Pacificanians,
My wife and I have been going back and forth for just shy of 2 months, having a pretty standard disagreement between the normal Pacifica and the Plug-in; I am hoping folks can help me out with family-experience in the van that might tilt us one way or another:
The problem with this argument is that it is primarily emotional and not practical (she feels green, I want the utility).
Well, the reality is that we have two kids 1 of which is a newborn and in a rear-facing child seat. For the non-parents out there, rear-facing child seats are SO LARGE, in anything shy of a F150 King Cab, you usually need to move up the seat in front of it. For example, in our Pilot, the driver (me @ 5'11") lost 3-4 inches of legroom and had to straighten up the seat back.
The gist is that even in the largest car, rear-facing child seats (and some big front-facing... which we also have) will make you feel cramped.
Given this context, I wanted to ask the families with young children out there the following:
Thank you all for the time and sharing your experience with us... feel like we've been talking about this forever and neither of us will budge so we keep driving our 11 year old Pilot...
My wife and I have been going back and forth for just shy of 2 months, having a pretty standard disagreement between the normal Pacifica and the Plug-in; I am hoping folks can help me out with family-experience in the van that might tilt us one way or another:
- She wants the Plug-in.
- I can't stand giving up Stow-n-Go, tilt-forward 3rd row access, Vacuum or the HIDs.
The problem with this argument is that it is primarily emotional and not practical (she feels green, I want the utility).
Well, the reality is that we have two kids 1 of which is a newborn and in a rear-facing child seat. For the non-parents out there, rear-facing child seats are SO LARGE, in anything shy of a F150 King Cab, you usually need to move up the seat in front of it. For example, in our Pilot, the driver (me @ 5'11") lost 3-4 inches of legroom and had to straighten up the seat back.
The gist is that even in the largest car, rear-facing child seats (and some big front-facing... which we also have) will make you feel cramped.
Given this context, I wanted to ask the families with young children out there the following:
- How are the car seats fitting for, especially rear-facing? Any pictures?
- Do you find that "tilt forward" access to the 3rd row as handy as it seems?
- Do you regularly use the Stow and Go bins for storage?
- Do you actually stow the 2nd row seats from time to time or is this just a man-utility-fantasy?
Thank you all for the time and sharing your experience with us... feel like we've been talking about this forever and neither of us will budge so we keep driving our 11 year old Pilot...