Ready to move on to a mommy car?

My fam­ily and I are prepar­ing for the end of a ten year rela­tion­ship with a well-loved sta­tion wagon. In replac­ing it we are say­ing good­bye to the vehi­cle that car­ried us through our twen­ties and are embrac­ing a new type of fam­ily adven­ture vehi­cle for our thir­ties, which we hope will facil­i­tate car­pools, day­care field trips — 5 carseats (ack!) — and an evolved ver­sion of the road trips of past years.

Like many oth­ers out there, we are try­ing to do the impos­si­ble: min­i­mize the price and fuel usage and max­i­mize the pas­sen­ger capac­ity and dura­bil­ity of the vehi­cle. We also want to make sure we have space inside for dogs and room on top for boats, skis and large pieces of fur­ni­ture bought via craigslist. In a per­fect world, maybe we could even find a way to not give up the all-wheel drive.… It goes with­out say­ing that we require a safe and depend­able vehicle.

I googled and googled and couldn’t find a great online solu­tion to appease our obses­sive need to ana­lyze and research with­out pres­sure from a sales­per­son. When I didn’t find what I wanted I went to the wise women of the local moms clubs and was given a list of use­ful web­sites. The one that seemed to be exactly what I could not find on my own was motherproof.com. It is an excel­lent resource for research­ing a mommy car that com­bines the raw num­bers with read­able nar­ra­tive from actual moms.

I would still like to find a data­base or spread­sheet list­ing what carseat com­bi­na­tions fit in what vehi­cles.… if any­one knows of one I would appre­ci­ate a tip. Until I find one I would love to use the com­ments fea­ture on this post to col­lect your impres­sive carseat com­bi­na­tions. Please include make, model, year, order of carseats, and any tips you have for fit­ting them in there.

Tagged as: car, carseats, crossover, minivan