Vehicles for 6 kids?

[Moxie]

I feel like torturing myself by looking up auto prices. What do people drive if they have 6 kids, 4 in car seats?? Do I need a short bus??

[wapiti]

We have six kids and at least 4 carseats.  I drive a Suburban with a second row bench.  The middle of the third row is the narrow spot when it comes to carseats.

[EmilyGF]

I know that some Toyota vans seat 8.

 

Emily

[MysteryJen]

Our Toyota Siena can seat eight. We have been pretty happy with it...140k and going strong.

[Ottakee]

A 12 passenger van tends to be more stable and less likely to roll over in a crash than a 15 passenger van. I would look into one of those if you want room to expand, take friends, haul lots of stuff, etc.

 

Otherwise a suburban seats 8-9 depending on if the front seat is a bench seat or buckets and there are a few mini vans out there that seat 8.

[LLMom]

I have a Honda Odyssey that seats 8. Much better gas mileage than the 12 passenger I had when all 7 dc lived at home.

[Mona]

I only have three, but could do it in my Suburban.

I received a brochure in the mail recently for the Nissan Passenger van that seats 8-12. They are starting at 32,000 new.   http://www.nissancommercialvehicles.com/nv-passenger?tool=global.nvpass.overview.link

[RootAnn]

Our Toyota Sienna (2005 model) seats eight. They sell them in 7 or 8 passenger models. We got the eight because we could fit three car seats across in the middle row. I had five kids in either car seats or car seat / booster combos for a couple of years before the oldest was big enough to sit in the vehicle seat without a booster (8-ish).

 

The newer models have a 'jump' seat in the middle-middle row (middle seat, 2nd row) that wasn't good for car seats, but the older models (like ours) work great. The third row only has two latch hook ups & two tether hookups, but my infant seat didn't have a tether strap & neither did my older boosters. I was always able to move kids & seats around, but sometimes my options were limited by personalities. ;-)

 

I have a friend with a Suburban who has five car seats or booster/seat combos and she does fine, too.

 

When we were looking around, I found the best thing was to bring all the car seats to the dealerships & physically install them in every vehicle we were looking at. Exhausting (especially when heavily pregnant), but keeps the problems to a minimum. What looked & sounded ideal didn't always work out that way because our car seats weren't always a good install in that particular vehicle.

 

We LOVE our Sienna. The only thing I still wish it had was one of those floor-to-ceiling sound-proof plexiglass barriers you can raise & lower between the front row & the back rows (like in a limo or taxi).  :lol:

[boscopup]

My Odyssey seats 8, though the jump seat in the middle is too narrow for a car seat when other car seats are installed next to it. You also have the issue of getting back to the back seat - pushing a middle captain's chair forward, which means no car seat in that position. But if you choose car seats wisely, you can get 3 across the back and put one in the 2nd row, then have the other kids use the remaining 2 2nd row seats.

 

Not the most comfortable configuration, but it will certainly save on gas.

 

And once my kids are the right age/size/maturity for a backless booster, I give them the Harmony Literider, which is fairly narrow and fits many kids well. Currently, my 9 year old rides in one full time, and my 7 year old rides in one part time. The 4 year old is still harnessed most of the time.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

Probably not what you want to hear, but we drive a15pax van with the last bench removed for storage. Two kids on each of the three benches, and still room to bring friends. We found a one-year-old used van for about$16K.

 

Edit: You can see it in front of our camper in my most recent blog post: http://www.coach-and-six.blogspot.com

 

We also bought a 15 passenger van for our soon-to-be family of 8.  We'll be using the same seat configuration.

[RootAnn]

My Odyssey seats 8, though the jump seat in the middle is too narrow for a car seat when other car seats are installed next to it. 

 

This is exactly what happened with the Toyota Siennas in current models. I have NO IDEA why they did this as the whole point to having an eight passenger vehicle like this is so we can fit eight people in. I was taught that middle-middle seat is the safest in the vehicle & to put my baby there. Impossible to do with the jump seat-sized can't-fit-a-car-seat-in-it!

[Shellydon]

Expedition EL.  Lots of room for carseats.

[boscopup]

This is exactly what happened with the Toyota Siennas in current models. I have NO IDEA why they did this as the whole point to having an eight passenger vehicle like this is so we can fit eight people in. I was taught that middle-middle seat is the safest in the vehicle & to put my baby there. Impossible to do with the jump seat-sized can't-fit-a-car-seat-in-it!

 

I don't worry so much about putting baby in a middle seat in an Odyssey. I just make sure they're rearfacing a good long while (last one made it to about 3). In fact, I think the car seat techs usually say to put the least safe child in the middle. So the kid in the booster would go in the middle and the kid in the rearfacing seat would go outboard, because the rearfacing seat is the safest.

 

But yeah, the jump seats are silly. You can fit a small human being there without a booster or anything, but with car seats installed in the captains chairs, another seat just won't fit. Believe me, I tried!

 

[CrunchyGirl]

My Odyssey seats 8 and it's fantastic. I love love love it. I had a CR-V previously and thought nothing could top that (or nothing I would ever own!) but the Odyssey is like an extended CR-V. Extremely comfy and well optioned.

[Heidi]

We are driving a Honda Odyssey as well. 1 rear facing carseat, 2 forward facing, 1 booster, and the two oldest don't use a carseat at all. They sit in the middle of each bench.

[ColleenInWis]

If someone is looking for a used vehicle, Chevy Astro vans will seat 8.  We have 2, both with over 200,000 miles on them...  I can't speak to the carseat issue, however, since we never had more than 1 in a carseat at a time.  

[happypamama]

When I had an Expedition, it would seat eight.  I could have put four carseats in it fairly easily, I think.  I had a big toddler carseat, a big infant carseat, and a booster across the middle row, no problem, but I wasn't using the third row at the time.

 

My friend's Sequoia holds six kids too.

[lea_lpz]

We're having our 4th and will make do with our Sienna which seats 8 so enough room but we are thinking next car will be a G Van / passenger bus with 4 wheel drive. With the 3rd row always up it'll limit our space for when we travel so it would probably just for the practicality of having more area in the back and more spacious seating. Maybe the 12 passenger but remove the last row for the most part.