AWD Family Vehicle Suggestions

[Anonymous]

I’m looking at buying a new vehicle for the family in the next year or so: parents, two kids, and a large dog. It’s going to be used mostly for road trips to rural Pennsylvania to see family, which means it has to have all wheel drive (or we cannot get where we are going most of the time). It also needs to schlep a ton of stuff (again, seeing family). It also could be used some for driving around the metro area, but we already have another paid off car for that which we may keep. But given one parent is a nervous driver, we’d like to avoid a whale no matter what.

Right now, I’m considering the Toyota Sienna, the Subaru Outback, and the Volvo xc90 recharge (likely used). Any thoughts on these for the above purpose, or others we should consider? I know about the Pacifica AWD option, but since you cannot also get the plug in hybrid with that and I’ve got bad history with Chrysler, we are ruling that out.

[Anonymous]

I'd avoid Volvo for reliability reasons. And when something goes wrong, it's REALLY expensive.

Sienna and Outback are good choices. If you're OK with a little smaller, maybe RAV4 hybrid? Potentially a RAV4 Prime if you can get it and really want the plug-in option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd avoid Volvo for reliability reasons. And when something goes wrong, it's REALLY expensive.

Sienna and Outback are good choices. If you're OK with a little smaller, maybe RAV4 hybrid? Potentially a RAV4 Prime if you can get it and really want the plug-in option.

OP here, our current car is actually a Volvo (the xc60 T6). Zero issues, other than it being a tight fit. I recognize I'm a sample size of one, but I at least have found Volvo very reliable--hence why we are considering the xc90. I wonder if "reliability" rumors are more related to the old Ford owned Volvos from the aughts (which were a sharp decline in reliability from the 80s), or maybe the more basic t5 models have some issues? Not sure.

Rav4 is probably not going to be big enough for the second/new car, as it's really the same class as the xc60.

[Anonymous]

We have 2 kids, 80lb dog and an Audi q7.

We make 3-5 trips a year to the beach and one big trip to middle of nowhere Georgia with an unpaved mile access road to the home.

All mid size suv are too small. We are looking at Lexus lx 600 as alternative to big yukon or Tahoe.

We are going to suck it up and probably have one large suv that gets used for big trips and rides out suburbs (we are in Arlington) and normal, parkable cars.

[Anonymous]

Love my Sienna. It performs beautifully in the snow which is a huge plus for me. Lots of flexibility for packing in both kids, dogs and luggage.

[Anonymous]

Look at the ascent over outback unless your dog will go in the back

[Anonymous]

Another vote the Sienna. We just got the standard package and it’s perfect for us. Been to Ohio and Buffalo with two kids and it’s great. The mileage is really nice. Can get to Buffalo without stopping for gas. Frankly prefer it over our Outback which is a much stiffer drive and glitchy electronics. Dh wanted the Chrysler for the flatter fold down seats but I’m glad we got the sienna I think it has less problems and plenty of cargo space for us.

[Anonymous]

We live in Minnesota and have an outback, as do a ton of other people here (seems like every other car is a Subaru). It handles really well and can hold a ton of stuff. We are a family of 4 with a mid size dog.