It’s no secret that our target market is Mothers, our free pick up service was developed directly to cater to clients who are short on time. We’ve found over the years that our most ideal client is what most would stereotype as a “Soccer Mum”, these women hate being labelled as soccer mums so we avoid calling them that, it is generally unwise to intentionally offend your target audience.
The Soccer Mums title comes from many years of buying decisions made by mothers when it came to buying the family car. These ladies know what they want but more importantly know what they need. Unfortunately for mums what they want and need is a vehicle that can cart four to fourteen teenagers to the local playing field and back every Tuesday evening and Sunday morning. The vehicle needs to carry an array of sporting equipment, camping chairs, an esky, two umbrellas, a golden retriever, a peanut butter sandwich mashed into the carpet just behind the passenger front seat and last terms Easter craft still rolling around the floor in the back somewhere. The vehicle needs to function after having all the plastic trim on the inside broken off or cracked, and needs to be able to drive after having someone else’s tow bar backed into your rear guard, whilst their reverse sensors beeps at them constantly.
The family car is not a luxury item for people to turn their heads at in traffic, rather its a practical machine that does a job. For this reason mothers select family cars based on practicality and functionality, but don’t be fooled, looks of a car are a requirement for these women too.
Car manufactures have known these facts for a while longer than we have and as a result have built vehicles to cater to this market for decades now. Many families have many different needs and wants, so after doing a little bit of research on our existing clients we have developed a list of the best family vehicles on the market today. This has mostly to do with mechanical reliability for us but we have taken into account the buying decisions made by many of our clients when it came to aesthetic appeal as well.
Our number one pick is the Honda CRV:
The CRV might not be so good if your regularly towing things as it only has a small 2.4 litre, four cylinder engine, but if you’re after a small 4wd with heaps of space inside with a relatively low fuel bill then the CRV is the pick. Honda as a manufacturer produce mechanically sound cars with common faults few and far between. Be warned however that when things do go wrong with Hondas it is more often than not electrical problems and can become rather dear to repair. The CRV is one of the cooler looking 4Wds on the market too, If you’re trying to avoid looking like you are driving a child’s lunchbox with wheels, have a look at the CRV.
The Odyssey is not far behind the CRV.
The Odyssey is only a front wheel drive and is much lower to the ground, so if camping and mild off road stuff is on the agenda avoid the Odyssey. It runs the same small engine as the CRV and again is not so good for towing. It does have more space than the CRV and runs two rows of back seats, helpful if you have bred yourself a horde. The Odyssey does have a very cool dash and the new models are coming out with some very classy styling, however the pitfall to the Odyssey is it’s front brakes. For a van carrying such weight for some reason Honda decided to put front brakes on the thing that look like they came off a Toyota Starlet (very small car). The cute front brakes have to work overtime causing them to overheat and warp your front disks. As a result you will forever be replacing front brakes and complaining of a pulsating when coming down hills.
Mazda 6.
Not a 4wd or 4wd look alike. The six is probably the best four door car on the market, I’m amazed at the boot size every time I open one. The Mazda have lifted their game in recent years their cars look great and mechanically very little goes wrong. They have a high safety rating and run a cheaper size wheel when it comes to the price of replacing tyres. The latest style Mazda 6 in my opinion is possibly the best looking car on the market. I will buy one in coming years purely based on how good it looks.
Mazda CX5, CX7 and CX9.
Amazing cars! Made to the same mechanical standard as all the other Mazdas, the pitfalls here though are that all three of these vehicles chop through tyres very quickly and no amount of regular wheel alignments performed seems to be able to stop it. Be warned that replacing tyres on these massive cars is expensive and frequent, they are great looking cars with very little issues besides this. Your seating position is high up without feeling like you drive a monster truck which provides great visibility on the road. If you’re content to throw money away on round black things then the Mazda 4WD range is amazing.
Subaru Forester.
The Forester lands somewhere between a car and 4wd, It is in fact an AWD (all wheel drive) which makes it perfect for camping and terrain that goes with camping. It is no off road rock climber but use on gravel, sand, beaches and mild off road work the Forester is in it’s element. It runs a four cylinder boxer engine so fuel consumption is fairly low. and its perfect if you want a family car that can fit a lot in and you don’t want to be driving a massive 4wd.
The Hyundai I35.
Hyundai is only now just bringing out the bigger family cars as they dominate the small car market, we feel they still have a little way to go in this regard. The I35 is good, but the petrol version runs an engine too that is too underpowered for what it requires. When recently driving one I felt the thing was too rigid, cornering felt like the thing was a closet on wheels and it wanted to topple over. The I35 is a good car mechanically but I don’t think Hyundai is there yet in the 4WD market.
Toyota Kluger.
Possibly the best thing on the market however they are MASSIVE. If you’re ok with a huge monster truck of a car and want to shell out mega bucks then buy this car! Once you own it you won’t have to spend much to keep it going, they’re great cars that just seem to hold their value. However, keep in mind if you’re driving around the city in our opinion it’s just too big, so it’s really more practical as a country vehicle. Be warned purchasing a Kluger means you’ll also have a fairly large fuel bill at the end of the week, though if your towing a lot this has the grunt required to do so.
Ford Territory
Not very good at all, no rust proofing and plastic interior that seems to fall apart when you look at it, makes it a hard vehicle to recommend. Huge fuel bills and basically just a Falcon engine dumped in a very drab looking shoebox of a car. Territories do have a saving grace as its possibly the only car on the market with seven baby seat anchor points, so if for some crazy reason you need seven baby seat anchor points have a look at the Territory. By the time your seven children are all above the age of five your Territory will have rusted away and be nothing more then a small pile of copper coloured dirt in the driveway.
There you have it, our opinion on the better family cars on the market (besides the Ford). If you’re looking at buying any of them second hand we recommend getting them looked at by a mechanic before buying (choose us!)
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