Rus asked the question "No visit to the Audi dealership?"

Actually, the Audi dealership was the first place we went, when we first started casually looking a month ago. We found that every single car, with the exception of the Audi A8/S8 was too small to comfortably fit a front passenger and a rear-facing car seat on the passenger side. When you add the front + rear legroom specs together, the result is 78.4 inches, which is about 1.6" too short. In comparison, the Lexus RX 350's specs are 79.9 inches, about 0.1" too short (but clearly workable). So anything with < 80" of space is not seriously in the running.

VW doesn't fare much better unless you include minivans, but even then the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna outclass the Chrysler-inspired Routan hands down.

And BMW is pretty much right across the street from the Lexus dealership.

The X5 also doesn't make the cut on combined legroom at a paltry 76.6" combined. Our A4 has 75.6" and I'm not keen on spending $50G+ just to gain an inch of interior space.

BTW... we love our ML, I'd replace it with another ML in a heartbeat. cheers.

Yes, the ML has a stunning 82.2" of legroom. That's near BMW 750iL or A8L territory!

Meanwhile, Justin wrote: "My wife and I have owned a few Subaru Tribeca's...We almost never use the rear 2 seats, opting instead to roll the 2nd row all the way back which gives a lot of legroom to any rear passengers, and also provides enough room for a rear facing carseat and having a front passenger be comfortable at the same time."

Interesting. Thanks for turning me on to this. The price is right, and while the space is tight (also 76.6" combined), the fact that the second row can scoot farther back into the 3rd row area means that this spec is actually moot. Just goes to show that sometimes going by specs on the Intarwebs can exclude options that are worth exploring. If the X5 has a similar feature, it might be worth taking a look at.

My principal buying criteria (once the requirements of safety, space, and options are fulfilled) is to make as good a financial decision as possible. So resale value is a strong plus, and big depreciations after 2-3 years is a big minus. Christine has a gut instinct about what "feels right" (both in motion and not) and given that much of driving safety comes from confidence behind the wheel, that's another key factor in the buying decision.