I have a Suburban too, and our church parking lot is heavily peppered with Suburbans and minivans. I think mostly what it says is that we have families too big for a sedan. We need more than five seatbelts, for the most part.

Vehicle 1 — Audi A4 Convertible.

Vehicle 2 — Kia Sedona minivan, but with child #5 imminent, we need to upsize to a Suburban. 4WD is a necessity in this area as well.

Many, many 4WD vehicles in our ward building’s parking lot; many festooned with sundry anti-abortion bumper stickers.

Honda Rebel– for the teens to learn the use of motor vehicles.

Honda 599– for dad’s sanity

Mini Cooper S JCW– because it’s fast, cool, and unique

Mazda MPV– the last true minivan

Mostly I see lots of very expensive SUVs and Honda/Toyota minivans in the church lot. Sprinkled in among the behemoths are the occasional four door sedan– usually German or Japanese. Mostly I think it says that we way over-estimate our needs when it comes to transportation and that we are far to cavalier about plunking down large sums of cash/credit in the event that we might need to haul around nine people one time in our life. Take comment #3– he already owns a vehicle that seats seven but because his family now will have seven member he inexplicably now needs a vehicle that seats 8 or 9. It’s wasteful, but to each his own.

We were a one car family (17 out of 18 years of marriage we’ve had only one car) of 6 with a Ford Explorer. It was incredibly difficult to pack for a trip to MILs or camping because there was no storage space. We finally bought a second car a few months ago because with some new commitments and our kids growing up it was just to stressful to try to do it with one car. Honda Odyssey. No work commute for either vehicle.

My parents had 10 kids and we did not travel all in one vehicle probably after kid # 8. We had a full-size van, not extra long, and of course, we didn’t have so many carseat requirements, which are the real killer. Here in NY kids have to be in car seats until age 8, so there really isn’t too much opportunity to cram 5 kids along one bench seat.

I always wonder why people bother about having a vehicle that everyone fits into. It is a relatively rare occurrence that you are all actually going to the same place at the same time from the same point of origin. My parents always had different arrival times at church, based on callings, and giving people rides. If we were doing something together in the evening, my dad usually came from work, not home–just met us there. Especially as kids get older, there is nearly always someone who has to get somewhere, be dropped off or picked up, or run a quick errand on the way to or from any family events, so it makes more sense just to waylay a portion of the family and send everyone else home in the bigger vehicle. When driving cross country, which is probably much less common now than then, we took two cars and walkie-talkies, now, of course, cell phones. That was sometimes helpful to separate testy siblings for a time, or just get the variety of traveling with a different group part of the way.

Most of the parking lot is mini-vans, but of course we have a fair smattering of 4-wheel-drive vehicles (which we actually need, here, this is not just a vanity add-on). I always try to avoid parking by the Suburbans–I stick to neighbors with sliding doors because in my experience, kids getting out of suburbans push their doors into the neighboring vehicles about 50% of the time. While my 10 year old van is certainly not pristine, I try to avoid dents when I can. During the summer, we try to bike or walk to Church.

I drive a Chevy, uh, Equinox. Nice car. I like it, but my true car is Mercedes-Benz with a really big engine and leather interior.

Bill drives cherried up 4 wheel drive Chevy trucks. I say trucks because he’s a salesman and he gets to custom order the trucks he drives. They are pretty darn cool vehicles. He also calls them vehicles, not cars.

Parking lot: some mini-vans, some small SUVs like mine, a lot of 4 wheel drive vehicles, some sedans.

They types of cars say that we deal with a lot of snow, and also that a lot of hunters and mountain drivers. However you say that grammatically.

I didn’t used to care much or know much about cars before I married Bill. Didn’t know anything about different brands. All I knew was truck or car. Blue or brown.

I think the large families of course is the easy answer as to why we have so many large vehicles in our ward parking lots.

I also think though that there is more to it then that. Americans seem to like larger vehicles. On my street of just 2 mormon families sedans are not that common. It seems that most families have 2 large vehicles no matter what the family size. So I have neighbors with say a Chevy Tahoe and a full size F250 and only 2 kids.

JJohnson is right about his observations that 2 or 6 kids leads to large vehicles. I drove a Camry (awesome reliable car) for about 8 years. My wife got in a wreck with it at 30 MPH and it it was really smashed up and she was injured. This wreck, our second (none our fault) in about 12 months made me nervous about smaller cars. Hence the Suburban purchase.

You know what cars annoy me? Humvees! Often in bright yellow. They say “I’m so rich I can drive a Humvee–get out of my way.”

Tim- what side of the Midwest do you live on?

The parking lot over here is about 90% SUVs and Mini-vans, 10% cars. Of those 10% cars, 90% of them are driven by those attending the singles branch, the leftover 10% is either a member of the bishopric or married students.

In our family though we have a Honda civic (husband’s daily commute) and a Dodge Caliber (mommy’s vehicle of transportation).

What I don’t understand is that even though the family may be bigger, and thus require a bigger vehicle, why go with the SUV with more blind spots than visual spots? Did all those stories of crushing children in driveways scare anyone into NOT getting one?

“you DO live in Texas. It makes a difference. Big houses, big cars.”

When I first moved to Texas years ago, the first thing I did was get myself a 3500 sq foot wife and a Lexus.

Used to have a Suburban but couldn’t afford to keep it…because I got asked to drive kids to every youth activity conceived. (Whatever you do, don’t buy a boat). We have a Volvo XC 90 now. Kids over about 4 feet tall feel super cramped in the back seat, but it’s built like a tank.

Honestly, every one of my neighbors has at LEAST two vehicles. Almost all have ATV’s as well. My single sister has 3!!! Two SUV’s and a mini-van.

Three years ago, after child # 2-of-4 went away to college, we sold “Rosie” the ’97 Montana mom-mobile, leaving us with “Jenny” the 5-person ’03 Accord, and “Rusty” the all-useful manual but very dilapidated two-seated ’85 Toyota no-model-name pickup truck. When the older boys visit at home from college/after-mission, they drove Rusty up to the singles ward in a town about 12 miles north. So we had enough car for our family, and that’s about it.

My husband recently got a job that requires a 35 mile one-way commute daily. Rusty couldn’t do that trip any more, and we needed Jenny in-town to do kid-toting still. So we researched for the least expensive, highest safety, best gas-mileage car. Last month, “Marie” the ’09 Smart Car joined our family. Marie is a very nice car, a great ride to the temple 65 miles away, and she always catches attention in the church parking lot on those occasions when only two of the four of us have to be there (Priesthood session, YW meeting, or youth firesides).

I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. This is probably petty, but then again we’re on the internet so we’re supposed to be petty.

IS NOT A SMART CAR!
It is simply a Smart.

Would you say you just bought a Camry car? How about an Accord car? How about a Mustang car? I didn’t think so. The principle is the same.

Tim,
I know… Gut even though it sounds stupid too, it’s at least correct common usage. Maybe it was just a stupid name for a car?

I am well aware that this is a battle I can’t possibly win. Nor will I win some of my related battles, such as people referring to their (ANY) brand music player as an iPod, or people referring to their (ANY) brand PDA (with the advent of Smart phones, are these still a thing?) a Palm Pilot, or people walking in to Subway and saying “I’d like a footlong subway(Subway is the name of the store, not the product Jerk.)”

I guess, at the ripe old age of 35, I’m just turning in to a crotchety old fart.

Ron, do you have similar feelings about adjustable wrenches, locking pliers, hook-and-loop fasteners, and flying disks?