Family is Growing. Need a New Car but Stuck

My wife and I are expecting our first little gearhead in August! We are thrilled! Sorry, no build thread.

However, this means a new car is probably required. Problem is we are under water with her current car since we planned on keeping it longer term. Trade in value would hose us and private party value is only a little better. She has a 2012 128i with CPO warranty. If we keep it, I'd end up driving it and she'd take the Audi, but we'd like to get something like a 328i wagon. I don't mind the 128 but 2 doors would be tough and I would need to find a set of sport seats.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

First, congrats!!!

What kind of Audi do you have? With one child, you don't necessarily need a wagon. Anything with a half decent size trunk will do.

Are you asking for suggestions of what car to buy or what to do about your current financing situation?

We did our infant with a protege5 and a neon acr and a regular cab 88 s10. In 2009.

Don't overthink it.

@Klayfish: 2015 A4.

@ebonyandivory: Sorry....what to do about financing situation. We plan on keeping whatever we get long term.

It won't be fun to use the back seat of the 128 for the kid, loading and unloading, but it'll be doable. You'll have to decide for yourself whether the financial hit of trading to a wagon or sedan is worth the back pain.

I'd wait til the rugrat gets here to decide.

Congrats!

If you've got the A4, just use it when the kiddo is present. Unless you have particularly odd logistical requirements, you'll be fine with just that. If your current financial plan is solid in the long term, stick with it rather than bailing and creating some other issue.

Another vote for 'not a big deal, drive what you have'. 4 doors is much easier but one car with that feature is enough, and you avoid screwing up financial plans.

We had our kid with one 4-door car (Pontiac Vibe), a Miata, and an old Accord my wife loved, but was banned from baby use because of awful safety ratings. Baby only went in the Vibe for 2 years. It wasn't particularly hard, we just traded off who drove what vehicle as necessary. By the time they are 2 they can climb into the seat themselves and a 2-door car is no longer a handicap. Just wait it out.

I was in the back seat of a Chevette until I was 10. You might need to be strong to lift a kid in a child seat into the back of a coupe but it can be done.

Yep, I'd drive the A4 as the kid transport.

If you're really itching to have something with extra room for long rides, find a $1000 nice condition Saturn wagon, or $3000 will get you a decent HHR. All the room you'll need, no financing.

I thought the 1-series were in high demand. It wouldn't cost anything to go ask the dealer if they can make you deal with the 128 to get you into something else. Just be eyes wide open if/when they try to take advantage of you. But they might be able to make something work that isn't too financially painful.

I agree, you should be able to get by completely fine with the A4. That is not just me saying that but here is a complete review of a 2016 A4 in regards to kid seats where it received grades of A & B.

Take notice that they do not like the Chrysler Pacifica giving it straight B grades.

New Honda Ridgeline scores a D grade in one category,

BMW X1 scores about the same as your A4

Those are fascinating car seat car reviews. They seem to be almost entirely based on the location of the anchors.

I stumbled on the reviews by goggling for an image of "Audi A4 child seat"

Here is the only 2 door review I could find, Dodge Challenger

I could not find an exact car that I own but I do have a '07 Prius and here is there review on the '16 Prius. I would agree with there assessment of mostly B's. Compared to some other cars I've had, the latches are hard to find and for a rear faceing seat, it does require a little bit of passenger movement forward. If the rear facer is in the middle then all front seats are fine.

When kidlet #1 arrived in '02 we had a 2 door '97 Explorer. We muddled along with that for a year or so but since #2 was planned and expected I pulled the trigger on a Dodge GC as the family truckster. Wish I had done it sooner because OMG sliding rear doors is the business when loading and unloading rug-rats.

So the question to you is: is this a one-and-done kid event, or will there be more ankle biters coming down the pike?

With our first kid we had two Miatas and a 530i. Only having one car that could do kid duty wasn't an issue for us, and probably won't be for you. With more kids comes more logistical issues, which is why we now daily a minivan and a hatchback.

I held on to my old Z until we had two little ones, at which point it just didn't work.

To me, especially when you're young and strong (I'm old and decrepit now...), no bigs to have a two door and put the kids in the back. More time consuming, but it's a matter of a few minutes.

And with a 128, you'd have no worries until you got to child #3.

Keep it.

You'll be fine for the first few years and believe me those 2 years will fly by faster than ever!

Just to add a little more info:

Remember, the first year or so, the baby will be in an infant carrier. Those generally have a car base that the basket will click into. Just get a second infant carrier base and keep those permanently in both of your cars. As long as it's not painful to reach the release button on the infant carrier, it shouldn't be hard to load or unload the baby in the back seat. Now, when they switch over to a rear facing seat, that's really when coupes become difficult.

In short, don't do anything rash with a 128i yet.

I'm with the run what you've got group. We use the X-Terra for primary baby duty. Long trips, 60+ miles, we'll put them in the MS3 but it's just that the infant rear facing seat eats up a lot of room behind the passenger.

I highly recommend Recaro's baby seats. We've got a Performance RIDE for the baby (5lbs to 65lbs) and a Performance BOOSTER (30lbs to 120lbs) for the toddler. Super easy to move from one car to the other with latch systems. The RIDE is a bit larger than others and doesn't have the detachable base but we decided the cost of the detachable bassinet for all of 6 months of their lives wasn't worth it.

Made for an interesting argument with one of the nurses when we left the hospital.

Seriously though. Who knows more about seat construction than Recaro? I rest my case.

Twins are the reason my mustang left for a foxbody wagon so i can understand not wanting to deal with a 2door but you also dont need a wagon/minivan or suv. theres plenty of room for normal life in my wifes saturn ion. Dont rush yourself into a bad financial decision.

Does the 128i have anchors in the back? If so you'll be fine until you need to switch to a rear-facing seat from an infant carrier. Even if it doesn't have anchors then I'd ask if you actually need to share pick-up and drop-off duties at daycare.

As far as your A4 vs a wagon - as long as a small portable stroller fits in the trunk you're fine, especially with one kid.

scardeal wrote: Just to add a little more info: Remember, the first year or so, the baby will be in an infant carrier. Those generally have a car base that the basket will click into. Just get a second infant carrier base and keep those permanently in both of your cars. As long as it's not painful to reach the release button on the infant carrier, it shouldn't be hard to load or unload the baby in the back seat. Now, when they switch over to a rear facing seat, that's really when coupes become difficult.

Exactly. Baby buckets aren't the problem. Strapping a squirming (and possibly tantruming) toddler into a rear facing back seat is where 4 doors becomes almost essential for non-masochists/contortionists. Doing this with a 2 door may 'tolerable' if only needed on extremely rare occasions and/or if you're planning to just one and turn him/her forward facing by age 2. But especially if you're regularly splitting duties on picking up/dropping off for daycare or something, or you plan to go 'extended' rear facing to age 3 or 4, as is more commonly becoming recommended based on what we now know about young children's physical development relative to the extreme forces placed on bodies in serious impacts (lookup "internal decapitation"), then 4 doors will be a godsend that may very well be worth the hit to have sooner than later.

I'll also state that after watching people trying to load/unload their baby bucket strollers and try to fit it along with a larger shopping (Costco) run, I'm constantly reminded how grateful I am for having a decent sized hatch in the back of our primary family hauler.

Certainly don't rush the decision, but I also wouldn't compromise unnecessarily. I'd rather have had something useful the entire time it would been making my life easier, which making your life easier is important when you have kids, than later be left thinking "Well THAT would have been useful 3 years ago".

If you really wanted to, how quickly do you think you could get your 128i into the black?

I'll throw in with the "run what you got" crowd. That'll buy you some time to either get less underwater or make some other decisions. With the infant carrier base secured in the back seat of the 128, you'll be able to get the seat in and out without terrible issues.

We had a 2005 Focus when we had our first kiddo. We were ok all the way until we had our second kid four years later before we ended up swapping for a Mazda5.

In some cases, a coupe is easier to get children in and out of. With my E36 328is (probably the same size as your 128), I could slide/fold the passenger seat forward and kneel on the floorpan to get our kids in/out. With a 4 door, I wouldn't have had that much room.