Family SUV/Crossover

[ChrisWMT]

Originally Posted by DanG

Mazda CX-50 or CX-90.

Wife has a CX-5.

Ditto, we have a CX-9.

Regardless, I'd highly recommend a fold flat third row and rear doors that open wide.

Good luck to the both of you!

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

I have an X3 as a loaner right now. It's too small to be a family car. My son (under 3) if he moves he kicks the seat back. My daughter (18 months) her rear facing seat is squished against the back of the seat. We can't fit our stroller (Uppababy Vista) in the back with anything else of any significance.

For a single child, you could fold down one side of the seats and get a bit more room. For two, forget it. For one plus a grandparent, woof. 2 grandparents, forget about it.

My X5, while noticeably roomier than the X3, still struggles with space for 2 kids. We can make it work, but having the Expedition for family trips to Costco or Sam's club is way preferable.

This is peak America. Good lord. We had a 2013 X3 and it was a stellar family vehicle, kids were 7 and 3 at the time. Before that we had (and I still drive) a 9-3 wagon which has a tighter back seat and the rear facing child seat still fit. We now have a Stelvio which has a smaller trunk than a X3 and it still works just fine with kids aged 12 and 8.

No idea why you guys need so much space. Europeans get by with a VW Polo ffs.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

This is peak America. Good lord. We had a 2013 X3 and it was a stellar family vehicle, kids were 7 and 3 at the time. Before that we had (and I still drive) a 9-3 wagon which has a tighter back seat and the rear facing child seat still fit. We now have a Stelvio which has a smaller trunk than a X3 and it still works just fine with kids aged 12 and 8.

No idea why you guys need so much space. Europeans get by with a VW Polo ffs.

Because I don't want to "get by". Our Expedition has no real downsides for its size. It's fairly fuel efficient, fits everywhere we go, rides great, has plenty of room, and wasn't really all that crazy expensive. People who live in dense cities don't have that luxury, I get it. I don't have that issue, so why would I stuff myself into a smaller car for no reason?

Rest assured, if Europeans had cities that weren't as dense, and they didn't have tax structures that force them into smaller cars, they'd drive big cars if they could too.

Yall bragging about how small of a car you can stuff your kids into is nuts to me. I would literally put my kids in a tank if I could register it for road use. Safety of my.kids is my TOP priority, and while there's a lot of factors that go into safety, you can't discount the effects of physics, where the larger vehicle wins, and sitting up a bit higher puts your frame rails in an advantageous spot structurally.

But hey, y'all do you. Personally, I'd rather give myself an advantage of God forbid a f150/250 was in an accident with us. Like I said, if I could get a tank, I would.

[Alfisti]

Consumables are always going to be more on something that size vs something smaller. Tires, brakes, gas etc, everything is more. It's a PITA to park too. And yeah it's more expensive, i mean what's the Ford equivalent to an X3? Escape seems a touch smaller I think but it starts at $35K CDn and an Expedition starts at $80K, this is before options, on road costs and taxes so it's more than double the price.

You're talking about an X3 like it is tiny, it's over 4,000 lbs. Each to his own but saying an X3 is too small for 2 kids is flat out wrong.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Consumables are always going to be more on something that size vs something smaller. Tires, brakes, gas etc, everything is more. It's a PITA to park too. And yeah it's more expensive, i mean what's the Ford equivalent to an X3? Escape seems a touch smaller I think but it starts at $35K CDn and an Expedition starts at $80K, this is before options, on road costs and taxes so it's more than double the price.

You're talking about an X3 like it is tiny, it's over 4,000 lbs. Each to his own but saying an X3 is too small for 2 kids is flat out wrong.

I mean, I just had one literally yesterday. When I say it's too small, I mean that the rear facing seat was wedged against the front passenger seat, my front facing son had 2-3 inches between his knees and my seat backs, and the stroller took up 80% of the trunk floor space. I'm not even abnormally tall, I'm only 6'2, and I seat forward and upright compared to most people.

What you're missing about vehicles like the expedition is that they're based on the best selling vehicles in the country. Brake pads for an F150 are super cheap, and so are pads for the expedition. They also last like 100k miles. Tires, I'll give you that, ours has 22s and the tires are pricey for those. They're about half the cost of the tires for my X5, however. Gas, it gets 17 city and 21 highway on regular. Someone doing a lot of highway miles, sure, they're gonna spend more on gas. But that doesn't bother me much. That's a worthy trade off for the safety of my kids.

[Alfisti]

I hear you on the safety argument to some degree.

I'm not sure how the X3 is so snug, we had those freakin massive "click the baby capsule in" thingies and were fine. I'm 6ft even but heavy set and still managed ok.

I think my issue is the leap from "compact" to land yacht. There's the next size up (Edge/MDX/X5/CX-90) that has that bit of extra room without needing it's own postal code.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

I hear you on the safety argument to some degree.

I'm not sure how the X3 is so snug, we had those freakin massive "click the baby capsule in" thingies and were fine. I'm 6ft even but heavy set and still managed ok.

I think my issue is the leap from "compact" to land yacht. There's the next size up (Edge/MDX/X5/CX-90) that has that bit of extra room without needing it's own postal code.

My family had the Lincoln version of the Edge for a while when I was young. It was a nice size for a family of 4 with the kids in boosters or out of any seats. My dad drove it for about 170k miles without any major issues, then traded it once the transmission started having torque converter issues.

I think Edge/MDX/X5 are too small to be a "primary" family vehicle. We have friends who had kids the same age as ours with one, and the wife is constantly complaining they didn't go X7 and how they're always stuffing it to the brim. I think CX90 and X7 and Highlander, Pathfinder, explorer, etc do make a great argument for themselves. The issue with them is they're just not that far removed from the big dogs. They don't drive that much smaller, they're not that much better on gas, they don't have the work truck parts availability bonus, and they're really not that much cheaper. CX90 is 60 grand optioned up. Same.for Grand Highlander Hybrid Max Platinum. Explorer ST? You guessed it, $60k. Expedition Stealth Performance loaded up is 86k, but they tend to offer better discounts and hold their value better. If you didn't want the stealth performance stuff, you could get it to like 80 (and probably never notice the difference).

We were likely going with explorer or Pathfinder until we drove the expedition. It drove basically the same size, and offered a lot more space inside, and a lot more capability. To be honest, I think they build them better than the explorers too, everything just feels a cut or two above for that. And to be fair, that's much cheaper than a comparable X5 would be. A comparably equipped X3 M40i is $74k. You're looking at at least $80k for a comparable feature X5.

I get it, some people have space limitations. We don't. If you don't have space limitations, you'll never regret having a larger vehicle. And since it's literally a family hauling machine, the fact that it's bigger than, slower than, and doesn't handle as well as my X5 is a moot point.

Re car seats... Our Uppababy mesa "click in infant carrier seat" thing was TINY compared to the Graco convertible car seats they're in now. The Mesa, we could fold the carrying handle up and it wasn't all that big. These Gracoa are designed to hold them basically until they don't need boosters, so they're huge. There are undoubtedly smaller versions, but these were priced well, look nice, and don't need replaced as they grow. If we were making smaller vehicles work, we would have probably gotten seats that were smaller and designed for smaller cars. But we didn't need to because of the space we have.

Also, the quality difference between an X3 and X5... Huge. X3 is honestly Chevy level quality in materials. My X5 feels more like a different brand it's so much better materials wise.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

Lol, a backpack each for just a week? That's wild. My wife packages a full carry on for 2-3 days for just herself lol.

The Sam's club toilet paper pack takes up most of the rear of my X5 on its own. That ignores bringing a stroller, diaper bag, etc. If we buy toilet paper and Gatorade or something, we are about capped out on space with the stroller in the car, not stacking stuff to block the rear window, and not having stuff stacked everywhere else in the car.

We could make it work, don't get me wrong. But why on earth would we spend big money to hack to work around a size limitation constantly?

Anyways, America, F yeah!

I've taught my family how to roll their clothes like a Marine Now granted, on the rare occasion we may be going to somewhere cold, then we'll pack a midsize duffle with the space consuming cold weather gear.

Screw strollers, man. Get a simple baby sling. Babies want to be held and close to their parents. I thought my wife was nuts wanting to use one, but damn, that thing was a God-send. Throw the sling on, tuck the kid in, and walk around like normal. Best thing ever. We used a stroller for maybe 2 months with our first child. So much wasted time screwing around with those things, difficult to push around in stores, suck up tons of space in a vehicle, etc.

I'm a more practical person and tend to buy cars that match the room needs required for 90%+ of the driving I do. I could count on two hands the times we needed a vehicle larger than our Subaru wagons when the kiddos were under 15. A trailer hitch carrier and roof carrier offered all the necessary space for camping, long trips, mulch loads, etc. On occasion, we needed to have home delivery or borrow someone's truck for bigger items.

If someone have three kids or routinely takes 4 passengers, a three row vehicle is great. Minivans are practical as hell and the best option for basically every family, but if you're a car person, it would be difficult to drive one on a daily basis. If my wife wanted one, I would have done it, but even she was like "no way in hell". She now has a 4Runner which is a planet killer with it's dismal MPGs. But she uses it. It's got tons of room, great for traveling to club volleyball tournaments which often happen during the winter (don't have to worry about winter weather slowing us down and maybe pull a few people out of ditches), shoves her paddle board through the back window (boards 4+ times a week), she camps and sleeps in it, and routinely drives it off-road to family in rural areas.

[Alfisti]

See I can't agree on that, you can maybe, maybe twist my arm to go bigger than X3 but X5/MDX/Edge/Highlander ..... if you can't make that work with 2 kids there's something wrong.

[Gautam]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

I hear you on the safety argument to some degree.

I'm not sure how the X3 is so snug, we had those freakin massive "click the baby capsule in" thingies and were fine. I'm 6ft even but heavy set and still managed ok.

I think my issue is the leap from "compact" to land yacht. There's the next size up (Edge/MDX/X5/CX-90) that has that bit of extra room without needing it's own postal code.

I used to think this way, but after having my first my perspective has changed completely. I still can hardly wrap my head around an X3 being considered "small," but at this point, my 5er is what I'd consider the bare minimum. There's minimal room for a front passenger to recline their seat. Just a pinch. The trunk is barely big enough to handle a stroller + groceries. Barely. 4 adults and the baby can fit uncomfortably, at best. I'm somewhat besides myself at how easy it is to fill up a car this objectively large.

I'm having trouble stomaching a full-size SUV, but I checked out an X7 at the dealer a couple of years ago, and the third row did not seem suitable for adults. Really it felt a lot smaller on the inside than I'd have expected.

This is not just an American phenomenon. SUV sales are dominating all others even in Europe, and it's a trend that isn't going to go away.
https://www.motor1.com/news/707655/s...hers-combined/

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by Gautam

I used to think this way, but after having my first my perspective has changed completely. I still can hardly wrap my head around an X3 being considered "small," but at this point, my 5er is what I'd consider the bare minimum. There's minimal room for a front passenger to recline their seat. Just a pinch. The trunk is barely big enough to handle a stroller + groceries. Barely. 4 adults and the baby can fit uncomfortably, at best. I'm somewhat besides myself at how easy it is to fill up a car this objectively large.

This just completely loses me. We used to have the big, like fuck off big, Britax B-Ready stroller frame. The one where the capsule clips in so it's huge and awkward and is so big it can carry TWO children. Fit in the X3 just fine. I don't know what I am missing that you guys are describing.

This woman gets it into a CRV that is now 2 generations old

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

I've taught my family how to roll their clothes like a Marine Now granted, on the rare occasion we may be going to somewhere cold, then we'll pack a midsize duffle with the space consuming cold weather gear.

Screw strollers, man. Get a simple baby sling. Babies want to be held and close to their parents. I thought my wife was nuts wanting to use one, but damn, that thing was a God-send. Throw the sling on, tuck the kid in, and walk around like normal. Best thing ever. We used a stroller for maybe 2 months with our first child. So much wasted time screwing around with those things, difficult to push around in stores, suck up tons of space in a vehicle, etc.

I'm a more practical person and tend to buy cars that match the room needs required for 90%+ of the driving I do. I could count on two hands the times we needed a vehicle larger than our Subaru wagons when the kiddos were under 15. A trailer hitch carrier and roof carrier offered all the necessary space for camping, long trips, mulch loads, etc. On occasion, we needed to have home delivery or borrow someone's truck for bigger items.

If someone have three kids or routinely takes 4 passengers, a three row vehicle is great. Minivans are practical as hell and the best option for basically every family, but if you're a car person, it would be difficult to drive one on a daily basis. If my wife wanted one, I would have done it, but even she was like "no way in hell". She now has a 4Runner which is a planet killer with it's dismal MPGs. But she uses it. It's got tons of room, great for traveling to club volleyball tournaments which often happen during the winter (don't have to worry about winter weather slowing us down and maybe pull a few people out of ditches), shoves her paddle board through the back window (boards 4+ times a week), she camps and sleeps in it, and routinely drives it off-road to family in rural areas.

My son hates being in the stroller now, until he's tired. My daughter too, but she's a little more ok with being out in the stroller with a drink and.people watching. Until she wants to be carried around like a princess, of course. We had the alings and carriers when they were younger, but they're both too big to want that stuff now (my wife doesn't want to strap a 25 pound baby to her, and I find it just as easy to carry them).

I wouldn't call the 4runner a planet killer. Sure it gets terrible fuel economy, but it will be running on largely original parts long after the "EV transition" has fizzled out. Those things are robust AF, and from a purely ecological standpoint, building a new vehicle, even if it's more efficient, is a hugely losing proposition vs just riding out the already built thing. We looked at GX460 pretty heavily before we bought the Expedition, we passed on it because of the relatively small size inside vs huge size outside, the stupid rear swing door, and the general crampedness of it vs something like an Explorer. Do I sometimes regret it? Yes, they're really nice and I strongly believe that had we bought one we would have passed it down to my son as his first car in 14 years and it's be running like a champ with little.or no wear. But the second my wife's family wanted to come down and do something with us all, we would have been taking 2 cars because it has effectively zero trunk space behind the 3rd row.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

This just completely loses me. We used to have the big, like fuck off big, Britax B-Ready stroller frame. The one where the capsule clips in so it's huge and awkward. Fit in the X3 just fine. I don't know what I am missing that you guys are describing.

Oh man, that's a small stroller nowadays.

This is a fairly standard sized stroller that converts from one to two kids (what we have - Uppababy Vista)


This is a more standard size tandem stroller. This thing weighs like 30-40 pounds and is probably 4 feet long. It's called a Contour Curve or something like that.


This thing here is called the Womderfold wagon. This beast is like 3 feet wide and 5 feet long. It's literally 50+ pounds. This thing is truly fuck you big. I think this thing is bigger than my old Mini Cooper. We literally took this back because it was so big and heavy my wife (who works out like every day) could barely lift it into the back of the expedition. It's truly like only for.people with minivans, where you can dump it into the recessed floor. These are so big they're banned from Disney without a medical exemption (not had to get), and they're super common at every other theme park or zoos.



If you think vehicle nloat has gotten bad, you haven't seen strollers lol.

[Alfisti]

Jesus H.

[Alfisti]

On this topic, does anyone have experience with the Jag F-Type?

[FC4]

I have an SVR. It would make for a horrible family car. Don't recommend.

[Alfisti]

Can you elaborate why, very curious.

[FC4]

Why a 2-seater would make a shitty family car? Well, the inability to carry more than one passenger is usually a big limiting factor. If you have a family of two people, I guess it would work fine so long as you never buy toilet paper from Costco. The trunk can fit two carry-on bags but not much more. It's not very shallow, especially with the privacy cover.

It makes great noises, though. I love it.

[Alfisti]

Sorry I meant the F-Pace! The suv... my dumbass mistake.

[Gautam]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

This just completely loses me. We used to have the big, like fuck off big, Britax B-Ready stroller frame. The one where the capsule clips in so it's huge and awkward and is so big it can carry TWO children. Fit in the X3 just fine. I don't know what I am missing that you guys are describing.

This woman gets it into a CRV that is now 2 generations old

I don't think this is supporting your point that well. It's taking up what looks like 70%+ of the surface area of the trunk, if not 80% or more, and even collapsed, it extends vertically past the trunk cover. There's no room for anything besides the stroller.

FWIW, I have a Chicco Bravo, which is pretty hefty. It takes up around half of the trunk surface of my M550i. There's enough space for other stuff, but not what I'd call ample. And it's pretty large as far as sedans go, with the largest trunk in its class.

Edit: pics of my fit. Have a significantly larger car seat now.

[Alfisti]

WHat are you people always carrying that's so big???

[pbonsalb]

My sister in law has a suburban for her 3 kids. She is looking at new cars since hers is a 2017 and I suggested mid size SUV like an X5 or Telluride and she says they are too small. She leaves a bunch of junk in the back if the Suburban.