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How many kids are you planning to have and do you need to drive with more than just your immediate family?
We had a Rav4 and it was fine with 2 kids but impossible to have 3 so we did a major search last summer. If we had bought either a Honda CR-V or Subaru Outback instead of the Rav4 we would have stuck with that - better gas mileage and has 4wd or AWD for winter. If you need a third row, we narrowed it down to the Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander, Mazda CX9. I wish we could've afforded the Highlander Hybrid. They are not as good for 3 car seats across but if that's not an issue it would've been my first choice. We ended up going with the Pilot because we found a good deal but it is huge and the gas mileage sucks. If you can go smaller, do it! -
@Littlebit7: I have wished we had a third row a handful of times. We have had the rx350 for a little more than 2 years, and our second kid is 14 months. The times when mil visits and stays with us it would be nice to have a little more room for her to sit, but an average sized woman can sit between the car seats in the back. So for us, it wouldn't be worth having the third row for those rare times it would be handy. We lived in the city when we got it and I just couldn't imagine trying to park anything bigger. Now we've got plenty of space in the burbs but I still prefer the smaller.
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Things to look out for:
Overlapping seat belts. Depending on the severity you can still install seats next to each other but some cars are so bad you can't.Inflatable seat belts. Newer ford models have these as an option but very few car seats can be installed with them.
Number of tethers - all forward facing seats should be installed with the tether anchor (in addition to seatbelt or lower anchors). If you are planning on a lot of kids make sure there are enough and in good locations.
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