Oh, So That's Why Parents Buy These - 2014 Toyota Highlander Limited Long-Term Road Test

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Oh, So That's Why Parents Buy These - 2014 Toyota Highlander Limited Long-Term Road Test

I have one of the largest umbrella strollers on the market, and it fits like a dream behind our long-term 2014 Toyota Highlander's third-row seat.

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yellowbal

I can fit the same stroller into a Toyota Camry.

ebeaudoin

This is why my wife and I decided to buy a 2010 Honda Odyssey LX a week before our son arrived. Sure, we could have made it work in my 2001 Camry, but with the Odyssey, we never worry about space.

eclogite

@ebeaudoin - We did the same, only ours was a 2000 LX a few months before birth. Space was never an issue even when kids 2 and 3 arrived.

emajor

That there is a exactly why I scratch my head when I see so much praise for the everyday utility of compact hatchbacks. A Golf, Mazda3, Focus, Forte, etc can't swallow that stroller even if you can get the kids in the car. A plain Jane midsize sedan of supposedly inferior utility & flexibility wouldn't have a problem.

legacygt

The other reason that families gobble up these cars are car seats. If you have a sedan or traditional wagon you cannot fit more than 2 kids in car seats. The third row becomes a necessity.

kirkhilles1

We don't own an umbrella-style stroller. I've always considered those (correctly or incorrectly) to be light weight ones intended for "older" kids (not babies or toddlers). We have a traditional wider stroller for our 3 year old. But yes, with the 3rd row up, you can't find much of anything in a mid-size SUV. Its perfect for when you need to transport people only, but forget about it if you have 3-4 kids and need to transport stuff.

carguydaryl

I can kind of concur as we just upgraded from our Mazda5 (sadly) for a Honda Pilot because we have a 3rd kiddo due in a couple of months. However, with our mazda 5 we bought stuff sized for it. We had a perfectly good umbrella stroller that fit behind the 3rd row and was plenty comfy when we used it. before we decided to upgrade to a Pilot, we actually purchased a chicco travel system with a compact carrier and a stroller base that folds down as small as the umbrella stroller.

We also purchased smaller car seats that are awesome and allow us to fit 3 car seats across the pilot (they actually all 3 fit in our Xterra too). It took me 2 kids to learn that bigger isn't always better when it comes to kid stuff and there are more and more things that are awesome but more reasonably sized. The best car seats are Diono Car Seats for this reason and my 2 year old loves his.

The only reason we went to the Pilot, is because we are replacing both our Xterra and Mazda5 with one car that does it all and still has a 3rd row when needed, plus for day to day driving my wife wants to have all 3 kids across the 2nd row since they are all going to be in some form of car seats.

legacygt

carguydaryl said:

We also purchased smaller car seats that are awesome and allow us to fit 3 car seats across the pilot (they actually all 3 fit in our Xterra too). It took me 2 kids to learn that bigger isn't always better when it comes to kid stuff and there are more and more things that are awesome but more reasonably sized. The best car seats are Diono Car Seats for this reason and my 2 year old loves his.

We also used the Diono car seats although at the time the brand was called Sunshine Kids. It's the narrowest line of car seats but they still don't fit three across in anything but the widest cars.

And +1 on getting the smaller/lighter umbrella stroller. Getting the maxed out umbrella stroller that doesn't fold as small and pushes 20 pounds doesn't make sense to me. Of course we needed to keep the Yakima box on the roof of the car permanently for when we needed to load up the giant Mountain Buggy stroller.

eriches

@carguydaryl: You mind telling me which umbrella stroller you have/had? The one pictured here is a Joovy Groove; we don't have a separate jogging/all-terrain stroller so I was looking for a stroller that would pretty much work in all situations. But I obviously forgot about the situation of fitting it into my personal vehicle.

I considered a Diono seat as well but thought it might be too tall to fit easily into the Mazda 5. Sounds like that's not at all the case, though.

fordson1

"Well, after much research, I went out and bought one of the largest, heaviest umbrella strollers on the market."

"But I obviously forgot about the situation of fitting it into my personal vehicle."

I think you have put your finger on the problem.

carguydaryl

Erin, Actually the Diono is awesome because they are also really low to the seat so they sit as high off the seat as a booster seat which limits the whole squeezing the child between the bolsters and the roof like our old even-flo/La-Z-Boy convertible car seat. Our 2 year old loves it and he can climb up in the seat himself.

We just bought the babies-r-us umbrella stroller for 39 bucks I think (might have got it on sale) for all the daily errand running and it fit behind the 3rd row of the 5 just fine. We had a big double jogging stroller that we would fold down the seat and take for those instances. We found that trying to work with one stroller that was a hybrid of sorts just didn't do either one well and the need for the jogger features was much more rare. So kind of like a car, we bought 2 strollers to cover both purposes. Our newer stroller/travel system for the 3rd kiddow is a Chicco Neuvo and it has a regular stroller but is compact and folds down to umbrellas size and still takes the carrier.