I found this great article on small cars. It shows where our nations priorities are! Time to Downsize? - MSN Autos

__________________
SAHM to a beautiful 3 year old princess!
Wife of 6 years to a great husband!

You say that money isn't everything, but I would like to see you live without it.- Silverchair Tomorrow

We have always believed that smaller is better when it comes to cars. I wish I did not have to drive a van, but with 5 kids still at home I have no choice. My dh's car, though is a very small Cavilier. He uses it for his long commutes. I remember the gas crisis of the 70's when my family downsized from a Monte Carlo to a Pinto. It did not hurt us at all!!

__________________
~Happiness is a large family~

I prefer a small to mid-size car; however, when all 5 of us are together, we have to use the minivan. The smaller car simply does not have the space for a car seat(which hogs alot of the room) plus two almost adult-size kids. The bigger girls are squished together and usually they start fighting.

Maybe once my kids are all out of carseats we can downsize but with four in them and two adults, we need something bigger than even a mid-size car. Maybe in about seven years . . .

I personally get tired of hearing "when my kids were young we fit them all into a two-door". Well, yeah, no carseats. No seatbelts required. You could stuff as many in as you could fit. Now we have carseats and everyone has to wear a seatbelt. So it's a little tougher, espeically when they're younger.

We both drive big vehicles (van&truck) I feel safer driving in a bigger vehicle though it compromises mpg. Its ok w/ us though.

__________________

You must be the change you want to see in the world ~ Gandhi

I have a mid-size SUV but I plan on keeping it. I only drive it if we have more than 5 people or if my husband is at work and I have to go somewhere. He drives the car so we hardly put gas in the SUV anyway.

When I became a SAHM, dh started driving my 94 Tempo He called it the clown car - He is 6'4" and a good 250lbs!!! But his truck didn't do as good on mileage. We had to get rid of it b/c it needed new brakes and would've cost us more to do that than it was worth. Now his 98 GMC Sierra only has around 90K miles b/c he drove my little car for like 2 years or so . Now we have the truck and minivan...so I guess it all evens out in the end

Does anyone remember the Gremlin? In the 70's, my mom used to pack herself and all 8 of us kids into one of those. People would laugh their heads off when she'd park somewhere and we'd all start tumbling out of the car. Of course, that was before mandatory seat belts and carseats.

Wasn't the Gremlin Wayne's car in Wayne's World???

Well we have a midsized SUV and we have a 95 civic hatchback, which is tiny. MissLucie, I feel safer in the rodeo than I do in the civic, especially with all these huge suburbans and armadas and yukons on the road. Not to mention the huge trucks. But alot of the new small cars do very well in crash tests. We are going to keep the rodeo although it doesn't get good gas mileage at all b/c it is paid for and our insurance is cheap. We are talking about replacing the civic with a newer model. We take the civic on our roadtrips b/c it gets more than double the gas mileage of the rodeo! People laugh at the three of us in that car. I think my inlaws were embarrassed by it at first. HA!

__________________
SAHM to a beautiful 3 year old princess!
Wife of 6 years to a great husband!

You say that money isn't everything, but I would like to see you live without it.- Silverchair Tomorrow