We are expecting our third and need to get a new vehicle. We’re planning on getting a van, but aren’t sure which vehicle to replace. We own a Prius and a RAV4. The Prius can fit three across, although it would be tight and we’d have to buy narrow seats. The big negative with this is that our Prius is a 2007. It still runs great and only has a little over 100K miles because it’s not driven a ton, but I’d hate to have problems with it before we feel we can replace it without stretching ourselves too much. My husband drives it to and from work and that’s about it. He would be driving our kids to school/daycare in the morning, but otherwise we’d use the van almost exclusively when driving the kids around.

Our other vehicle is a rav4. It’s newer than the Prius and has about the same amount of miles on it. It can’t fit three across though, so we would have to buy a third row seat, and our oldest would sit there. This is what we originally planned, so they wouldn’t be so squished together in the back. I’m concerned about safety with the seat so far back though (basically in the trunk). My oldest would mostly just be riding it it to school, which isn’t very far and is on city streets, but I’m sure there might be occasions where she’d have to ride in there. She won’t be in a booster for a few years, so we’re looking at having three car seats for awhile.

Has anyone added a third row to a rav4? I’m thinking we’d probably wait three years to replace whichever vehicle we keep, so even though it’s “temporary”, it’s not like it’s a one year thing.