Everyone's fine, it's all good, it's under control.

[commodorified]

But the fender-bender we had a couple of weeks back has resulted in the insurance company writing off the car.

We are four not very small adults, with outdoorsy hobbies which sometimes involve winter backroad travel carrying gear, and have hopes of eventual family expansion.

So:

If you have or have had a station wagon you really like, please tell me about it, in detail.

Comments

[sara]

We have a Prius, which is surprisingly large on the inside -- we regularly seat both of us, C's sister, both kids, and a dog in the vehicle, with room for coats and groceries and so on. Our other car is a Chevy Prizm (Toyota Corolla in all but badging) and it has been extraordinarily reliable over the last 15 years but we've reached a point where really it is too small for us and the kids (though it was our only car for many years when they were physically smaller).

I cannot recommend the Ford Explorer, which is what I am driving for work nowadays. It is very roomy on the inside and has a lot of covered interior space, but it is also very wide (not good on mountain roads) and the 4wd is a bit crap. It has a nice radio and comfy chairs, though.

My parents had a Subaru for some years and it had a LOT of mechanical problems -- as did the Subarus of everyone else we knew in Oregon with them, they were very popular in the PNW in the early to mid-00s. The folks sold theirs with less than 50K miles (which tells you how much they disliked it, I think) and bought a big Lexus instead. Dad has a Honda truck. They have been talking about getting something smaller to drive into town during good weather, but I'm not sure that's still on given how much gas prices have fallen. My brother has had some good experiences with Toyota SUVs over the years.