Need new car for family of 5-opinions needed

[Sleepy425]

Drive a Ford Flex. You will be amazed. Seating for 7, HUGE HUGE middle seat.
We traded our Suburban in on a Flex 2 weeks ago.

My husband bought a FLex in 2014. I hate that car. With 4 kids, there just isn't enough room for other things. We bought one of those trailers that hang off the back in order to pack more stuff (we also have a 2011 Sedona with 138K miles on it, but we have a house way off the main roads in VT so when we visit there we have to take the Flex. The Sedona gets stuck).
My husband is required to have a new car every 5 years (he gets a large monthly stipend from work as long as the car is less than 5 years old), so next year I get the Flex and he is looking for something new. He refuses to get a minivan and I'm completely bummed. I'm already complaining about having to drive the cramped Flex, the least he could do is have a minivan for me to drive on the weekends!

 

[tvguy]

My husband bought a FLex in 2014. I hate that car. With 4 kids, there just isn't enough room for other things. We bought one of those trailers that hang off the back in order to pack more stuff (we also have a 2011 Sedona with 138K miles on it, but we have a house way off the main roads in VT so when we visit there we have to take the Flex. The Sedona gets stuck).
My husband is required to have a new car every 5 years (he gets a large monthly stipend from work as long as the car is less than 5 years old), so next year I get the Flex and he is looking for something new. He refuses to get a minivan and I'm completely bummed. I'm already complaining about having to drive the cramped Flex, the least he could do is have a minivan for me to drive on the weekends!

It will be an adjustment after having that 9 passenger Suburban for 31 years. We had a 6 passenger Suburban for 2 years before that. But our kids are grown, and the middle seat in the Flex is the biggest and easiest to get into of any vehicle short of a limo I have seen. And now many of our passengers are elderly or have mobility issues and I am looking forward to seeing if a much lower vehicle with a wide rear door and wide back seat will help them.
The third row seat is tight, and cargo room less than the Suburban. I only have 160 miles on the Flex, so time will tell. We take our first trip in it in a week. I will be interested to see what the Flex does on the freeway. The Suburban did 9 mpg on the freeway! Of course, we only have 2 kids. So DW and I had the front bench seat to ourselves, and each kid a 3 seat bench seat to themselves with the Suburban when they were growing up.

 

[pixiemama91]

We had a 2018 Chev Traverse for a rental car on our last Disney trip and I absolutely fell in love with it. So much so that we are considering it for a our next car purchase.

 

[pixiemama91]

I was recently in the same situation and compared the GMC Acadia, Chevy Traverse, Acura MDX and Honda Pilot, all 2018 models. The Acadia was ok, but I was worried about long-term reliability so we eventually ruled that vehicle out. The MDX had too many features I wasn't interested in and would never use, and it looked too much like a mini-van, so that was out. I liked the look of the re-designed Pilot and it was a front runner to purchase. I test drove it twice, asked a lot of questions, and couldn't get past two things ~ the only charging ports were between the front seats (useless for our family, we need them in the 2nd and 3rd row seats, too) and the only way to get captain's chairs in the second row was to purchase the highest model, at $50,000+. That would be a nope! We ended up with a 2018 Chevy Traverse and love it. It has everything we wanted and we are very happy with our purchase.

We recently had the Chevy Traverse for a rental and fell in love with it. I am hoping to purchase for our next car in the near future. I love the extra room without it feeling super huge.

 

[WDWFan0813]

I'm going to add my support for the Acadia / Traverse / Enclave. I went from an '08 Pathfinder to a '10 Acadia about 7-months ago and have been very happy. We only have two kids, but still like the flexibility of the 3rd row. As was mentioned before, the middle row in these models which have captains chairs are much more comfortable than most other SUV middle rows. Overall, the design of the vehicle provides us with a noticeable more amount of interior space than our Pathfinder did. Although I do get the convenience of a minivan, especially the sliding doors, I am not a fan of the appearance. More importantly though, we need to have at least one vehicle which has 4WD / AWD AND provides us with more ground clearance than minivans do. For us, the Acadia has more than met our needs.

 

[blabadie]

I'm going to add my support for the Acadia / Traverse / Enclave. I went from an '08 Pathfinder to a '10 Acadia about 7-months ago and have been very happy. We only have two kids, but still like the flexibility of the 3rd row. As was mentioned before, the middle row in these models which have captains chairs are much more comfortable than most other SUV middle rows. Overall, the design of the vehicle provides us with a noticeable more amount of interior space than our Pathfinder did. Although I do get the convenience of a minivan, especially the sliding doors, I am not a fan of the appearance. More importantly though, we need to have at least one vehicle which has 4WD / AWD AND provides us with more ground clearance than minivans do. For us, the Acadia has more than met our needs.

I agree that the 2nd row captains chairs make such a difference in the large SUVs. Love them!

 

[tvguy]

I agree that the 2nd row captains chairs make such a difference in the large SUVs. Love them!

Interesting. The best thing we liked about the three...three passenger bench seats in our Suburban over the 31 years we had it was they could hold 3 each. We never understood 2 captains chairs which never can hold 3.

 

[kymom99]

Interesting. The best thing we liked about the three...three passenger bench seats in our Suburban over the 31 years we had it was they could hold 3 each. We never understood 2 captains chairs which never can hold 3.

For one thing it makes it easier to get to the back seat. For another, captain's chairs are more comfortable.
Many of my friends have SUVs now. One had an Acadia, another has a Highlander, etc. Every time a group of us goes somewhere, I get stuck in the way back. One friend says every time "I'm claustrophobic!" I always end up taking one for the team and have to haul my 53 year old chunky butt into the back. I have yet to find one that is easily accessible. I've gotten to the point where I say I'll just drive my car too so no one has to do it.
I don't know about SUVs but I know some vans with captain's chairs have a pop up seat in between to fit another person if needed.

 

[tvguy]

For one thing it makes it easier to get to the back seat. For another, captain's chairs are more comfortable.
Many of my friends have SUVs now. One had an Acadia, another has a Highlander, etc. Every time a group of us goes somewhere, I get stuck in the way back. One friend says every time "I'm claustrophobic!" I always end up taking one for the team and have to haul my 53 year old chunky butt into the back. I have yet to find one that is easily accessible. I've gotten to the point where I say I'll just drive my car too so no one has to do it.
I don't know about SUVs but I know some vans with captain's chairs have a pop up seat in between to fit another person if needed.

LOL. I must be wider than you, I could never fit between the captains chairs in the SUVs and vans I had the pleasure of putting my 61 year old body in.

 

[mrsp1030]

We just went through this exact same thing when buying a new car. I was fine with the van but my husband just wanted something different. We have 3 growing boys, currently ages 12, 9, 6. We tested them all: Enclave, Tahoe, Yukon XL, Suburban, Atlas, Traverse, etc.. We ended up with a Ford Expedition. It had the best 3rd row leg room without being super large and I felt comfortable driving it, with some decent storage behind when all 3 rows up. DOn't get me wrong, the Enclave is a beautiful car and I loved the interior but it felt more narrow to me. The Atlas is a nice vehicle but the bench seat was not something we wanted in our 2nd row.