...nobody said it was easy/ no-one ever said it would be so hard...
so i'm a parent now, and it's time to retire my trusty little pick-up truck (which loyally took me all over texas and once to north carolina) and get a car with a back seat for sam's carseat and interior storage for his stroller. i really love driving stick in my truck, so my only other starting requirement was to get something with a manual transmission in it.
i thought about getting a full-cab truck at first, but i do need that inside storage space for the stroller if nothing else. my second thought was to get a hatchback - which is very different than a truck, i admit, but they have roomy rear storage and i think they're super cute. they also get far better gas mileage than trucks, which are built for hauling heavy loads, something i don't need to do much of now that we've bought a house and are no longer moving our entire household every year or so.
i looked at some hatchbacks and really liked the mazda 3, but then i started contemplating crossovers as well - a crossover is higher off the ground like a truck and has more seating and storage than a hatchback. the mazda cx-5/-7/-9 all look pretty great, imho, and there are some other crossovers i like the look of as well as the mazdas, and i found some on carmax that were in our price-range too. but then, before i got a chance to test-drive anything, we had a conversation with my dad-in-law about car-shopping, and he urged us to get a minivan.
a minivan.
kill me now.
my dear hubby, of course, bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, and he's now pushing me towards a minivan as well. so i did some research. beyond the sliding doors (which i hate for multiple reasons), it might seem to the casual observer (me) that crossovers and minivans are very comparable vehicles. this turns out to be true in some cases but not in others. minivans and crossovers have roughly equivalent gas mileage - a criterion i'm very conscious of, though it's not a deal-breaker for me. but they differ in a lot of other ways:
-minivans are lower and closer to the ground than crossovers, for ease of loading both children and stuff, and for being limited by curbs wherever you go
-minivans typically have more legroom, and often have one more seat than crossovers
-minivans have somewhere between 1.5x to 2x the maximum storage volume of crossovers (75cuft to 100cuft in crossovers, compared to a typical 150cuft in minivans, as measured when all the rear seats are down); i'm not sure why that is, but i'd guess it's due to the full-size rear-end of minivans that i personally think is ugly
-minivans flat-out do not have manual transmission as an option
-crossovers typically have better traction than minivans, since they typically come with all-wheel-drive, being therefore slightly safer in poor weather conditions
so if i'm getting a vehicle that makes the most sense for our lifestyle, given the fact that we're planning to have at least one more kid and i want to foster as well, then the minivan is clearly the most sensible choice.
the trouble is, i think minivans are ugly, and they don't come with manual transmissions, aka they aren't as fun for me to drive. on top of all that: sliding doors. do not even get me started.
so do i get a vehicle that i don't like - not just that it isn't my favorite, but i actively do not like them - just because it is the most logical choice for my future needs? i feel like if i do, i will hate myself every time i drive it, even when it's being as useful and practical as advertised. is there room for compromise here?
i thought about getting a full-cab truck at first, but i do need that inside storage space for the stroller if nothing else. my second thought was to get a hatchback - which is very different than a truck, i admit, but they have roomy rear storage and i think they're super cute. they also get far better gas mileage than trucks, which are built for hauling heavy loads, something i don't need to do much of now that we've bought a house and are no longer moving our entire household every year or so.
i looked at some hatchbacks and really liked the mazda 3, but then i started contemplating crossovers as well - a crossover is higher off the ground like a truck and has more seating and storage than a hatchback. the mazda cx-5/-7/-9 all look pretty great, imho, and there are some other crossovers i like the look of as well as the mazdas, and i found some on carmax that were in our price-range too. but then, before i got a chance to test-drive anything, we had a conversation with my dad-in-law about car-shopping, and he urged us to get a minivan.
a minivan.
kill me now.
my dear hubby, of course, bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, and he's now pushing me towards a minivan as well. so i did some research. beyond the sliding doors (which i hate for multiple reasons), it might seem to the casual observer (me) that crossovers and minivans are very comparable vehicles. this turns out to be true in some cases but not in others. minivans and crossovers have roughly equivalent gas mileage - a criterion i'm very conscious of, though it's not a deal-breaker for me. but they differ in a lot of other ways:
-minivans are lower and closer to the ground than crossovers, for ease of loading both children and stuff, and for being limited by curbs wherever you go
-minivans typically have more legroom, and often have one more seat than crossovers
-minivans have somewhere between 1.5x to 2x the maximum storage volume of crossovers (75cuft to 100cuft in crossovers, compared to a typical 150cuft in minivans, as measured when all the rear seats are down); i'm not sure why that is, but i'd guess it's due to the full-size rear-end of minivans that i personally think is ugly
-minivans flat-out do not have manual transmission as an option
-crossovers typically have better traction than minivans, since they typically come with all-wheel-drive, being therefore slightly safer in poor weather conditions
so if i'm getting a vehicle that makes the most sense for our lifestyle, given the fact that we're planning to have at least one more kid and i want to foster as well, then the minivan is clearly the most sensible choice.
the trouble is, i think minivans are ugly, and they don't come with manual transmissions, aka they aren't as fun for me to drive. on top of all that: sliding doors. do not even get me started.
so do i get a vehicle that i don't like - not just that it isn't my favorite, but i actively do not like them - just because it is the most logical choice for my future needs? i feel like if i do, i will hate myself every time i drive it, even when it's being as useful and practical as advertised. is there room for compromise here?