roushracin

Hello all, I don't post much here but I've loved reading this forum for about a year now. I just found out earlier in the week that I'm going to be a first time father w/my beautiful wife I've been married to for 3 years. My question is, do most of you parents with young children have an SUV as one of your cars. The reason I ask is my wife has an '08 Toyota Camry SE V6 and I just bought an '08 TL non nav last August. I'm worried if we are gonna have room for when we travel. We live in the St. Louis area and my family lives in Chicago. We travel a few times a year up there. We also take our chocolate lab (Shelby, (Huge Ford fan)). I know we don't have to take the dog and that would save room but it's easy to load her up in the car and take her with us instead of crating her somewhere for the weekend. We owe on the cars what KBB says is in 'good' condition so I'm not worried if we have to trade in one of the cars. We owned an '04 RX330 before we got her Camry and love the Lexus, however, she is in love with the Acura MDX. What do you think? Oh, BTW, she tells me this as I'm typing: "Tell them I will not own a minivan." I'm on other car sites, and asked this same question and a lot said minivan, but she WON'T do it. Thanks for the help. Bob

TripleL

Welcome to Club Lexus

Of course its a personal choice, but I can relate to what your going thru so I thought I'd share what my wife and I went thru when we had my son in 2001.

I had a sedan for work and she had a Civic. We made it about 18 months then cracked Even though we had 1 child all the 'stuff' (you'll see) you have to bring with you on a daily basis was just too much for the Civic. Then vacation time, forgetaboutit. Now the Camry is bigger than the Civic so you have that going for you. Bottom line is in 2003 we bought a Honda Pilot and have no regrets with having an SUV in the house.

Good Luck with your search!

xioix

I would personally go 1 SUV and 1 sedan

xioix

Oh, and check out the Venza too if your looking for something in between crossover and sedan

roushracin

^^She likes the Venza on the commercials. We're gonna go to the STL Auto Show in a couple of weeks and really see everything at once and hopefully can make a decision. She thinks it will be ok with 2 sedans. I disagree. I'm just waiting til the first time we go to Chicago and she what she says once the baby is born and we have to pack everything.

herbvdh

Raised my son with a 1981 Corona 87 and 92 Camry with no problem at all. We had a compact total fold up stroller folded up to be about 6 inches by 6 inches. We did several trips to Florida 1200 miles each way and another trip at 4000 miles in a week and a half.

Solo_D33A

I've been raised with sedans after sedans after sedans... with my brother also, no problems at all...

I drove about 3 or 4 times already to and back from 1200mile trips... 2 with my brother and friend, once with my whole family and luggage... that's 4 people in a GS, doesn't have any problems probably we treat it as a drive, not a trip... just point A to point B, and the GS is very comfy in highways...

Iceman

Here's a vote for 1 sedan 1 SUV. Check out my sig: we've now got a GS and an RDX. An MDX would only give you more room. It seems to be a good combination...

CDNROCKIES

My wife also refuses to drive a minivan.

We haven't started our family yet, but we also have a larger dog like you and flexibility of our RX with the fold down seats. Our vote is also a sedan and an SUV.

Good luck with your decision.

felixsc300

iTrader: (5)

I would also nominate the sedan/SUV combo, though you do have two mid-size sedans so it's not like you're cramming everything into a Pinto or something.

Get the new RX.

GQD_GS4

+1 sedan/SUV. don't forget AWD for the added safety in bad weather!

we've got an RXh and S2k, but the S2k is so impractical in terms of cargo space and winter driveability that i will end up trading it in this summer for an audi A4 AWD conv...

jimxo

I pondered this exact issue when I had my first son. I have a dog that goes everywhere with us and the kid with all the gear. I traded my GS430 for a Honda Odyssey and kept my wife's RX300.

My job as a Realtor taking people and there kids around, along with a yard sign, made my purchase a no brainer. I love the van for tail gating road trips picking up stuff at home depot ect.

I said I would never buy a mini van but the new Honda just blew me away. Its almost paid off so I intend to buy another sports car next year.....life will get better for me soon.

I think a SUV will work for you and the MDX would be my first choice.


Good luck!

kit cat

iTrader: (6)

Hi Bob, welcome to CL.

I think that's your answer right there; she loves the MDX. I think they are awesome SUVs. The only thing that worries me with Honda is their automatic transmissions. Not sure if they fixed that plague but definitely look into that (or can anyone shed some light?).

If you haven't yet, go test drive one. A test drive exposes A LOT more than what the internet can.

Good luck!

bad co

Get the GLK

TwiBlueG35

I am not a father, but I am an uncle. My sister has a 16 months old boy so I think I could give some advice. You need an SUV. It will come in handy when you need to buy lots of stuff, big stuff. The trunk of a Camry or a TL are not going to be enough. And the roof rack of the SUV would make hauling big object more convenient. You will need to buy a crib so you could tie the whole box on top of the roof rack. You need to bring a folded up stroller anywhere you go, so the cargo space of an SUV(or a Minivan haha) would be more sufficient. Trust me, you need to buy lots and lots of baby stuff that would just fill up the whole cargo area. Many baby toy are pretty big also. Once he or she gets to a year old, you would buy those walker or toy car that is pretty big because usually they come in as a whole thing in a box. My sister has a 04 325i that she rarely uses, most of the time they just drive my brother-in-law's 07 CR-V, which he bought when my sister was a few months pregant while trading in his 04 Accord V6 coupe. So one sedan and one SUV would be better. But just my opinion.