The Cost of a Sixth Seat

Another relevant childhood memory: my parents added an additional lap belt to the back bench seat of our minivan in around 2001, making a 7 seater into an 8 seater legally. We fit four accross a few times (mostly kids/tweens 6-12 YO, no booster seats). Also not the most comfortable but also an adventure. I would be curious what the cost is to add a seatbelt to a 5 seater car nowadays, as it would likely need to be a shoulder belt. With kids in boosters to a much older age it would be more complicated to fit 4 across and I wouldn't do it in a Fit, but there may be other cars where this would be an option. 

I wondered whether a decent amount of the cost increase was in changing from a hatchback to a sedan but I see that this is only $1,000 to go from the Mirage hatchback to sedan. And the Mirage sedan is the same size as a 90's Ford Escort sedan/station wagon so size doesn't explain it either.

Amusingly, renting an uber to carry your friends, at $2 a mile, is only cost effective if you plan to haul your friends around more than 5500 miles over the life of the vehicle.

In your last post here, I recommended a used Toyota Prius.  You stated you were unconcerned with mileage costs because you were not intending to drive many miles.

Why are you looking at new vehicles?  The cost advantage of used is even higher when you plan to not drive many miles, because the components of cost are:

(interest, depreciation, fuel, insurance, repairs).  Interest and insurance are higher for new cars, and are the same regardless of if you drive them 0 miles per year or 20k.  Depreciation has 2 components : (calendar depreciation, mileage depreciation).  Calendar depreciation is usually a larger effect.  

Conversely, if you drive a car very little, fuel and repairs are lower.  Only the cost of repairs goes up with older cars.  The other 4 terms are cheaper.

It is irrational to your goals to be considering new cars.

FWIW, I remember reading about the Chevy Orlando, sold in Canada (but not the US) until maybe 2015. I recall it was said to be the cheapest new vehicle that could seat seven.

It seems cruel to me to ask someone to sit middle seat in front! Maybe not a small child, though.

Note that most cars only have 2.6 seats in a classic three seat second row - at least in european models - where the middle seat is not a full seat, but only two thirds as wide.

If you're seating three children, don't forget that you're not only seating them but (usually) also their car seats¹ - which have gotten so wide through their side shock absorbation zones, that you can't fit three beside each other in a standard three seat second row of a car.

Even when you remove some of the extra-padding some seats offer as removables, it's a snug fit even with a full width three seat second row. So it might make sense to think about a bigger car all along, since most bigger cars with a full second row also have a collapsible third row anyway (at least as a premium option). A cheap model in europe is the SEAT Alhambra, which is essentially a Volkswagen Sharan but with a different chassis.

When factoring in the resale value, take a look at the second hand market specifically for your model, because these family vehicles tend to keep their value a lot better than other cards (since most families drive them until their kids are grown-up).

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¹ in this case I mean not only a booster seat, but the full seats for ages 3-12. At least in most parts of europe, they are widely accepted if not mandatory.

I got put in the middle front seat fairly frequently growing up (1990s). It wasn't comfortable, but it was an adventure and for half hour rides it sure beat there having to be two trips which would have been the only alternative. Comfort isn't everything. 

I presume safety standards have a lot to do with the decline of smaller 6-7 seaters. Today I don't think it would be legal for me to be in the front seat at all at the ages I was sometimes sitting in the middle front seat (5ish-10ish) due to passenger-side airbags that can't be turned off*. The minimum size of a front crumple zone has gotten steadily larger in recent years (ie the distance from the furthest front point of the car to the furthest front point of a passenger) - I imagine rear crumple zones also have some sort of increasing minimum requirement. I also imagine that new standard safety features like side-curtain air bags are difficult to implement in many of the older car configurations.

On a completely different note, I am very curious whether, Jeff, you will amend any of your thoughts related to parking and zoning after you get a car. My understanding is you will now have 3 cars at your house, and 2 off-street parking spaces, meaning your house will require an on-street parking space. I think you've had your house about 5 years, and have said you plan to have it a long time. If even your family previously car-averse is likely to have a car for half or more of the time you are in the house, some of your assumptions about the correct car: housing ratios seem to need revisiting. I feel that the parking situation in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville generally supports that parking and housing are not yet ready to be as decoupled as you've proposed.

*My understanding is that in a 5 seater car with a driver and four 6 year olds, it's perfectly legal to put one in the front passenger seat today - and you still can't turn off the passenger-side airbag!