Family Car

Two questions... What is your budget, and do you give a shit about cars/driving?

I have a Pilot as well for all the family stuff. Our second car is a Toyota Prius. Love having the hybrid for a second car for the fuel efficiency. Plus we can still cram all 5 of us in it when we need to.

My Honda Accord is big, roomy, and good on gas. Might appease you both as it's a car so it's not massive, but your wife will find it "big". It's humongous compared to my fiance's civic.

Yeah the new Accord looks really nice. We have a CRV which is definitely smaller than the Pilot but bigger than an average car. So that class might be a good compromise.

Hondas are always a good choice, good driving dynamics for their class and exceptional resell/reliability. I'm a big Mazda fan, the new Mazda 6 is kicking butt in all of the comparison tests. The 2014 Mazda 3 was just revealed yesterday, it looks amazing for the segment. They also have the CX-5 which is universally praised in the small crossover segment.

No self respecting Chicagoan would be found in anything less than this fine automobile.





On a more serious note... Check out Subaru Outback.

I have a CRV that we bought when we had our first kid. I wish I had bought a van instead of that now, because once we had 3 kids the CRV didn't have room for all the carseats and we ended up getting a van. 2 car payments is no fun.

Like chaos mentioned above...are you going to have a 3rd kid? IF you end up with a 3rd kid, you're going to need something with a 3rd row of seats(assuming the oldest isn't past having to use a booster seat yet). Hell, even if the oldest doesn't need a booster seat, fitting them into a backseat with 2 kids that are still in carseats/boosters would not be fun.

While it's not quite sedan/hybrid level gas mileage, our new Hyundai Santa Fe Sport gets 22 city/30 highway gas mileage. That really can't be beat for a mid-sized SUV, most mid-sized SUVs are lucky to get in the 23-24 highway mpg, and your in the teens in city driving. The only thing that really tops it are small SUVs, and still not by much.

For a car, go drive a new Honda Accord and a new Mazda 6... Pick which one you like the best. Can get either well equipped for under 25k, and they are both very fun to drive, they blow everything in the class away in driving "feel"

If you want an SUV, the new Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee are pretty damn nice.

Crossover, The Honda CRV or Mazda CX-5 are really nice for the small CUV segment. Or you could go nutty and drive a Nissan Juke, very very fun to drive!

Subaru Legacy, super roomy front and back+all the safety stuff for the family.

One thing to keep in mind, is that we are hurtling quickly toward a zero-fatality car. Crashworthiness is improving by leaps and bounds, but it's uneven. Priuses and Camrys get destroyed on the new small overlap crash test, while Honda Civics and Accords both handle it well. 25% of all traffic fatalities occur in this type of accident. I just bought a civic, and that's the main reason why. It's the only compact car to date that receives the IIHS top safety pick plus award, and is the only compact car made at the moment that receives a good result for the small overlap. They also make a 4 door civic sedan.

If that's too small, the accord also receives the top safety pick plus award. There are a smattering of other midsize sedans that score well on the small overlap.

This is the 2012 prius failing miserably on this new crash test-


To contrast, here is the 2013 civic 4 door in the same test-