Ignoring completely how they got to 2.8 children, once a family is a family of 5 (or more) third rows become almost a certainty. Look, I only have one sibling, and we would have beaten each other to death on road trips if not for the third row of my family's various full-size GM wagons. I bring this up because 1) gas is over $4.00 a gallon (just about $5 per here in LA) and is never going down and 2) the Ford Flex will be on the market real soon. Let's get the numbers straight. The FWD Flex is rated at 17/24 and the AWD version will deliver 16/22. Comparable to the competition and a words better than the essentially dead body-on-frame goliaths Americans have loved so dearly for the past decade. But, is it enough? Will large families just be cramming the brood into the back of Aveos and Yari? Or are the Flex and similar vehicles (CX9, Pilot, Acadia) still viable as family haulers?
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CUV’s are the answer. They’ll get more fuel efficient and Americans will learn to adapt to higher energy prices.
I wish wagons were the answer, but I guess they’re not cool enough despite their potentially exciting performance as compared with a cross-over. Cross-overs have the space of an SUV with the relative economy of a car but lack the performance traits of either (towing, cornering, off-road ability or acceleration).
I don’t see it. The CUVs, SUVs and mini vans will still rule for large families. When you have a big brood everything costs more anyway (groceries, bigger house, more clothes, utilities…). In my day our family of 8 (total) used various wagons and even a VW mini van at one time.
I’m not sure why you think this Flex is “words better” than the dying SUV’s.
A 4wd Chevrolet Suburban in mid-grade LT2 trim MSRPs for $44,395 (before GM piles cash on the hood) and is rated at 15/20.
For that 1/2mpg you get one more seat, more cargo room, true 4wd, and ~25 more horsepower.
You have an odd definition of “better”.
I think wagons (and hatches) are going to make a comeback, simply because they’re the only way you can maximize space in a small vehicle. But they might still be called CUVs since the term “wagon” seems to be anathema, like “minivan”.
Highlander Hybrid
I know plenty of people that have an old F150 sitting next to their garage for that occasional trip to the lumber yard that their camcord can’t handle. Imagine the family haulers will garner a similar fate. Used when absolutely necessary, while the daily driver will become the econo-ride.
The absurdity of SUV’s wasn’t that Detroit built them, but that American’s used them as single passenger vehicles for daily use.
Today’s generation apparently need a lot more space than previous. When I was a kid, you crammed in a car and lived with it. Today, I have friends who drive SUVs because they have a baby and have to cart around a ton of stuff the kid can’t live without (so they say). It’s the same with housing now. Kids have to have their own room, bathroom, play room, etc.
Mazda 5 and Kia Rondo spring to mind for hauling the family around when a third row is needed. No way would I want one of the current crop of CUVs.
Im sorry and I will make no excuses either, but if I had 3 children I most likely would be drving around in a full-sized SUV!
Go ahead and hate on me now!
I’ve got a great idea, not have a big family. Seems novel but everything we do is a choice.
Wagon (such as an older V70/XC) with a flip up seat for emergencies. Average 22mpg, have AWD with as good clearance as many CUVs or small SUVs and drives like a car.
Why waste more of my disposable income on transportation than I already have to?
For practicality Minivans spank CUVs.
More room, easier to load and generally better mpg.
Get over the stigma kids.
Probably see more Maz5 size stuff come in (Honda: Stream please? Freed might be welcome too).
Bunter
Sometimes I think people do miss the point when it comes to SUVs. Why is it ok for someone to spend $50,0000 on a 4000lbs+ over-weight, passanger sedan that can only seat 5 at most and only get 18mpg at best, but not ok to buy a 5000lbs vehicle that can actually seat 8 and still manages to get close to 15mpg?
Maybe we should flog every S-class driver that dare to leave home without at least 2 other passangers in his/her car!
Sprinter for the win!
30mpg or so from its MB sourced diesel.
My family of origin, five of us, traveled around Europe for two months and 3,000 miles in a Peugeot 404 wagon (for those who do’nt remember this wonderful car, it’s about the size of a Forester, probably a bit smaller). To be fair, my sister was only 3 and a half, but my brother and I were teenagers. It was a fun, happy trip. If we were crowded, we didn’t know it.
Having said that, for the big family, they may have to have a big car or minivan for trips, or perhaps they could rent one. That would probably be cheaper for them than flying.
But in this day and age, the time for having big families is over.
To all the people saying people find SUVs are necessary for space (whether they really need it or not), I say those people are poseurs. There is more space in the average minivan.
My cousin has 5 children and he fits them all in his BMW wagon without 3rd row.
My advice: stop at 2 children.
European-style space wagons like the Mazda5 or Kia Rondo, to start.
We’ll probably start seeing a return to innovative packaging that moves components under the floor (Fit, B-Class), instead of just needlessly wasting vehicle height on unused ground clearance. AWD (or front-engine/rear-drive) is probably going away as we move back to transaxles. As much as it’s been fun to have cars with unnecessarily long noses, high floors and eight inches of clearance, it’s just not sustainable.
I expect it won’t be long before we see the return of the engine-under-seat layout of the Toyota Van/Previa, or the rear-engine VW Microbus. We already have fuel tanks (Fit) and partial engine running gear (B-Class) stored under the floor.
A lot of packaging space is wasted in a crossover; a even larger amount in a coupe or sedan for the sake of styling. That’s going to change, and I welcome it, because we’ll see the return of interesting vehicle shapes that we lost when the 1980s ended
Sell one or two children to a labor camp in Cote D’Ivoire to pay for the fuel for your SUV? Kids are in high demand there, and you get paid in diamonds! It’s perfectly logical, really.
You can always pop out more babies, but petroleum is a limited resource that’s quickly running out.
EJ_San_Fran :
June 12th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
My cousin has 5 children and he fits them all in his BMW wagon without 3rd row.
My advice: stop at 2 children.
If you are serious, what your brother is doing is very dangerous and against the law! Dont know about the wife traveling with them but there will always be one or two unsecured passangers.
I had two siblings and we never traveled in anything bigger than a mid-size sedan — a ’66 Dodge Coronet followed by a ’74 AMC Matador. They were bigger than today’s typical family sedan but probably didn’t have much more interior room, and we managed to get along. Heck, we all even took a short vacation in a ’68 Cougar without suffering physical or mental anguish and we were definitely not wee toddlers at the time.
I guess we didn’t travel with all the crap that families consider necessary these days. Maybe if people would scale back their lifestyles a little they would realize that they don’t “need” minivans, SUV’s, or even wagons.
Oh, who am I kidding? We’re Americans! Carrying around a house load of stuff everywhere is our god-given right!
I’m one of three. Most of our family vacations were spent riding around in full-size Ford wagons. We did it…but it was tough, especially as we got older. One of the wagons had two jump seats that folded up out of the rear floor; we used it occasionally, but my parents didn’t like it because of the cargo room you lost by unfolding the seats and the reduced safety margin for the kid riding there by the tailgate (usually me.)
With today’s safety regulations, though, if you have more than two kids, you probably need three rows. If I were in that group (I’m not – no wife, no kids) I’d be looking at small CUVs and vans. But I’d buy it used and commute in something else.
The Dodge Durango Hybrid to the Rescue!!!
This summer the mild mannered slow selling Durango is going to go into the phone booth, and then (cue Superman Theme) it is going to blow out of that thing flying with a big red cape and a “D” bigger than Dallas on it’s chest! Up Up and Away!
The other option is two cars. A pair of Toyota Yarises, equipped with the 1.3L could probably handily out-do a Ford Flex in mileage and collectively seat eight while doing so.
The same sort of question keeps coming up, and the answer is always the same. My car.
1984 Volvo Diesel wagon. Seats 7, 35 city, 41 highway.
*shrug*
I grew up in a family of five… we had a two door Tercel and went everywhere in it. It kinda sucked, but it did work. Now we’re grown up and don’t take too many trips in one car together, but when we do it’s in a 2000 CR-V and that works just fine.
I don’t know what’s wrong with us.
oh no, a minivan???
look at euro and asian style mini-vans, tall wagons [real wagons, not CUVs], multi-purpose vehicles, etc…
4 cylinders, efficient auto or manual transmission – i’m sure you can easily get a 6-7-8 passenger vehicles that get 30+ mpg…
Hmmm… maybe not have a family you can’t afford?
Or buy a minivan or full-size station wagon?
But, basically you have a lot of people to carry around, so it is going to cost you more whatever you do. So basically deal with it.
When our three kids were small, we packed them into a 2-door Mazda GLC hatchback. It was a little cosy, but it worked until the weekend we decided to go camping. My wife kept bringing stuff out to the car until I cried enough! It simply wouldn’t fit.
If I was to do it now, it would be a Mazda 5. For the rare occasions I needed more space, I would haul a small box trailer.
First, if you can’t afford to feed, house, clothe, medicate, transport, and educate so many children, use birth control. Second, buy a Mazda5 or Kia Rondo, if you have four children. Buy a used Volvo or MB wagon with a rear facing seat if you five. More than five? Start eating beans, onions, cabbage, and get gas.
Well..at age 55, I took my wife, 2 sons, AND MY PARENTS out for a birthday meal in our Mazda5. Seats 2,4,or 6 on an as-needed basis, gets 30 mpg @ 80 mph.
Usually it’s just the wife going to work, shopping, etc, but those 2 sliding doors and seating arrangements make it the Swiss army knife of micro-vans.
I spent a good amount of my childhood in the rear-facing back seat of my friend’s dad’s Volvo wagon. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I would get carsick on a regular basis, and no air-conditioning gets back there. Not a valid option.
Also, $38k base for a Highlander Hybrid? Holy crap!
Count me in with the Mazda5 camp. It’s available with a manual! That alone sheds the minivan image.
I remember being stacked four deep in the back of a Ford Taurus on a trip from New York to Florida, making a detour through Atlanta. We were at each other’s throats by the time we hit the NJ Turnpike. Thinking about it now makes me feel bad for my parents. Should I ever end up with four kids, I’ll be searching for a minivan, not stacking kids flank to flank and hoping they can keep the peace while cooped up in the back.
First, if you can’t afford to feed, house, clothe, medicate, transport, and educate so many children, use birth control. Second, buy a Mazda5 or Kia Rondo, if you have four children. Buy a used Volvo or MB wagon with a rear facing seat if you five. More than five? Start eating beans, onions, cabbage, and get gas.
I remember hearing stories of way back yonder when it wasn’t simply a god given right to procreate, but a god given obligation. My, how the times have changed.
The nice thing about the manual Mazda5 is that it isn’t a stripper model. Can’t get leather or a nav system, but that’s about it. Big deal.
quasimodo:
I remember hearing stories of way back yonder when it wasn’t simply a god given right to procreate, but a god given obligation. My, how the times have changed.
Since people spew CO2, it’s only a matter of time before the enviros start hammering large families as polluters.
That said, if you can afford it and can drive it well, a used Exploder is tough to beat for family-of-5-and-all-their-crap hauling.
My sister and I spent most of our road-travelling childhood in the back of a 1994 Mazda MPV. It got dismal gas mileage, (~20 freeway, 16 city). When relatives visited, we threw the removable second row seats back in and 7 or 8 passengers was quite easy to do. Not much room for “stuff” though.
It’s tough, but raising a big family in an industrialized country, especially in one so dependent on cars, simply costs more. Going on a tangent, the kids are going to need a computer, cell phones, etc.
I expect it won’t be long before we see the return of the engine-under-seat layout of the Toyota Van/Previa
I really hope so. I test-drove one while looking for a used car for hauling tons of crap/6 seats for travel, and this has my top marks. the gas mileage was terrible, but with modern technology, smaller size, and a properly sized engine for the weight, this type of car is excellent. Very comfortable, handles better than some cars (I’m looking at you, Aveo), EASY to drive, and more space than anyone should ever need. Very open.
Maybe with a proper diesel (or I guess hybrid system) this style of car would be more practical. of course, the Minivan stigma has to go away, first.
Hopefully, we will begin to see 3-row compacts, unibody midsize vans and station wagons, etc…
Of course, technically, the Previa was more of an SUV – body on frame, solid rear axle..
STAY HOME.
Since people spew CO2, it’s only a matter of time before the enviros start hammering large families as polluters.…..
Actually, the biggest impact a family can have on the environment is to have a child. No passing judgment here, just a statement of fact. Even if the child is brought up to be respectful of what they use and how they use it, you have created a consumer for his/her entire life. Also, once can add that people spew a lot of things worse than CO2. Just listen to Rush Windbag.
As for what to drive, I was one of four and we managed to survive in a station wagon. Ironically, my father commuted to work in the wasteful 400 cubic inch Town and Country. Today, I would chose a Mazda 6 and rent for those family vacations.
Family of 5? Almost any sedan has 5 seat belts. It’s legal. I don’t care if they don’t want to sit so close to each other; learning to get along with others is an important life skill.
Depends what for.
Driving the family around town / to school / to the store / to a local family outing (i.e. trip time of not more than 30 minutes), I’d agree with KixStart: Any sedan with five seatbelts, from a Yaris to a Taurus. Even if one or more of the kids is a teenager. Crown Vics, by the way, have long had six belts! If everyone can’t get along for that length of time, there are deeper issues that really ought to be solved by means other than buying a stupidly huge and wasteful vehicle.
For the every-so-often long-distance road trip, rent a minivan, CUV, SUV, wagon, or suchlike. If your routine very regularly requires whole-family long distance drives, examine your routine! If you’re still convinced that your routine is reasonable, then go out and buy the stupid Flex. Your family’s second car (and what good suburban family with 2.8 kids does not have a second car?) does not need to be anything bigger than a Smart or Miata. But you might be well advised to get the Fit, just in case the adult driving the small car gets an unexpected call one day to haul around the tykes.
In the alternative, buy a minivan, buy it used, and hang on to it forever. The money one saves on payments and insurance by taking the frugal route will easily make up for the gas, even at current prices.
If you live in the ‘burbs and have 2.8 kids, who on earth are you to complain about the “mommy-mobile” image that comes with a van? You’ve bought into everything else! Suck it up and live it proud.
NBK-Boston:
If only more people realized this (I learned the hard way). I understand that feeling a new car gives you, but that fades away after no more than a year or so.
On the other hand, you can buy a used (fill_in_the_blank), know ahead of time any serious issues, replace any and all wear/tear items, and hell rebuild the entire drivetrain and STILL come out ahead, if you shop properly. Especially after insurance/payments, and even after gas.
People with big families should check with circuses to locate a low-mileage clown car. They have incredible seating capacity.
Talk about short attention span…didn’t Martin just write a review on a well build diesel called Dacia Logan MCV that seats 7, gets at least 39 MPGs and if imported (under Nissan badge) would cost about $11000?
But hey, I guess people would rather spend 3 times the amount on a chrome infested Flex with Tahoe-like mileage.
Whatever.
One thing that has not been pointed out is that kids today are required by law to be buckled in car seats from the day they are brought home from the hospital/midwifery clinic until the time they reach 80 lbs (my eldest daughter will be 9-10 years old before she outgrows her booster). Her two sisters are several years behind her – but in no way can they sit close together with the masses of molded plastic cradling them. The booster seats are a bit better, but still, it’s not as simple as just the number of seat belts. Our Subaru Legacy would not fit three across – no way.
That being said, I do love my Mercury Monterey minivan – loads of room, quiet and those sliding doors are the bomb (do I date myself? ack!). I also love showing my minivan-driving self in direct reproach to all the machismo out there in SUV land. Here in Mill Creek, WA there is still quite an infestation you see…
Not sure anyone sees my Walter Mitty “in your face” attitude in quite the way I hope, but I do find the minivan configuration (wagon too, hatchback too) to be one of the most efficient packages out there…I wish more people did too.
Perhaps some families will really not be able to afford many things. Gas will take out like 2 more grand a year at current prices. Is that such a big deal?
I am the oldest of three and my father was big on the full sized sedans back then. Ford Crown Vics and Olds 88’s were his mainstays. I would not even consider the likes. Compact SUV’s are our preference. Honda, Subaru, and Toyota are of my liking. I would much rather pay $60.00 at the pump anyways. In my opinion large families are a thing of the past.
The wife and I have two “kids” (small dogs) and I recently purchased a new 2008 Subaru Forester Sports. We put quite a few miles on each of our auto’s (she has a 2005 2wd CRV, 29 mpg). I am quite pleaded with just less than 28 mpg, with only 2500 miles on the odometer. The only thing we do is run high tire pressure and K&N Air Filters on both rides. The plan is to keep both 6-7 years minimum. At this point a child may be out of the question but who knows we are only 28.
The wife and I have daughter #5 due in a few weeks. According to most of you, we are an environmental nightmare, prodigious (and wasteful) consumers, and spewers of multitudinous dastardly chemicals (certainly true of my youngest still in diapers). Call me an arrogant American if you like, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I long ago got over the don’t-wanna-drive-a-minivan-’cause-they-aren’t-cool thing. I figure with 4+ kids you are committed; no need to pretend anymore. There are lots of us and we have lots of crap to haul on trips. I wouldn’t want to drive anything other than our ’06 Odyssey. It’s a phenomenal vehicle, it’s paid for, and I will keep it at least another 10 years. When it’s full of the 6 of us we get approximately 150 passenger miles per gallon on the freeway; 175 when we have daughter #5. Hard to beat that efficiency.
I shrug off all of the stares, nasty looks, and rude comments made to my wife and I when we are out in public with our kids. I feel for people that only have themselves to care about. Hate to break it to you, but there is so much more to life than just you.
At $5.00/gallon, gasoline is less than 50% more expensive in real dollars than it was to families at it’s prior price peak in March 1981. Back then, large family haulers got worse fuel economy than mainstream SUVs, quad-cab pickups and large CUVs do today. In real terms of affordability, the little extra setback in fuel today is offset by the reality that the general economy that was context for one’s perceptions and decisions was much worse than ours today. 9 – 11% unemployment rates and similar level of inflation, poor new job creation, pessimism about American competitiveness, etc., etc. Fuel for your CUV is not the back-breaker in a 3-children family budget.
Car seat requirements alone up the vehicle space requirements for 3+ children families compared to then. Is the over-femme, risk-averse, child-centric society that America has become going to let its kids bounce around the innards of a car in order to save a few mpgs? Doubtful. Gasoline prices will likely fall, but the safety of children is now a one-way street in our culture.
So what’s a family to do? They simply buy the best vehicle that fits everyone that they can afford, and a Mazda 5 isn’t going to be the centerpoint of the market.
A 17/24 Flex looks pretty good to someone moving out of a real-world 12/17 SUV. And you can be certain that the next iteration of the Flex and its ilk will be more efficient still. Even todays 403hp Escalade is more efficient and more powerful than its predecessor. Coming generations of Flex will be made progressively lighter, with steady gains in power efficiency. How would an Ecotec 2.0L turbo fare in an Acadia? It’s not clear it would be more efficient than an optimized V6, but I’d sure like to find out.
Phil
A Mazda 5 would be perfect for many families. Also suitable is a smaller 3 row crossover, aka Dodge Journey or Suzuki XL-7. If people are serious about saving fuel, they need to remove their paradigm about needing a V6 or V8, and switch to efficient 4 cyl engines with 6 speed transmissions.
We were a family of 4, but my moms and my sister are fairly small (4’9″ and 5’1″), but we did do long-ass trips in the rockin’ ’92 Corolla Wagon. For our cross-country (NY->WA->NM->NY) trip we had a Yakima box on the roof, but we used to go camping (12-hour trip each way) for 2 weeks with all our gear and a dog with that thing and no box on the roof. I was probably a bit smaller then, but you still had 1 full-sized adult and 3 75%-sized adults and a 40lb dog rocking the Mass Pike (oh and 4 bikes on the roof too). in retrospect, I bet a lot of families probably laughed at us…oh well, we were happy and we were getting 30+ mpg with all that shit at the same time.
It’s not a question of if it can be done or not…it’s a question of if it can be done by certain people. For my parents the vehicle was the means that got us from Point A (our house) to Point B (a campground somewhere). Once we were there, we dumped most of the stuff in the tents and then moved around with the car.
(I do realize that most people won’t do this, nor do I have any expectations of such – I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t sacrifice that much now as an adult). My parents were/are a little bit out-of-the-mainstream.
ihatetrees :
Since people spew CO2, it’s only a matter of time before the enviros start hammering large families as polluters.
That won’t happen as long as welfare queens keep breeding like bunnies and raising flocks of kids at taxpayer expense. Environmentalism and the welfare state are both liberal icons, and it would never do to have one undermining the other.
That said, if you can afford it and can drive it well, a used Exploder is tough to beat for family-of-5-and-all-their-crap hauling.
It’s not that tough to beat. Any used minivan will provide more people and cargo space than an Explorer-sized SUV while getting comparable or better fuel economy.
Several posters have mentioned the Mazda5 as a smart choice for larger families. Personally I’d like to see the slightly larger Mazda8 (Japanese home market replacement for the MPV) exported to the States. It would be a good alternative to the large minivans from Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai/Kia.
I can fit 3 kids and a stroller in my Ford Fusion. NOTHING ELSE!! I can’t even go shopping, because there is no room for the bags. In the front seat, maybe, if my wife isn’t sitting there.
On the other hand, you can buy a used (fill_in_the_blank), know ahead of time any serious issues, replace any and all wear/tear items, and hell rebuild the entire drivetrain and STILL come out ahead, if you shop properly. Especially after insurance/payments, and even after gas.….
This is so true. Especially if you buy something that has serious depreciation, like a Buick or Taurus, you can drive a relatively new car for pennies on the dollar. My co-worker was in the market for a used car. Most at work were suggesting Accord or Camry…no surprise there. I asked her what was important. Reliability, safety, and price. The car will be parked on a city street, so there is no big concern about styling and corner carving is not her thing. I suggested a Taurus instead of the Camcord. No it is not as “good’ in an absolute sense, but she ended up with a 4 year old car with less than half the mileage instead of a 9 year old Camcord. The streets will wreck whatever she owns, so resale when she is done with it plays no part. Sometimes the “second class” vehicle is really the better buy. You just have to open your mind a bit.
y2kdcar:
It’s not that tough to beat. Any used minivan will provide more people and cargo space than an Explorer-sized SUV while getting comparable or better fuel economy.
Good point, although I suspect at this (gas price) point the Exploder will have more of an upfront cost discount. Also, I had serious towing in mind – although I didn’t say it.
mudhen:
According to most of you, we are an environmental nightmare, prodigious (and wasteful) consumers, and spewers of multitudinous dastardly chemicals (certainly true of my youngest still in diapers). Call me an arrogant American if you like, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Either would I. This was best put by economist Julian Simon and/or the WSJ editorial page:
“Let a chicken or pig be born in Delhi or Shanghai and the bean counters at the U.N. and World Bank will tell you that the nation is wealthier. But let an Indian or Chinese mother give birth to a son or daughter, and it goes down in their crabbed little ledgers as a liability.”
When I found out we were having twins, we went out and bought the Mazda 5. It has been a great car, but I can see where it could be a problem with three kids. Here’s a few reasons:
Double strollers are huge and heavy, can only fit in the back with the third row down.
Car seats are huge. You could not fit three abreast in a small sedan.
Kids have to be in seats up to seven years old. When I was a kid, you just used the lap belt when you outgrew the baby seat. These seats take up a lot of volume.
Third row in Mazda5 does not have the latch system. It’s very narrow, and I haven’t even tried to put the seats back there.
Baby seats. They’re safer than ever, but take up a lot of volume.
I have to weigh in on a couple of the comments to show some relevance. I have to drive company cars, and I inherited (boooo) a 2006 Chevy Equinox because my boss (who planned on having two kids) found out she was having twins on her second pregnancy. True enough, the Equinox was too narrow in the back seat to fit three car seats. She had to get a minivan. Now, I consider the Equinox a HUGE car with a very reasonable back seat, but they really don’t fit. Now, instead of me driving a smaller Subaru company car I am hauling myself around in a large fuel guzzling CUV that sucks gas at a rate of about 20 mpg. Booo, Hiss.
As far as other posters talk about the carbon footprint of each of us as a consumer INCLUDING future consumers. I know it sounds rude or crass, but it is actually a fact. Each of us impacts the planet!
Also, if you CHOOSE to have a large family then you should be ready to pay for it. If gas prices are out of control for the vehicle that you “need” to haul your family it should not be the problem of the government or anyone else. Nobody told you that you HAD to have that many children. Stop complaining. My sister is pregnant with her first, and they bought a Honda Fit, not an SUV. My other sister is also having a family and she has a VW Golf. Both are way more sensible than an SUV, CUV, etc.
I personally do not have any children, and I still live a responsible life. I take the planet into consideration, I recycle, buy organic, etc. Still, I wish my carbon foot print was less than it is.
I guess that everyone should examine their lifestyles before complaining about how expensive it is to haul children and all their crap around.
Remember, it is a CHOICE to have children. OK, rant over.
I have to disagree with the “don’t have kids” mentality. Sometimes you marry into a family (a la brady bunch). Wives/gfs/etc can get pregnant unexpectedly. Whether they do it purposely or not is left to debate. Sure, it’s your choice to leave or stay but is your character and integrity determined by your fuel mileage?
esager
I am with you. Driving the wife’s baby blue Odyssey with the kids makes me laugh at all the Excursion and Escalade driving moms and dads as they wrestle with huge doors and still can’t fit things in easily. Large family: minivan. Borrow your brother’s truck to tow the boat the one time per year you need it.
jwltch :
June 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Today’s generation apparently need a lot more space than previous. When I was a kid, you crammed in a car and lived with it. Today, I have friends who drive SUVs because they have a baby and have to cart around a ton of stuff the kid can’t live without (so they say). It’s the same with housing now. Kids have to have their own room, bathroom, play room, etc.
I had the same observation when a guy at work bought a used Suburban two years ago when his wife had their second kid. I asked him why he was selling his 4Runner and getting a Suburban. He said that the backseat was too crowded with two child safety seats, and he had no way of being able to haul the family and his mom around when she visited. Sounds foolish to me, especially when you consider he also has a Mercedes C230 that seats four as well, and his mother only visits once or twice a year.
A family of 5= 7 because someone will invariably have 2 friends who have to come along,Or grandparents. Honda Odyssey or Saturn Outlook for me.
If you’re gonna breed a brood, then you have to pay the price – one of these is having a larger vehicle.
My family of 4 did fine in my father’s 5-series and my mother’s Sable.
Lumbergh21 :
June 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am
jwltch :
June 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Today’s generation apparently need a lot more space than previous. When I was a kid, you crammed in a car and lived with it. Today, I have friends who drive SUVs because they have a baby and have to cart around a ton of stuff the kid can’t live without (so they say). It’s the same with housing now. Kids have to have their own room, bathroom, play room, etc.
You obviously haven’t paid any attention to the current standards for car seat and the laws surrounding their use with children. Where I live they are mandatory in various forms until the child is 8 years old. Now try to fit three of them in a 5 series – it can not be done, they are just to large. (I owned an e39 5 series so i have tried it) Yes we need more space now but it is becuause of the rules surrounding proper child restraint, not the illusion to other societal issues that may or may not exist that causes it.
The question posed was what’s a large (ie greater than 4) family to do. We used an audi allroad as the family hauler until my daughter was born, (third child) at that point we had to switch to an Odyssey, the three seats would not fit together in the second row.
Everyone likes to point out “Back in my day” we drove Duster and 15kids in there. Back in the bad old days you didn’t need to wear a seat belt, kids could rid on mommies lap and you had bench seats so you could just jam as many in there as you wanted. I used to have people I the bed of my truck. Today we need child seats and everyone needs a belt. Oh and if we had been given a choice of being crammed in the back of a sedan or having a 3 row Min-van with TV to watch gee which do you think we would have picked.
Trust me the peace in the car is more than worth the extra cost in 3-6MPG. Any parent will tell you that.
Lots of interesting comments from other readers here.
jwltch :
…When I was a kid, you crammed in a car and lived with it. Today, I have friends who drive SUVs because they have a baby and have to cart around a ton of stuff the kid can’t live without (so they say)….
Yes, my sister’s family is one just like this. With one kid, they needed a mini-van. Now with two, they bought a bigger one. But I think bigger vehicles, like bigger homes, can be clutter magnets. Even with four people riding, there’s more stuff in the mini-van than there are people.
…It’s the same with housing now. Kids have to have their own room, bathroom, play room, etc…
My brother and I shared a room until we moved to a bigger house. I was in high school and he was in junior high.
ethermal :
I’ve got a great idea, not have a big family. Seems novel but everything we do is a choice.
I saw a number of comments regarding family size. I thought the US was declining in population…is that correct? If so, then it would seem to me that on average, families have fewer children, not more.
About three months ago, I was just talking with a young lady, a mother of one, divorced with a 3-year old daughter. She wants a huge brood. I don’t. I know a lot of people don’t consider this, but to me, cost is only one factor, time is another. I’m probably in the minority for being so left-brained about this, but I’ll bet I won’t be for much longer.
David Holzman :
To all the people saying people find SUVs are necessary for space (whether they really need it or not), I say those people are poseurs. There is more space in the average minivan.
Agreed. A LOT more space.
@mudhen
I appload you. Well said.
For all you people advocating a Mazda5 as the magic pill to cure the big family hauling problem, are you nuts?!!? Just because it says “seats 7” doesn’t mean it can do that on a trip to anything other than the corner store. That thing has no cargo room, is uglier than a Tribeca with a missing front bumper, and just because it has a manual doesn’t mean it’s a sports car.
From what I can see, the cash-strapped large family buys a 5 year old domestic minivan for about $5k and gets on with life with no worries about “sporty styling” or “racing heritage” or some other useless marketing gimmick. Not every vehicle purhcase has a higher purpose or fulfills some inner need. Some cars work for a living, just like the people that drive them.
Re: lewissalem
The Mazda 5 does actually work well if your kids are spaced out enough that a light weight stroller for one works. We have four kids in ours, and only the youngest needs a stroller. And minivans don’t have a lot more cargo space than the Mazda 5 does.
As the price of fuel goes higher and higher, the more idiotic I feel driving my 05 F150 RC as a daily driver on my 60 mi r/t. I do trade off with my wifes Focus 3 days a week now, and that helps the pocketbook after the $100 fill-up.
mudhen, thanks for speaking up. Don’t let the misanthropes bug you. The Shakers thought it wrong to have children, and look what happened to them.
As for the question of what car is suited for a family of five or six, two possibilities it seems no one has mentioned: Impala or LaCrosse with the optional front bench seat, and a conversion van. For even bigger families: Ford E-150XL with seating for eight, or the vans that seat 12 or 15.
In the spirit of Julian Simon:
If all of the single folk driving Corollas were forced to drive Trabants, it might improve their MPG per Passenger to the “eco-warrior” levels enjoyed by loaded up 6/7 passenger family haulers?
Would this finally eliminate the requirement to flog the relatively small (1M) households that actually require vehicles with a third row/additional storage on a regular basis?
ZoomZoom :
June 13th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I saw a number of comments regarding family size. I thought the US was declining in population…is that correct? If so, then it would seem to me that on average, families have fewer children, not more.
If we had no immigration, that would be true. Since 1970, the U.S. population has grown than 90 million. With current immigration (including illegal), by 2100 the US is expected have around 571 million.
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about/question-if-congress-reduces-immigration.html
cleek, mudhen
You don’t earn “green points” by increasing the passenger miles per gallon of your vehicle through the expedient of having more children, and therefore more passengers.
I certainly won’t get up on a soapbox and tell people how many kids to have, but just please don’t try to make that point! Going ahead and having the extra kids means you bought a bigger car, house, load of diapers, etc., than you ever would have otherwise; when each kid grows up he or she will buy cars and houses and gasoline and all the rest, and having grown up in a large family, the kid just might decide to have a large family of his or her own, repeating all this. That’s American freedom, and if you can afford to feed your children I’d never vote to take it away (and having several relatives with large families, I know not to stare, either), but you get no traction from boasting about your pmpg.
ihatetrees
I’m not exactly sure which actual “crabbed ledger” at the UN counts chickens as assets and babies as liabilities, but frankly, in my own house, that’s exactly how I’d count things.
If I woke up one morning and someone left a live chicken on my front doorstep, I could put it in the backyard, let it eat worms and grubs and a dime’s worth of feed each day, and have a supply of fresh, “organic” eggs in return. Those retail for how much these days? Thirty, forty cents each, is it?
If someone left a baby on my front doorstep, I’d be out good money for formula, diapers, clothes, babysitters, and all the rest for the next eighteen years. I might derive some joy from raising the child. I might not.
But the chicken will save money on my grocery bills and fetch a good price at the butcher, while the child will require money out of my pocket for years to come. Over my small-scale medium term point of view, it is clear which is the asset and which the liability.
Now, on a national scale, once the child grows up and starts doing something productive (laborer, manager, writer, teacher, whatever), he eventually pays society back for the cost of his childhood, at least several times over. That’s why any large-scale UN ledger would regard children as a long term asset. But in the short term, they cost money!
So what does a European family do? I’m sure there must be 5+ member families that don’t have an SUV or Minivan….
Try this one on for size(!); We can fit two strollers and two car seats in a Mini Cooper. The key is a bit of research – sure, the options are limited, and we wouldn’t be doing much shopping (2 small bags of groceries and we’d be full!), but there are slightly narrower car seats and some extremely well designed strollers that fit in vehicles. I believe you’d probably spend an extra $100 or so on each stroller/seat, but you’ll save the money in gas (vs. an SUV) in no time! Look for Euro-models, there are quite a few that meet NA standards (they probably all do, but in Canada, anyway, you need a CSA sticker for it to be legal) and most are a bit more narrow.
In terms of the Mini, we only have 1 child, and “packing” the car was a test only using “regular” sized car seats; we borrowed the extra stroller (fitting two “Quinny Zaps” in the trunk). If anyone is looking a common “narrow” seat is the Evenflow Titan V, which is roughly 16.5″ across at the widest point (many are 20″ across, making three across require an extra foot of room!) – remember when fitted, they technically shouldn’t be touching.
“NBK-Boston:
June 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am
cleek, mudhen
You don’t earn “green points” by increasing the passenger miles per gallon of your vehicle through the expedient of having more children, and therefore more passengers.”
@ NBK-Boston
Your point is 100% valid and I am not so deluded as to think that having 5 children makes me “greener” than anyone else. I merely threw the pmpg reference in there because this website is TTAC, not TTAHALF (The Truth About Having A Large Family).
Along the same lines, it’s obvious that having children is expensive. I admit to occasionally thinking about the car I could buy if I wasn’t spending so much each month on food (or what I will spend on feminine hygiene products over the next 18 years), but those thoughts go away when I get mobbed by my girls when I get home. The joy, laughter, and play my wife and girls bring to my life is worth every dollar. Cars and stuff break, families are forever.
I completely agree with the many comments on car seats and actual seating space. We recently moved to Germany and had to put our oldest, 9 y/o, back into a booster as per German law. Did I mention we love our minivan?
I shrug off all of the stares, nasty looks, and rude comments made to my wife and I when we are out in public with our kids.
You get nasty looks for having children? Or are they badly behaved? I’m fully in “the more the merrier” camp with offspring, but that’s contingent on their civility in public. If your kids are pleasant, then I’m a loss. I could far more easily understand a superiority complex from those with children than I could from those without.
@NBK-Boston
Nor does one ‘…earn “green points” by *decreasing* the passenger miles per gallon of your vehicle through the expedient of having *fewer* children, and therefore *fewer* passengers.’ so your logic escapes me. And besides, who said I have lot’sa kids. If I did I sure wouldn’t have time to post this message. ;-). Many people don’t lead isolated lives and and keep their vehicles filled with carpools, friends, extended family.
But none the less, discounting efficiency, even based on bloodlines and age, makes no economic sense.
Back to the broader topic:
In fact, most in my circle of friends and colleagues are facing a broader people mover challenge. Everyone has parents and or other older extended family they are responsible for within their household.
A weekend trip that combines a couple of kid’s with one or two tall and/or arthritic parents requires creativity. How do you keep them all comfortable and entertained and have enough room for the baggage on a weekend trip?.
I really like what Ford is trying to do with the Flex. The second row captains seats have been described as business class. (I hope the surly flight attendants are still optional). The entertainment system would allow the kids to stream tunes and the P’s to watch a flick. My wife and I could talk, **uninterrupted**, fondly recalling our days as newlyweds living at the beach and owning a 32+ mpg car. But generally we were riding our bikes everywhere. We were so happy, we didn’t even realize we were supposed to be smug about it. And when I awake from this day dream and have to unload the luggage, all of those overnight bags will be waiting behind the 3rd seats- because it wasn’t an after thought. What was Toyota thinking when it over looked the split bench on the Highlander. How could a machine like Toyota make such a rookie mistake.
The MB R-Class is a contender, too. Though there isn’t as much room behind the third row as the Flex, its has split rear seats so one could get the overnight bags in the beast. Many of the 2006s are coming off lease and selling prices are pretty competitive. ~$33K with mileage of ~20K and a year or two of factory warranty remaining. The Certified inventory is a little more but it will give you better warranty terms.