The Mom Ride: How to Choose the Best Family Car For You
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A girlfriend of mine just moved to the suburbs, and she had the most brilliant tip for how to find the right car for your family: rent it first for a family vacation! I’ve often heard people advise to rent a minivan for vacation — more space, more enjoyable if you’ve got a long drive — but I thought this mom hack was such a smart way to make sure they chose the best car for their family.
As a hilarious side note: I was thinking about this older YouTube video called The Swagger Wagon about some parents who really, really like their Toyota Minivan — but have you seen this newer video from the mom group The Texting Yogas, “Never Thought I’d Do It,” about buying a minivan?
For those of you who drive regularly (a good number of you, according to our survey!), do you have a “mom” ride? How did you choose the best family car for you? What do you like or dislike about your car? How important was fitting three carseats in your backseat — or being able to drive with three adults and two car seats? (Any car accessories that you absolutely love, for kids or otherwise? We got one of these sandbag Garmin Portable Friction Mounts for my parents and they absolutely love it, compared to the GPS thing that never stuck to the windshield — but note that such mounts are apparently are not allowed in every state.)
Further Reading:
- A Checklist for Buying Your First Family Car [Working Moms Against Guilt]
- Best Cars for Families [US News]
- Parents, Just Buy the Damn Minivan [Jalopnik]
- Best Family Cars of 2016 [Parents]
- Best Family Cars of 2016 [Consumer Reports]
Social media images via Pexel. 
I was totally in the “no minivan” mindset and we ended up with a Chevy Traverse. Three rows, and I sued to say it was like a minivan but without the sliding doors. Then I started having to park the thing and get both doors open enough to access carseats. Suddenly, sliding doors make more sense.
Our other car is a Chevy Equinox, and we’ve been mostly pleased with both Chevys. Now that one kid is almost 3, I just open one door and keep chanting “climb across, climb across.” If we move to the Lower 48 (which is looking likely), I’m on the fence about selling one vehicle and buying a new one down there.
On the three-row SUV front, I have been very happy with the Acura MDX. Feels nice and luxurious, but very low-maintenance like any Honda. Also have a Honda Odyssey and I do prefer the minivan for convenience with three kids. But the SUV is nicer for work — I do sometimes have to drive places with colleagues and found that embarrassing in the minivan. And the third row of the MDX allows me to go straight from work to pick up soccer carpool. My kids are all in elementary school, so we are out of the big carseat phase and so accessing the third row is not a problem.
We currently have two kids (1 and 3.5) and drive a Nissan Frontier (I hate, but we have to keep it) and a Hyundai Sonata. We are looking to replace the Hyundai Sonata with something that would be suitable for three kids, and I hate my options. We are only considering used. I like the idea of the Mazda5, but my husband thinks it is ugly, and there are not too many available. On the plus side is is much less expensive than other options, and it has Captains Seats in the second row. My husband wants a Honda Pilot, but I hate big SUVs on principal, especially when our other vehicle is a truck. I am not sure how easy it is to access the third row with two carseats. If we have a third, we would have two in carseats and the third in either a carseat or a booster. I theoretically like the idea of a minivan, but we can’t fit one in our garage with the truck.
I’m in the NAM mindset forever (Never A Minivan). We have 2 kids, ages 7 and 2, and have family visit often, as well as go on day trips with friends, etc. often as well. So, I searched high and wide for an SUV that would drive more like a car, be incredibly reliable, be big enough without being a Suburban size, and had a third row with good legroom.
We settled on the Honda Pilot and I couldn’t be happier. I haven’t had any problems with it and we bought it before giving birth to the little one, and it fits our needs perfectly. On a daily basis, I have both kids in the second row – toddler is in his forward facing Peg Perego, and the 7 year old is now in just a booster. But when baby was born, he was still in a 5 point harness highback booster.
For daily use, it was great and the 3rd row folds down for storage and such. When we had other people visiting, or needed the 3rd row for sitting, we’d pop the booster in the back row and he’d sit back there. The second row will seat 3, so the whole car will fit 7 comfortably, even with a big-ish carseat in the second row.
When using the 3rd row, the storage in the back is small, but on the occasion we have to travel and pack more, we purchased a soft sided carrier for the roof and purchased post-production roof rails (incredibly easy to install as it turns out).
It TOTALLY works for us in all ways, and it gets good gas mileage, is comfortable and can pile lots of kids and/or adults into it with ease. If you have more than 2 kids all in the bigger less moveable carseats, it may be more of a challenge, but for us, it’s perfect.
Again, it’s all about you do you and find what works for your family, but if yours is anything like ours, I highly suggest looking at a Honda Pilot.
Take your stroller or car seat when you go car shopping. Sometimes you will be surprised by the cargo space. We found a Jetta had as much cargo space than many crossovers. Our second car is used more for commmuting to work and quick daycare pick ups. As our stroller and car seat both fit into a Mini Cooper, we were able to get the vehicle we preferred
Slightly different question: we own a CR-V and a Prius. Two kids in boosters. The Prius just died and we need to replace it. What should we get? We need something with great mileage that my husband can commute in, but it also needs to be family-friendly (he does a ton of kid duty), and needs to be appropriate for very tall people like both of us. (I hate some of the sedans where my head touches the ceiling!) Would appreciate something we could get used.
We have a Prius V and have really liked it for the city. We have two Diono’s in the back seat and I have sat back there. It’s not the most comfy but doable. Lots of cargo room. We liked it because it had a lot of headroom. We now call that VW Passat Station Wagon “The Station Wagon for Short People” because our heads literally touched the ceiling when we test drove it!
My husband and I both drive 2010 Mercury Mariners (the Mercury version of the Ford Escape) and love them. We have a rear-facing convertible car seat and will be adding an infant car seat this fall, which might make it a bit tight, but it works for us now. The seat height is the best part — I can’t imagine bending down to a sedan after this — because the car seat is just about at waist height. The trunk/cargo hold is nice and spacious; it holds luggage for the three of us for a few days away and a folded BOB stroller with room to spare. But, I’ve been thinking of a minivan because of the sliding doors.
Timely post! I am just about to upgrade my ’06 Civic. Was considering the Rav4 and the CRV, but really liked how the Subaru Outback drove. We just have one kid, still in her bucket seat and are in the Bay Area where it feels like every other car is a Subaru.
We have a Subaru Outback. I don’t hate it… I just don’t love it. I wish we could comfortably fit 3 carseats in the back for playdates or whatnot, but we can’t. I wish we could easily squoosh a grown-up in the back if we want to drive with 5 of us, but it’s really uncomfortable, even with the car seats moved next to each other.
I was firmly in the No Minivans, Never, Not Ever camp until we found out we were expecting #3, due in June. And, sigh, we actually just bought a Honda Odyssey on Saturday. We got the EX-L trim because I wanted a power liftgate and a couple other features that come standard with that. But because of that, the standard leather seats, sunroof, and all the little conveniences built in *almost* make me forget I’m driving a minivan. In all seriousness, it’s an incredibly smooth drive, has FIVE seats where car seats can be used, and just has so. much. dang. room. Still holding onto hope of trading it in when we’re out of the car seat days, but I don’t think I’m going to mind driving this for the next several years.
I also considered the Pacifica hybrid (because, hello, I could drive roundtrip to work without using an ounce of gas!), but the numerous delays and uncertainty about production gave me pause. We ultimately decided we’d rather let all the kinks be worked out of that before we switch over (if we ever do). We now have only Hondas and have been very happy with them, so we might just stick with the Odyssey as long as we need a minivan.
Did I mention it has a million cup holders, it is so easy to fold the seats down or remove them, and my 6’1 husband fits comfortably with enough leg room even in the third row?!
We are sticklers for fuel economy and are looking at a Kia Niro, though we haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
We are still sad that our VW TDI wagon is a terrible polluter. We loved it’s fuel economy and range.
We have a Toyota Highlander that we bought used certified from the dealership. It is awesome! We live 7 hours and 4 hours from each set of grandparents, so we have done a lot of long driving in it. It is super duper comfortable. My husband comes from a Honda family, but the Toyota is by far more comfortable and quieter. We have a 2.5 yo and a 100lb golden retriever. They can both fit on the backseat together (Britax Boulevard car seat). The backup camera is small (I think our car is ~2014?) but the Bluetooth is good and we haven’t had any problems with it whatsoever.
We have a Dodge Caravan. Three kids (oldest + twins) forced us to move up from smaller vehicles. We still have a second smaller vehicle with three seats across the back so we can both do drop off/pick up at daycare.
I resent having to drive a larger vehicle – I loved my small car – so we decided to spend as little as possible on the minivan. Zero bells and whistles. I LOVE sliding doors which I didn’t expect. SO SO much easier in windy parking lots.
Game changer was not the minivan but how we set up the seating. Two car seats on back bench, one stow and go seat folded down on passenger side. Third car seat on captain’s chair behind driver. This means, in snowy weather or busy parking lots, I can load all three kids into the open space created by the stowed seat, close the door and then take my time getting everyone buckled in or bulky coats removed. So much easier than trying to climb back between the middle seats to buckle a third row child.
timely, we are expecting #2 and taking the plunge this month. 95% set on a volvo xc90, second choice toyota highlander. we figure we might as well get a third row and cannot abide by a minivan, no matter how much we may actually prefer the features we just cannot do that to ourselves. if anyone has any negatives on the xc90 would love to hear!