.
Plus, we have a fun 2nd car that I drive most of the time to make up for the minivan. 
Problem solved!
LOL, my wife drove a 3 door saab turbo the entire time our kids were small (the car that she wanted and bought). She hums the theme song to “love boat” every-time she sees someone trying to park a silly mini-van in a too small parking place, now the kids join in the humming too (it’s actually pretty annoying). My kids always preferred to ride on the back of my motorcycle (or the front when they were too small to reach the foot pegs). Not everyone wants to drive a bus, and some “moms” are car enthusiast too. Fortunately, not everyone feels a need to “GET WITH THE PROGRAM.” (-;
you’d get better mileage with the minivan. and if you’re gonna buy a large sUV, why not go for a full sized van?
First off,I would recommend against having three kids…we have enough people as it is on the earth,right? we encourage those who want a puppy to adopt,so why not adopt some human cast off from the human pound,an adoption agency.
Second if you find the need to create another race I would recommend a real vehicle like a 1957 Plymouth Dodge or DeSoto Station wagon.
the are made in America by actual men who spoke english,have incredibly futuristic styling,and if you ever get in a wreck the other guys going to the morgue!
They have plenty of room and dont make you look like a shallow modern day soccer mom.
P.S. if you decide against breeding you will come out ahead as the kids will cause you (or more likely your husband) no end of financial grief and cost you far more than several ferraris by the time they are unleashed on an already angry world.
My, my, Jimbo. You have a unique point of view.
That’s great advice. We all know English speakers make the best cars. That explains why the Pinto was such a success. We also know that a car’s ability to put your fellow man in the morgue is an important feature. You could secretly name your car “The Suicide Bomber.”
I am with you 100%! I hate minivan’s. I have a 6, 5, & 4 yo and have been driving a Mercury Sable Wagon for 6 years. I absolutely love it. Although we are currently dealing with a few issues. First our 4yo is about to hit 40 pounds and is so realy to get rid of the baby seat, but the center seat has a lap belt, which aparently is a No-No with booster seats. Someone else had pointed out about the third room seat, yeah we have one of those too. Unfortunately you can’t use a booster seat in a rear facing capacity.
Here’s what we are looking at now. I have compared all the dimensions of every car on the market, (engineer by trade) the numbers don’t lie. To accommodate 3 seats booster and baby seats you can’t have under 55 1/2" in rear hip room. I know that someone in an earlier response recommended the Dodge Journey… I have one better for you. The new 2009 Ford Flex. This has the maximum space for any vehicle that is available in FWD or AWD. It also has all the flip and fold seats and a cooling frig which if you will be nursing and traveling, it will be KEY. Best of Luck… car manufactuers should meet with mom’s of todays world and design to meet our needs.
Their is nothing wrong with minivans. My family had 4 Dodge vans all at once and now we have 3 and we love them their is no other van to compete. We LOVE our 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT. It has power everything and stow n go. They are easy on gas and really easy to parallel park. I took the van for my license test because this is all I had to choose from. I love driving vans. They get better gas mileage than most suv’s. Try looking at a Chrysler Pacifica with a 3ed row seating or a ford Explorer with 3ed row.
I have a similar issue. I drive a Volvo V70 station wagon. I have a 4 year old who is on the brink of outgrowing her car seat and we are expecting a second child. The grandparents travel with us frequently, and I am not willing to buy a minivan (minivans take up too much gas, they’re really big, they’re expensive and just not my thing). So putting the older kid in the third row would be ideal, but the problem was that the third row of seats seemed to be in this gray area of New Jersey highway safety regulations.
The local police told me to find out the following:
So here’s what Princeton Volvo told me after I pestered them a few times (finally a guy started to read through documentation):
The kid’s weight range for the booster in the third row is between 33 and 66 pounds, and the kid cannot exceed 47 inches in height.
The total weight capacity of the third row is somewhere around 170 pounds (don’t quote me on this, because I can’t remember the weight exactly).
i’m pretty sure most minivans will get about the same gas mileage as your V70 does. Also, any vehicle you get that will fit what you’re looking for will get roughly the same gas mileage as well
“005 Expedition info: 75,000 miles. The rear end limited slip is acting up like the clutch plates are locking up when they aren’t supposed to. Only does it sometime like when doing tight, low speed turning maneuvers. Basically, the herky-jerkys until I go straight again.”
Have you replaced the fluid and included the prescribed friction modifier for your TracLoc?
Good for you, Ham. I was thinking somewhat the same thing. OP is looking at little kids, and not thinking what comes next.Those kids grow up, and as they grow up, life changes. Things cost more. Maybe you can’t run out and buy an expensive whatever car just because you realize the one you had is not big enough.
Those kids will need to carry various paraphernalia with them to school and activities. They might have friends who need a ride, and next time their parent will reciprocate.
I well understand why young parents don’t want a mini-van. Mini-vans are for old, stodgy people like your parents, right? And, we are young and virile and sexy and exciting and nubile, and we don’t want to be old, stodgy parents.
It’s called “denial”. If you have two kids and thinking about a third, you are no longer kids; you are parents, and there are things that go with the turf. If not, CPS comes around and puts your kids in a foster home.
Not that I care what you do. But, if you get three kids, the chances are nine to one you will eventually have a mini-van. If you are sure, you can afford to trade in two or three years, it’s your money.
This is true, but I would still rather drive a station wagon than a minivan because of how much I don’t like driving a minivan and what makes the most financial sense. In my case I am dealing with an existing station wagon that is all paid for (no car payments). It makes more financial sense to drive this station wagon until it can’t move any more. Tthere was an episode of Car Talk that asks about whether or not trading in a car makes sense. The brothers created a spreadsheet to calculate what makes the most financial sense and they concluded that driving a car to death makes the most financial sense.
However, if there is a need for a new vehicle, and a minivan is being considered…There’s a good article here: http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0605_technologue_fuel_economy/index.html. It has charts that lists the fuel economy of different makes and models. Interesting thing is that Volvo V70 are 5 cyl engines.
honda odyssey 2wd eng size: 3.5 # cyl: 6 trans: auto (l5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 20 (city) 28 (hway)
honda odyssey 2wd eng size: 3.5 # cyl: 6 trans: auto (l5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 19 (city) 25 (hway)
toyota sienna 2wd eng size: 3.3 # cyl: 6 trans: auto (l5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 19 (city) 26 (hway)
volvo v70 fwd eng size: 2.4 # cyl: 5 trans: auto (l5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 21 (city) 28 (hway)
volvo v70 fwd eng size: 2.4 # cyl: 5 trans: auto (s5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 20 (city) 28 (hway)
volvo v70 fwd eng size: 2.5 # cyl: 5 trans: auto (s5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 21 (city) 29 (hway)
volvo v70 fwd eng size: 2.4 # cyk: 5 trans: man (m5) drive: f epa miles per gallon: 22 (city) 29 (hway)
http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0605_technologue_fuel_economy/honda_infiniti_isuzu.html
http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0605_technologue_fuel_economy/toyota_volkswagen.html
http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0605_technologue_fuel_economy/volvo.html
Here’s an idea: why not just keep the Expedition and buy something else. If you really need a vehicle with all of the qualities you describe, you’re going to be looking for quite a while.
It seems like people want vehicles that do everything all the time for tasks, locations, etc. that they only go to occasionally. SUVs used to be able to fill this role at the expense of terrible gas mileage. However, since gas and fuel economy has become a large concern lately, people are running away from them in droves.
You’d really take a bath right now if you try to trade your Expedition in. However, it does seem to meet your needs for a 4WD vehicle, etc. You could hold onto it and get another more practical vehicle. That way you’d have the best of both worlds so to speak.
I have to confess that I am a mini-van convert as well. We have a Honda Odyssey we absolutely love. On trips it gets around 25-26 MPG, even fully loaded down with stuff. I traded in my truck on it for growing family reasons. It was tough for me to give up the ability to “haul stuff” whenever the occasion might arise. However, one day I realized I rarely ever needed to haul anything. At the same time, though, I was paying for gas to drive a vehicle every day whose capabilities I didn’t need very often at all. This really gave me some insight into my lifestyle and other behaviors. I also had to get over worrying about what other people thought of the vehicle I drive. Whether they will admit it or not, “what the Jones’ think” about the vehicle you drive has a tremendous influence over most people’s choice of vehicle. If you sit down and do the math, a minivan is a superior vehicle for most all family-type needs. Once you can get over the “minivan stigma”, which is a bunch of BS anyway, you’ll be wondering why you didn’t get one sooner. Think about it: if you go with a crossover or even another SUV, you’ll be paying more money for a vehicle that gets worse gas mileage, probably carries fewer passengers, and rides worse than a minivan.
Gook luck.
Look into the new Ford Flex if you’re willing to spend some extra coin. I seen a couple on the dealer’s lot the other day and they do look pretty neat, almost like the old surfer wagons of old.
http://www.edmunds.com/ford/flex/2009/index.html#search=open.eq..amp.p.eq.cvehicledata%23%23-1%23%23-1~~nf12||466f7264
My dad thought that the ideal vehicle for parents with children would have been a coupe with a rumble seat. The adults could then ride in relative quiet. In the old Donald Duck comic strips of the 1940’s and 1950’s, Donald had a vehicle with the rumble seat and his nephews, Huey, Louie and Dewey were always seated in this rumble seat. After rumble seats faded from the scene, Subaru had a pick-up with a seat in the bed. I think it was called the “Brat”. As a parent, I thought that this would be the ideal vehicle, as it had a good seating location for the brats.
My wife decided that the minivan would be a great vehicle and this was when my son was in his senior year in high school and attended a military school away from home. When my son was in college, he would borrow the minivan when he was on a break to go camping. He would have liked to have traded me his car for our minivan. When my son got married and became a parent, he bought a minivan. I like having the minivan when we all get together because we can all go in one vehicle. Both my son and I find the minvans useful for hauling things as well as passengers.
Since my husband and I have gone to Europe a few times and have rented cars in a few countries, I wish that the US had some of the cars we saw in Europe. Some of these cars haul a decent amount of people, but because they are smaller they are much easier to navigate local roads than say a minivan (yes, I do not like minivans - we go to Princeton, NJ, quite often for errands and such and I can tell you the streets in Princeton are just about as wide as the streets in Seville). Volkswagen has this vehicle called the Touran that seats 7 (http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/touran/explore/experience/space/7-seats/), but it’s available in the UK not the US.
Just to satisfy my retro tendancies, I wish Volkswagen would bring back the MicroBus like the way they brought back the Beetle…more power, better safety, relatively comfortable seats, engines with longevity, etc etc.
The Chevrolet Uplander minivan is narrower than many cars–its width is 72". However, the turning radius is greater than many cars. I skipped the midlife crisis, but I’m now in the geezer crisis. I would like to have a Mazda Miata–it’s a retro car of the MG’s of the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Unfortunately, I’m 6’2" tall and I don’t fit in one very well. Futhermore, my wife thinks that I would be a wimp to buy a Mazda Miata over an MG from the 1960’s. Real men aren’t afraid to be stranded and have to walk back home.