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My family is no longer a one car family. After weeks of research and test driving, we bought our second car-- a roomy Honda Pilot that screams family car.
Our other car, a 1999 Volkswagen Passat, has 170,000 miles on it and lots of dings and scratches. After the birth of our third child last year, we thought that we could manage for a little bit longer crowding into the five-seater . At this point though, no matter how often we take Ole Faithful to the garage, the engine rattles especially when she goes over 55 miles per hour. I have had nightmares about the car breaking down on the I-95 with the children all screaming in the back seat. And increasingly, Ive felt guilty about being the mom that never has any room for another child. I dont carpool much or drive on field trips because, well, I cant. Nows the time, I thought.
My husband and I bought the Passat, the first car either of us had ever owned, just months after we got married. We used the cash gifts from our wedding for the down payment. At the time, it was the most expensive thing he or I had ever purchased. During our single days, we were city slickers with no real need for a car. With marriage came domesticity, and the purchase of a car represented togetherness, weekend trips away, and being grown up enough for car payments. Eleven years and three kids later we were still driving that car, until last week.
Neither my husband nor I know much about cars, but we are good at research. We talked to friends and made a list of our requirements and set a limit to our budget . We used websites like Edmunds and Consumer Reports to look up reviews on cars we liked. These sites also allowed us to comparison shop by providing the names of dealers in Westport, Danbury, and Greenwich. We went to these places to test drive our top choices: the Toyota Highlander, Honda Odyssey, Honda Pilot and Subaru Tribeca.
As we test drove (we even went out in the March storm) we brought the entire family, including my mother-in-law, on our Saturday excursions. The car salesmens jaws clenched behind their eager-to-sell grin as the six of us walked in. I explained that it was important that since we were all going to be riding the new car, we should fit inside comfortably.
We encountered a variety of car salesmen, from the overly solicitous family man who held the baby to the grumpy guy who said he had put in a 60 hour week and to come to him when we were ready to buy. In the end, we decided on the Honda Pilot, a cross-over SUV that comfortably seats eight people. Its perfect for snow, road trips and bringing a couple kids home from a soccer game. Im sure well drive this car until it starts rattling.
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