Is there a Vehicle for Larger Families with great MPG potential?

[Superfuelgero]

Originally Posted by radiantthought

Wat?!

You can get a rear facing jump seat with them

[jcp123]

Taurus wagons are very hard to find with 3rd row...have a customer with a Taurus and he said he has looked into the 3rd row thing. Few were spec'd out from the factory so equipped, and adding them from the secondhand market is relatively costly.

Ok now that I think about it, it makes sense that the Mazda5 is a 6 seater. Third row, as I said, is tiny and there is practically no room behind the third row for...anything.

[Grant-53]

We bought a second bench seat for our 3.3 2002 Dodge Gran Caravan to replace the two middle single seats. This gives us seating for 8 people. Adding a boat tail to the rear hatch is something I have been considering along with a bottom pan, wheel covers, and grill work. Some vans are 4 cyl.

[UltArc]

Prius v swap won't work- phone won't let me paste, but search and it has to do with the batteries and space.

Agree on just using what you have. For me, a standard is mandatory. EOC is worth an automatic transmission in gold. I'd get a Mazda 5, boat tail, underbody, and grille blocks. Couple years old, under 10k. The way to be.

[Hersbird]

We had a sable wagon with the 3rd row, it faced backward and was approiately named the nausea seat. Impossible to get in and out of and used up all the cargo room when used for people. Still got no better mileage then the grand caravan we had before and after. Oh and it blew 2 transmissions in 100,000 miles. We would get 24mpg with our 1999 grand caravan going 75 mph and it was a 3.8 with AWD.
We have finally gotten off the minivan road after 25 years with various models and now have a 2009 Buick Enclave that seems better aero, has more power with the direct injected 3.6, and does OK on economy at about 22mpg but that is also with fat 19" tires and AWD driving fast. I mainly wanted the higher tow rating but it also rides nicer and is much more luxurious then any minivan I have ever seen. I thought about the Flex or MKT but the Enclave was $16,500 and I just never can across that good of a deal on one.

[101Volts]

I read the topic and saw this touched on already but I'll talk about it further:

If you're into customizing, You can go get one of the G.M 1991-1996 Whale Wagons (Buick Roadmaster, Chevrolet Caprice and Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser although the Olds was dropped after 1992) and convert it to Diesel. That would get 30 MPG on the highway easily even with a stock automatic transmission, but if you stuck a manual transmission in it the car would get even higher. Add a few more mods and you got 36 MPG. However, They have rear-facing seats and I'm not yet sure how they are compared to minivans when it comes to storing a few possessions inside the car with a full load of passengers. With five people in the car the rear seat doesn't need to be up, but with seven I'm wondering about storage capability. (Yeah, Even though I like station wagons I admit that.)

[sarguy01]

Originally Posted by UltArc

Prius v swap won't work- phone won't let me paste, but search and it has to do with the batteries and space.

Agree on just using what you have. For me, a standard is mandatory. EOC is worth an automatic transmission in gold. I'd get a Mazda 5, boat tail, underbody, and grille blocks. Couple years old, under 10k. The way to be.

I wish we bought the manual version of the Mazda5. We have the auto. Our mileage numbers are great, but knowing there is potential for more with the manual leaves me a little upset. But, it's the wife's car and she didn't want a manual. I drive it on all of our road trips and it really is a great car, even with our automatic base model. It really is a car more than a van. It parks like a car and handles like a car.

To reiterate, the Mazda5 can't seat 7. There are only seat belts for 6. Plus, with 6 people, there isn't much room for a lot of stuff. Maybe a few grocery bags in the trunk and that's it.

OP, if you already have the Sienna, keep it. 24 mpg in a people mover is pretty good. You'll lose money trading it in or selling it and then lose more on buying another vehicle, unless you can get vehicles for way under Blue Book. Then you have to pay for registration and sales tax. The cost savings of going from 24 mpg to 29 mpg over 50,000 miles is about $1,400. You will probably lose triple that (or more) in a vehicle swap.

But, it sounds like you want to get rid of the minivan. What is your price range?

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by jcp123

Ok now that I think about it, it makes sense that the Mazda5 is a 6 seater. Third row, as I said, is tiny and there is practically no room behind the third row for...anything.

It's so small they don't actually list it on their site. They only list cargo space with the rear seat folded.

Still, it's probably the car I should be driving. With a stick and me driving it, I could probably double the Odyssey's 25 mpg. It'd be good for commuting, cargo hauling, family driving around town, leaving the Ody for longer trips where cargo is required. With my Fit being only a 5-seater, it stays home any time we all go somewhere.

[jcp123]

We considered a Mazda5 and eliminated it when we had to haul 5 people and their stuff to the airport in a rented one. We could take 3 people and all the stuff or leave stuff behind. (They really didn't need all the stuff they were taking...hmmph. Women.) They took my Dad's F150 instead. It's the right vehicle for a young family of four or five. But when you're married to a Hispanic woman, all her in laws need transport too :P

It still gets bonus points for having stick, though.

[RedDevil]

A case of lateral thinking, literally; make the car a bit wider then have 3 in the front and 3 in the back.

5 years out of production, but seats 6 in 2 rows:
Honda FR-V - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Same concept, but uglier:
Fiat Multipla - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia