Looking at the Best 7 Seater Cars For Your Growing Family

Today's growing number of 7 seater cars have to be the way to go when you need enough room to comfortably carry a growing family. Gone are the days when you would get squished in the back seat with your 2 or 3 brothers or sisters, even sharing seatbelts to make room. Today's MPV, SUVs and CUVs make it easy to carry a lot of passengers.

Once you start looking for one though, you'll realize that there are so many to choose from... when I did a quick search I found a total of 204 in the United States! Which one is going to meet your family's needs best?

I think the best way to start your search is to determine the type of car that you need regardless of the number of seats. Let's take a look at the type of cars that are available in today's car market.

One of the best known types of vehicles is the traditional family sedan which is usually a 4 door vehicle that carries usually 4 or more passengers. In 2009, the most passenger room that I could find in a sedan was 5. So today's fuel economical sedan isn't going to fit the bill with our need for 7 seats. In the past that need was filled with the station wagon but today's station wagon is the MPV (multi-passenger vehicle) better known as the mini van.

If your needs consist of a light duty MPV that is going to cart the family around to after school activities the mini van makes a good choice. Most vans will get decent fuel mileage of 20 to 25 MPG (7 to 8.75 km/L). There are even some new hybrid models that combine gas and electricity to get mileage into the 30 and 40 MPG (10.50 to 14 km/L) category. However if you're going to be driving the family around in rough weather, like snow, you may be better suited to drive a SUV or sports utility vehicle.

SUVs have gotten a bad rap as gas guzzling wrecking machines but in reality there is a need for the 4 wheel drive models in cold weather areas. You can carry 7 passengers with ease with the addition of a "way back" seat and if it starts to snow you just flip the switch to 4 wheel drive. The drawback is that they do swill some fuel. Mileage varies but you're generally in the 15 to 18 MPG (5.25 to 6.3 km/L) range. Ford as a pretty cool hybrid SUV out there but it's smaller and will only accommodate 5 passengers.

Which brings us to the newest addition of passenger vehicles; the crossover utility vehicle. As you might expect from the name, the crossover combines attributes of multiple vehicles. A great example is the Ford Edge. In looking at it, you wonder is it a big station wagon, a van... an SUV? It's all of the above and usually a great choice for the larger family. When you look at the new crossovers you'll find 3 rows of well appointed comfort keeping everyone happy on a long trip. The downside to a crossover is like a SUV, they don't get great gas mileage. Look out in 2010 for some new hybrid cars that seat 7 to show up on dealers showrooms though.

Now that you know the differences between the types of 7 passenger vehicles, hopefully you'll be able to go to your area showroom knowing exactly what to look at in 7 seater cars.