Originally Posted By: rjundi
My qualm against minivans is 3 kids with only 1 in a car seat. The minivans typically have cruddy seating patterns and require the use of backrow. Using the back row in turn ruins the cargo capability of the vehicle. While quite deep its narrow.
A mid - full size SUV offers comfortable seating for 3 across if 1-2 in child seat and massive cargo space.
This is my experience doing weekend trips with Pilot/MDX vs Ody/Caravan. Lastly even with winter tires FWD minivans maybe due to weight balance are not the best in difficult winter conditions. At least Sienna offers a choice but the AWD in that is cruddy 90/10 torque split which is at best FWD+.
Minivans for kids in car seats who cannot buckle themselves wins hands down by a long shot.
Having done this multiple times, I can say that I disagree.
Perhaps if you have some dinky, hard plastic seat, fit may be OK. But if you have any of the better seats (evenflo E3 symphony, the various Britax seats, etc) its incredibly tough. Ditto if there is a need to have an infant bucket.
Weve done this a number of times. Examples include three kids and four adults in a large SUV (current infiniti variant of the Nissan Pathfinder) as well as the same combination in a toyota sienna.
No way is the mid-bench comfortable for three in the SUV. Even a small kid on a booster, not a car seat, is cramped if there are two in the middle row. Plus, with car seats in the middle, access to the third row is worse than it was before... And access to the third row in the SUV was already poor.
Then, if you have the third row up in the SUV, there is no practical cargo space. The minivan has far more behind the third row because it is designed as a three-row vehicle as opposed to two and a pinch. If you have kids in car seats, youll likely want a stroller, and if you want anything besides a lousy umbrella stroller, it wont fit. Dont even think about a double and dont think about any real amount of cargo. Minivan isnt a big deal.
Even for just us, when we took the infant bucket and a rear-facing seat into a Honda Pilot vs an odyssey, in the pilot, my knees were in the dash, while the odyssey was comfortable. I may be taller than most (around 6ft 4-5), but certainly not an abnormal height.
The SUVs just dont have the fit for seven true people or car seats, nor does it have the cargo space when in that configuration. It would be OK if you could easily get three kids in the middle row, but given the size and age requirements for various kids' car seats, that isnt going to happen practically speaking, and when kids are too big for car seats, that middle seat is virtually worthless too...
So they just arent as space efficient. That may be OK or not OK with a buyer. Its NOT OK with me, if Im buying a van or suv for the purpose of space and volume and utility...