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• Monday, January 5, 2009 09:27 PM

  5+ Passengers

  My wife and I, with three kids under 3, have a 2003 Passat Wagon; a 1996 Honda Civic; and a 1995 BMW M3. We drive the Passat when we take the kids; we drive the Civic (the only undented body panel is the hood) when there are two or three of us (it gets the most use); and I drive the M3 sparingly for fun, when I need the car to project an image for others to observe.

  And yet...we can't carry one more person than our family, without moving to an SUV or Minivan. This is true. The Volvo wagon has two seats in the back that can't be used with child seats; there are no other car choices. All three of our cars can break 30 mpg on the highway. No SUV or Minivan can get close. What are we to do? GM and VW offer 7 passenger 40+ MPG vehicles in Europe; they don't offer them here. That is what we want.

  The author pinned this question on society by buying a SUV; what are YOU going to do about getting me more oil and mitigating my increased contribution to climate change? We believe in personal responsibility so pin the question on ourselves: how do we get around the occasional need to carry 6 or 7? We have chosen so far to arrange our lives to never need to carry more than 5; we will buy a trailer and hitch for road trips. At some point, when VW offers the Sharan 7 passenger van here that gets more than our Passat wagon, we'll be first in line.

  3 car seats will fit across the back seat easily. Or two seats and an adult.

  —djoelt1 Read djoelt1's other letters
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