Three-row efficiency vehicles are hitting their stride

Most drivers today remember a time when graduating from the baby seat meant joining the older siblings along the backbench of the family vehicle. We bet there are even plenty of readers who didn’t have seatbelts back there. But that doesn’t work anymore.

After the first few years in a full car seat, it’s recommended that today’s children be given a booster chair until around middle school age. It’s also recommended that they don’t ride up front where there’s direct contact with the airbag. Thus, kids today take up a lot of rear-seat real estate.

In fact, families that have two children under the age of 10 can fill the backbench of a large sedan with two safety seats, leaving it difficult to utilize the middle. So families with three or more kids, or those who have a need to carry more than just their own brood, are flocking to three-row vehicles.

Minivans and large crossovers/SUVs are the easy answer to this new problem, but not all of us want one. Grandparents only need to transport the whole family when they visit a few weeks of the year. And urban parents probably don’t like parking a large SUV. This is where the latest crop of three-row midsize crossovers are becoming more useful.

The category is nothing new to the market. Mitsubishi has been offering the value-priced, seven-passenger Outlander for over a decade. Chrysler saw the appeal of an efficiently packaged three-row crossover and had the Dodge Journey replace the Caravan in 2008 (the larger Grand Caravan continued until this year.)

Along with the Kia Sorento, these represent the sub-$30K end of the market, and they all require some added investigation before purchasing. The Chrysler has proven to be the least durable; the Mitsubishi feels like it’s a generation behind; and the Kia often trades in deep discounts now, that reduce resale value in the future. None of these issues should be deal breakers, but it’s good to know what’s given up for the allure of leaving with extra cash-in-hand.

The other end of the spectrum doesn’t really serve this part of the market. Premium brands like BMW, Jaguar, Lincoln, Mercedes and many more have small and midsize crossovers, but their emphasis on providing luxury usually precludes trying to squeeze three rows of seating into a cabin.

This leaves the heart of the market with the mainstream brands that come in around $30,000. It’s the place where usefulness meets a bit of design and features flair. And there are plenty of signs that the manufacturers see this segment getting very competitive.

Vehicles like the Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander and Hyundai Santa Fe have all been refreshed or totally revamped within the last year. Ford and Nissan have taken the tough SUV image built with the Explorer and Pathfinder, and they are now exploiting the namesakes to make the latest generation of crossovers feel more adventurous. Volkswagen will even be entering the three-row market in 2017 with the Atlas. It’s focused on being a family hauler, so it will offer more room than the Touareg, but is priced over $10K less to make it competitive with the rest of the market.

The Chevrolet Traverse, Ford Flex, Mazda CX-9 and a few others also fit into this pricing. But they have the wheelbase and length to feel like full-sized vehicles on the road and in the parking lots.

The few vehicles mentioned above that have not been redesigned/refreshed within the last couple of years will either do so or die in 2017. This class is seeking to offer the hippest family haulers around.

But for those who don’t need to be trendy, minivans offer more space for similar pricing. And because of their efficient use of space and drivetrain, many often feel smaller than driving a midsize crossover. But when it comes to the car to pick up the grandkids or the second car for a young family, the full-time versatility of a minivan isn’t needed.

Instead, there’s a growing need for a vehicle that has a third row when needed, but folds out of sight when you don’t want to look like a “mommy mobile.” And style is likely as much a factor as legroom, because those little feet in the third row don’t even touch the ground yet.