I drive a Vibe, which I love (even if it is sort of a station wagon). It gets great gas mileage and works great for my 3 and 5 year old. I have driven for 3 years (when there was a carseat and pumpkin seat). It has some storage room in the back. I have even used it to bring some long pieces of lumber home from lowes, with the carseats out and the seats down. It is only 1.8 liters, which means it is far from a race car, but it works well for us, both for function and cost. We mostly drive around our area but have taken several 6 hour road trips with no problems. We just vowed to never have a minivan (fine for others, but our personal preference). The vibe has been a great car for us. Hope this helps, Jon

I have a sedan - VW Passat - and 3 kids - a 3 year old, a 1 year old and one on the way.
We got a couple of radian65s this year so the 3 year old could be in 5 point seat longer and because they are fairly narrow. I am hoping I can get the two radians and a infant seat across the back of the Passat but it probably won't work out. My wife drives an ES300 which is a bit wider so it might work there.
I have seen 3 kids under 5 across the back seat of a Volvo wagon but I didn't get to investigate - I know they sometimes have built in carseats so that might help. Some of the Volvo wagons have rear facing juimpseats as well but I don't know if they are available on new models.

'02 Ford Sport Trac (http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/sporttrac/?v=html)...basically an Explorer with a truck bed. Current car seat arrangement is a Radian (http://www.mypreciouskid.com/car-seat-safety-radian80.html) 5-point harness big-kid seat (in the middle back), and a Britax roundabout (http://www.britaxusa.com/products/product_detail.aspx?ID=10) in the side back. Previously, it also fit the regular Graco infant bucket seat fine. The Radian is a nice seat, sturdy but without all the extra bulk so you can fit it in a lot of places that other seats won't.

The Sport Trac is the perfect vehicle for me. Kid-proof interior materials, room to haul messy junk for projects (although the space in a minivan is similar, some of my cargo would trash a nice interior), enough room for the family, but not too big. Plus, it's easy to find at preschool since it's the only vehicle in the lot that's not a minivan.... :-)

I love my 05 Odyssey, but to be the ultimate homeschool road warrior, what I really want is something like one of these:

Small lottery payout

Bigger lottery payout

Powerball Jackpot

That Homeschooling Dad
Homeschool Hut

When our twins were born I was driving a Toyota Sequoia that we bought while living in Southern California, thus is was a two-wheel drive vehicle. Now I am driving a Mazda CX-9 which is a cross-over vehicle. Part SUV part station wagon. Does not work for me as well as the Toyota did however, it is a good vehicle. We have room for seven passengers and have two car seats currently for both of my almost three year old twins. I still wish that I had the Sequoia however, with the wife being someone concerned with the environment, it was better to downsize a bit. Looked at Hybrids however, they are not worth the investment at this point. You would have to keep the Hybrid far to long in order to have it worth the investment. The good thing is that both the Toyota and the Mazda have built in DVD players for long trips. Just wish that my twins would wear their wireless head phones so that I do not have to listen to their movies any longer.

We are a one-car family (at times this is a logistical difficulty, but we live with it for financial & environmental reasons). It's a 2006 Jetta TDI. We have 2 kids (1 on the way-also room for their car seat): my 8yo sits in a booster seat, my 4yo has an extended booster. We run biodiesel in our car, and get insane gas mileage: average 40 miles/gallon for usual usage; when we are on longer trips, closer to 50 miles/gallon. A Jetta TDI just set the world record for mpg. The car has a large trunk w/ all kinds of cool little storage features. I highly recommend checking out any of the VW TDI's.
Good luck!

I just traded in my 04 VUE Red Line for a 2009 Ford Flex. It's hands down the best vehicle I have ever owned. After looking at minivans, SUVs and other crossovers we chose the Flex because it has 4 wheel drive, lots of 2nd row legroom, and has a car-like ride. We were originally going to buy a Volvo XC70, but it just didn't have enough storage in the back for the long road trips we love. The Flex was a great compromise and I love it more every day.

Other benefits: styling is a lot cooler than other vehicles in its class, 3rd row seating if you need it, extremely comfortable seating and lots of headroom all the way back. My buddy is 6'6" and can relax in the 2nd row! A good parent friendly feature is the way they designed the frame. The rocker moldings are part of the door instead of the frame, so you can get a few inches closer to the seats when getting your child in/out. Makes it really easy to get my daughter's car seat in there and keeps my pant legs clean too (we live out in the country). The 4 wheel drive is good too. It balances between all 4 wheels for traction instead of the usual 80% front 20% back like a lot of current AWD systems.

If you're looking at larger vehicles I'd definitely check it out.

Gas mileage:
Semi-suburban mix: 19mpg
Pure highway: 24.4

Rich C. : Novice baby wrangler and cat herder.
http://one-sahd-dude.blogspot.com/
http://good-eats-fan.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onesahddude/

I saw yours on your flickr link. It's nice! Way to go! I like the styling. I reminds me of a large stretch futuristic cooper mini. I do like it.

I currently drive a '07 Toyota Sienna. We love long road trips too and that has been a dreamliner to travel in. It has been very flexible for multiple uses, hauling furniture, building supplies, carpooling almost half of the baseball team in and the list continues...

Everybody has things that draws them to their vehicle for various reasons and they can't fault anyone else for their choice, in my opinion.

America's love affair with the automobile is in a funky place right now. I am looking forward to the alternate fuel vehicles to come out. We own a Hybrid. To us it is worth it. Embrace the technology. Run a cleaner machine. (much cleaner).

Below is my ride. She is a beautiful Arctic Frost White... I named her Pearl.

I have an F350 four door with a 7.3 Powerestroke diesel 4X4. My wife drives an Accord. We like the truck better as the bending to get the 1 YO in his seat is a pain and I feel safe in the truck. The Honda is her work car.

My 8 year old fits like a glove in the backseat of my 2005 BMW 330Ci Convertible.

6-speed manual transmission gets me well over 30 highway mpg.

I refuse to purchase a minivan/suv

That's what I meant, but I do agree...the 4.0 V6 is really not so "little", and sounds like a good trade in power for the mpg. And, it still sounds really good :-)

Electriclime wrote: My wife's ride is a 2006 Mustang GT; Redfire with the 18" rims and 500W stereo.
__________________________________________________________________________________

That's my wife's ride as well, except hers is in Vista Blue. It was her gift to herself when she left the corporate world to become her semi-own boss. She loves it!

We also have a 98 Subaru Forester she uses as a commuter car, she doesn't want to rack up the miles on her Stang. She also hates to leave the Mustang at airport and train station parking lots. The Mustang got beat up the first couple of times she took the Mustang to the train station. I also drive the Subaru for errand running when my wife is not traveling, although it is just too small for me to be my regular car. I use my Excursion for way more than just transportation; I actually use my large SUV for towing and offroading. If you saw what I tow, you’d know why my vehicle has to be large.
I’m all for saving fuel and changing the way cars and trucks are built, but there is no way we can all drive hybrids, even big ones. I’m with Boone, we need more natural gas infrastructure and utilize that fuel over gasoline and diesel.

Mike Stilwell
Daddyshome, Inc.
DC Metro Dads

I was hoping that someone would have posted they drove a four door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. I would like to get rid of the mini van and go with a Jeep, but nervous because of the three kid factor. Two would be in boosters and one in a car seat, but being the primary family car, I am probably a little optimistic with this gas guzzler.

When I was shopping around for a new vehicle I brought along the car seat and stroller so i could really get an idea of how much room there was and ease of use. I was shocked that some of the larger vehicles could hardly accommodate a car seat because the 2nd row was so narrow! You might want to take your boosters and car seat with you to see how they all fit.

Rich C. : Novice baby wrangler and cat herder.
http://one-sahd-dude.blogspot.com/
http://good-eats-fan.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onesahddude/

Albyonfloats wrote:
When they were choosing a mini-van (argh, cough, gag, yuk), they went online and found which rental companies had each of their 3 finalists and rented each one for a week to get a feel for what everyday life with each vehicle would be like. An interesting approach, though I'm not sure I would want to fork out that kind of dough in the name of research, but he swears it was the best decision they made and really helped clarify which features they wanted and which vehicle truly fit their family.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I highly recommend this approach, we did it several years ago when my wife wanted her first SUV.
It really makes sense to try out cars this way so you can drive them like you normally do, doing your normal routines. There's no better way to get a feel for a new car than trying it out for more than just a test drive. There are dealers now that will let you take home potential cars you wish to buy over night to do the same thing. There's nothing worse than buying a car that you find out later that it's uncomfortable on long trips, or your car seat doesn't fit well. Or that there isn't enough room to put a normal load of groceries in the cargo area without an overflow to the seating area. There are many little things that you can never get experience with on a test drive.

Mike Stilwell
Daddyshome, Inc.
DC Metro Dads