I'm thinking about buying a minivan for the space/room but dread it!
We’ve visited the “No minivans!” request a few times before, but there are new players on the family-car field worth mentioning. The 2009 Ford Flex and 2009 Honda Pilot are full-size crossover SUVs with three rows of seats and room for seven passengers and eight passengers, respectively. While styling is obviously subjective, the Flex looks less like an SUV than the Pilot does. The Flex is the larger of these two with 156 cubic feet of interior volume, compared to the Pilot’s 154 cubic feet of space.
Similarly sized crossovers include the General Motors’ trio of the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook, which also have 154 cubic feet of interior space. All of these crossovers are powered by six-cylinder engines and come with front-wheel drive and optional all-wheel drive. In Cars.com senior editor Joe Wiesenfelder’s expert review of the 2009 Ford Flex, he compares the Flex’s dimensions to its closest competitors (see chart below).
The 2009 Ford Flex still doesn’t have quite as much room as a minivan – a Honda Odyssey has 171 cubic feet of interior volume and a Dodge Grand Caravan has 163 cubic feet -- but none of the other crossover SUVs has that kind of room, either. Minivans are still the roomiest family haulers; if you can’t bring yourself to drive one, there are more stylish options out there like the aforementioned vehicles with similar interior space.
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You should get a minivan. There cheaper and normally get better real world fuel economy than crossovers. If you really despise minivans, the least minivan-looking crossovers IMO are the Flex and Pilot. Both are still new, but Hondas usually have above average reliability which may also factor into your decision. OTOH the Flex has stellar crash test results. Stylistically, they both have some charm. I've seen both the new Pilot and Flex in person and they both look significantly better in person than in photos. The Pilot was understated, but had some character and butchness if that's what you're looking for, the Flex has a lot more "bling" and flashy details, but is kinda of gawdy and overdone, but it depends on what you like.