I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m about to take back at least some of the snide remarks I’ve made about SUVs, though I still think they’re a silly choice for most people. And all that rhetoric from the automakers about just giving soccer moms what they want is a crock.
Automakers want to protect the outrageous profits they make on these vehicles and are willing to spend billions convincing people SUVs are safer (they aren’t), sexier (puhleeze) and a status symbol equal to an Aspen ski condo.
I suppose they thought soccer moms were a good target for the behemoths, but I’m here to tell you that’s horse pucky.
If carpooling to soccer games is your mission, you’re better off with a large station wagon or a minivan. They have more passenger room and generally use less gas. But minivans don’t have the cache that SUVs have. They just don’t look sporty. And I don’t know any thirty-something mom who’d admit to owning a minivan.
My daughters have taught me a thing or two about what moms (soccer or otherwise) really want. And guess what. There are precious few SUVs that come close to filling the bill.
Most of this has to do with children’s car seats, which seem to grow longer and wider every year. Show me a 2-year-old that needs a 17-inch wide car seat and I’ll show you a kid that’s destined to pay for two airplane tickets.
My daughter Betty has a tall, slender kid of 2-and-a-half years, whose car seat takes up almost half the width of the average SUV. (I am discounting Suburbans, Excursions Expeditions and maybe Extinctions as too gross to consider.) The actual seat for children this age is only 10 inches across, but the armrests add almost four inches on either side. This, I am told, is a safety feature. Armrests protect the arms? How so?
The law requires children to use these seats until they are 4 years old, after which they must have a booster seat to prevent strangling by shoulder harness. This means each kid will go through three car seats: infant, one-to-three-plus-years and four-and-up before entering kindergarten. That’s about $400 in car furniture for each child. At least Eddie Bauer now makes one that converts from midsize to booster (at just under $200).
The infant size snaps into a base so you can at least take a snoozing baby out of the car without waking it up. The large seats weigh so much and are so difficult to adjust they pretty much have to stay in the vehicle. This makes carpooling a nightmare. Two large car seats take up most of the rear seat with just enough room for a very skinny older kid in between. And that’s in the average SUV. You’d need a Hummer to accommodate three large car seats.
Betty’s Dodge Durango has the same problem: two car seats take up most of the width. The driver and one passenger of average tush have plenty of room in the front buckets, and there’s a slender third seat (between the wheel wells) that takes up most of the cargo space. While not comfy, it’s doable for a skinny adult with short legs who’s not claustrophobic.
This rules out my other daughter, Susan, who had nightmares about riding in the third seat all the way to Montana, where we plan to go in a few weeks. She drives a Dodge 4×4 quad cab pickup, which, as the name implies, is suitable for only four bodies of any size. The suspension is so stiff it makes my teeth hurt going up our dirt driveway and it uses more gas than the Exxon Valdez. Also, there’s no covered cargo space, which is okay for schlepping bikes but little else. It is presently sporting a For Sale sign.
After measuring everyone’s backsides and car seats and researching specs on the Internet, we actually test drove several choices based on our extended family’s specific requirements: all-wheel drive, reasonable gas mileage, hip room for three on the rear seat, a V-6 capable of towing 2,000 pounds of boat trailer and a sticker price less than the down payment on a five-bedroom house.
So guess where I found it? At my friendly Saturn dealership. We test drove a V-6, AWD Vue while my Saturn sedan was getting its 60,000-mile tune-up. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s pretty cool. Fully loaded (roof rack with cargo carrier, running boards, trailer hitch, front grill protector, everything but a port-a-potty) it’s about $23,000.
Economical to maintain (the first tune-up is at 100,000 miles) and mileage that won’t bankrupt you (this year’s status symbol). Power-assisted, rack-and-pinion steering (same as my sedan which handles like a sports car) and suspension that neither jars nor floats. Impressive.
Of course, we won’t have it until the quad cab is sold, so we’ll be driving the Durango to Montana. After juggling the car seats and fold-down options, Susan says she can manage her claustrophobia with one car seat in the third row and one section of the second row folded down (giving her emergency access to the door and room to stretch her legs).
Betty and I sit in the front buckets and take turns driving. The tiny cargo space will hold the folding stroller, the folding playpen/port-a-crib, a couple of backpacks and a small softside cooler.
Everything else goes in the rooftop carrier.
All the way to Bozeman.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.