02-28-2017, 11:57 PM
I can't advise you on a particular vehicle, but I think that a sedan is way too limiting when you have kids. First off, there's always mass quantities of junk to cart around when you have kids (strollers, playpens, toys, diaper bags, etc). Second, kids have friends and playmates. You won't be carting around only two adults and one kid much. This gets worse as time goes by, and expect to be driving around half the soccer team or swim team in a few years. Living in environmentally conscious Berkeley, I know lots of people who attempted to get by with a small car while having kids. They all regretted it. The ones with more than one kid even regretted getting a small SUV (Forester, RAV-4, etc) instead of a larger one because they were too cramped. If you don't have a need for 4WD, I would highly encourage you to go the minivan route instead of the SUV route. However, based on my experiences in the California mountains I think I'd probably lean towards the SUV in a snow state.
One very important aspect that most people don't think of is how far do you expect to drive. For the last twenty years, my wife and I have always tried to live very close to work, thus minimizing the commute. As a result, the gas mileage our car gets or whether it takes premium or regular doesn't matter a whole lot to us because we just don't buy much gas except on road trips. Buying a hybrid would be a total waste of money for us since they are only worthwhile for people doing many miles of urban stop-and-go type driving. That means that we have a relatively large SUV (Acura MDX, equivalent to the Honda Pilot), which provides much more comfort and carrying space than our neighbors' RAV4s and Honda CRVs. Also, don't fall into the trap of buying a small vehicle and then strapping a roof box on it because it is too small. It's well documented that those things can increase gas consumption by 30% on smaller vehicles. The dumbest thing I see around here is people with Priuses and gigantic roof boxes.
One very important aspect that most people don't think of is how far do you expect to drive. For the last twenty years, my wife and I have always tried to live very close to work, thus minimizing the commute. As a result, the gas mileage our car gets or whether it takes premium or regular doesn't matter a whole lot to us because we just don't buy much gas except on road trips. Buying a hybrid would be a total waste of money for us since they are only worthwhile for people doing many miles of urban stop-and-go type driving. That means that we have a relatively large SUV (Acura MDX, equivalent to the Honda Pilot), which provides much more comfort and carrying space than our neighbors' RAV4s and Honda CRVs. Also, don't fall into the trap of buying a small vehicle and then strapping a roof box on it because it is too small. It's well documented that those things can increase gas consumption by 30% on smaller vehicles. The dumbest thing I see around here is people with Priuses and gigantic roof boxes.