Proulx06 said:
We're looking into the Siennas now, and if we don't like them, we may end up going with the carseats three-wide in the back of a new Pilot, which I was hoping to avoid. We'll see!
Why a Pilot?
As background, I live in Colorado at about 6,500 feet, and suffice it to say, it snows a fair bit up here.
I used to drive an AWD Subaru Impreza and have a FWD Accord but more recently used a FWD Toyota Prius and (now that we're expecting our fourth), a FWD Odyssey.
I used to think AWD was all but a necessity for Colorado winters, but after driving in the Prius for a few winters, I discovered something: traction control is more important than AWD, good tires are essential and curb weight is your enemy.
The only thing AWD is really good for is getting going in a slick situation, but even then you'll still get stuck occasionally without the right tires.
What's more important in snow is stopping and controlling your car when tires start to slip, and that's what traction control is good for.
My experience with all my vehicles is basically this:
1. The FWD Accord had no traction control and is
awful in the snow. It's like a powered sled!
2. The AWD Legacy was pretty good in the snow, but fishtailed when stopping at times. Ironically, it was totaled in a snow storm when a vehicle pulled in front of me as I was driving through a sort of intersection, and I slid on the snow right into his truck.
3. The Prius is light, has traction control and VSC. It stops great, but can slip getting going unless you have good all season tires.
4. The Odyssey also has traction control. I've only had it about a month, but drove it to Dallas and back for Thanksgiving and we drove it through a somewhat nasty snowstorm coming home.
I never felt out of control, and was able to maneuver to avoid an irresponsible driver who slid all over two lanes of highway when he lost control. The only thing that makes it a little intimidating is that it feels a lot heavier than the Prius, and more weight means more momentum which means increased stopping distance. You have to drive slower with a bigger vehicle.
For its part, the Pilot has a braking distance of 150 feet for 60-0 deceleration on dry roads during a test (about 20 feet longer than rival crossovers). Poor braking performance is bad, bad, bad for snow!
By comparison, the Odyssey has a braking distance of 129 feet under the same conditions (Prius stopped in 118 feet).
The Pilot has less storage space, less passenger space (leg space on the third row is terrible and steals your trunk space), its crash test scores are a star less than the 2010 Odyssey (2011 has yet to be tested).
The Pilot gets 19 MPG combined vs. the Odyssey's 22 MPG combined.
The Pilot has only 1 LATCH anchor/child seat position in the third row vs. the Odyssey's 2 LATCH, 3 child seats (one with top tether only).
Furthermore, the Pilot's elevated clearance makes it relatively difficult to buckle-in and extract kids because of the extra lifting/reaching.
It may be the pious Prius owner in me, but I can't help but feel that the Pilot or any SUV is a bad choice for families. As a vehicle class, they're inefficient, impractical, less safe than vans and were made for off-roading and hauling equipment, while a minivan is made for hauling kids!
In fact, with only three kids, you can even stick with a sedan, if you don't typically carry other passengers.
AWD is really unnecessary unless you live in remote mountains with unmaintained roads. Stopping power is more important for staying safe in snow, and the Odyssey is better in that regard.
By the by, what MySillyBoys said about Sunshine Kids car seats is true: you probably want three of them if you hope to fit three kids in a single row. It's too difficult trying to puzzle fit other brands that aren't designed for the task.
Here's a pic of my daughters in the back of my Prius. This is over a year ago before my third was born. We since purchased a third Sunshine kids seat which fit great! Three seats fit a little less well in the third row of the Odyssey, believe it or not (because of the rear wheel well), but they do fit.
Also, a couple of things to note about the 2011 Sienna. AWD means there's no choice of a middle seat in the second row. Thus, there's only two car seat positions in the second row and (by some boneheaded flaw in design) there's only one car seat position in the third row, and it takes up two seats. Thus, the 7 passenger van only seats 6 all of a sudden, and the two car seats in front make accessing the back row more difficult.
I actually liked the 2011 Sienna better than the 2011 Odyssey, but its screwy car seat positions killed the deal for me, so here I am.