October 2012 Moms
CDCbaby
member
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Help us car shop please!
CDCbaby
member
I currently drive a 2003 Honda Accord. It does the job of course, but with two kids now and a stroller that fills the entire trunk, we want something bigger.
I really want an SUV with a 3rd row seat. I don't want something ginormous like a Suburban, and I'm not crazy about the idea of driving a mini van 
if you have an SUV with a 3rd row can you tell me
a) which one do you have? and
b) why do you love it? and are there any things you don't love?
TIA!
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Re: Help us car shop please!
I drive a Chevy Traverse, I do not like it becuase i have three children in carseats. The third row does not have LATCH and the middle seat needs to roll forward to get to third row. So right now we have 2 carseats in third row that need to be seatbelted in which is a pain trying to manuver them into the back and then fight with the seatbelt. Then we have the infant seat behind driver. My husband is 6'3 so when he drives he is just about cramped becuz he cant put the seat all the way back without hitting the infant seat.
It is do-able....but im really wishing we went with a mini van,
When the 3rd row is up you have hardly any trunkspace-which a van doesnt either. But groceries are now stacked upon each other and u hope they dont fall out when u open the liftgate
So that is my opinion with three carseats in a traverse.
which not to mention: when putting kids into third row i need to move middle seat all the way forward- so that means nothing on seat or floor. then kids are in push seat back into place. two seats and floor become avaiable space...but try not to fill it becuz when u get to next stop you gotta take it all out and repeat process of pushing seat forward ect.
I had an extra bag with me yestrday and what a pain...where do u put the extra bag? grrr! Cant wait til lease it up!
I didn't want a minivan but I have an odyssey now. The power doors are a thing I would not be able to live without with three young children. It is lower so DD can get in and out by herself. I can remove any seat I want to make any configuration I want. with the seat in the middle (passenger side) removed I can close the door and feed baby while sitting on the floor, change the boys on the floor, have car picnics on the floor. The storage space in the back is not as much as my awsome as my santa fe had but is much better than any of the 3rd row suv had. It has a latch for 5 carseats. Many suvs do not have any latches in the 3rd row.
So, it is not cool but it is super functional, for right now that trumps anything.
I will get a 3 row suv type car in the future, once all the kids are out of any car seat device. I love the infini jx (i think) but it is really out of my budget. I did see a new commercial for the nissan pathfinder and that looks really nice. (they both have the ability to fold a seat foward with a car seat in it to get to the back seat)
I like the sounds of the floor space in the van! For all such things u listed and to be abl to remove seats.
Thanks everyone for your input, very helpful stuff!
and I know I should get over the "un-cool" factor of a van b/c there are lots of things about them that are "smart" for families to have....but man, that's a hard pill to swallow. I already feel un-cool as it is, ha
and a Tahoe is one of the choices at the top of our list. DH likes them and I think he has always wanted one. So it's good to hear a couple of opinions on those, thanks
So your'e basically saying, if your stroller is in the way back, there's no way to fit groceries/other cargo in there without folding the 3rd row down?
and wait, I thought I'd seen once that the 3rd row seats in the tahoe didn't fold down, you actually had to Remove them....I guess that's been updated huh?
So I've been looking at the explorer and expedition to keep my beloved technology. When we looked in person I discovered that the explorer wasn't much bigger inside than my escape so I was still have the same issues. The expedition, although feels huge, actually makes sense. You can feel the difference between the two and have a full trunk as well as the third row.
We have a Toyota highlander but rarely ever use the third row - you can't put a car seat back there anyway and when it's up, there's very little space.
That said, I really like it. There's enough room between the front seat and 2nd row to put a stroller, so we can put the two carseats (for newborn and 2 yo), stroller and other bags, and throw our two dogs in the back.
A minivan has the best use of space imo.