welcome suzie , as far as the acura vs. honda goes, ive always considered acuras to be a little more luxurious than hondas... kinda like toyota and lexus, but thats it, same reliability and safety depending on the vehicle, the new hybrid civic is an excellent vehicle to look into, my friend has one and enjoys it, its a 06 and has excellent highway mileage..however if ur main concern is safety then id go for a volvo.... those things are built like tanks

 

Like he said^ acura is just a luxurious more expensive version of honda....

 

Pick a civic for more milage but with less room, pick the van for more room with less milage. Honda's and Acura's are the same for the most part as far as crash testing and all the cars you would buy are ULEV certified. I would honestly think about the van because it may be a little bit more of a initial buy in as far as money but in the end there is more room, it will retain it's value a little better, plus it is just alot more versitile.

 

i could not have said it better

 

I would go for the Odyssey like mention above its more versitile, safe and perfect for vacation.

 

I would also consider Accord also instead of Civic.

 

I think it would be a great idea. Civics are very reliable cars. My aunt has a 84 civic with nearly 200k mileage and it still runs very smoothly. My dad as a 02 civic with 62k mileage, and never gave us one problem.

Congratualations

Now you make the call

 

Wow, you guys are great! Sounds like the Odyssey is the consensus. Hearing all of your opinions on this has been so helpful.

Now I know this is just the "introduction" forum, but since you have all been so helpful and responsive do you mind if I ask another question? It's sort of on the same topic of safety I was getting at earlier.

For a couple of years now Bill has been talking about getting himself an ATV, but it's always seemed like just talk. Now that we're having a second child (and, he hasn't said it out loud, but I think it may have something to do with there possibly being another boy in the family), though, it seems like he just might be serious about it.

I don't know, though... as a mother I feel like I'd worry about having an ATV with young kids around. I don't really know anything about them. Do any of you? I don't care about the technical side - I wouldn't be riding it anyhow - just the safety issues.

I feel like I would have nightmares about Bill taking one of the kids out (once they're old enough; when is old enough?) and getting in an accident, or heaven forbid one of them going out alone without asking. It feels like I'm always hearing about some eight or twelve year old getting killed after taking the atv out without asking. I suppose I could post this in an ATV forum, but there everybody's probably already going to have their minds made already. I'm hoping some of you will have some idea and maybe an objective opinion on the matter.

Soooo helpful of you all... can't wait to hear what you think!

Toodles,

SuzieQ

 

this is just my opinion....


in anyway i look at it, it doesnt matter what you drive, use or anything, accident happens it doesnt matter what you r doing it will happen if its meant to happen...

doesnt matter if your hubby get an atv, go kart, dirt bike golf cart, if he is not careful, then its bound to have an accident.

im assuming your hubby is careful, and have sense, im sure that he wouldnt just take the kids for the atv ride without proper equipment, or be raising hell on the atv with the kid(s) with him, its all about the person's carefulness/carelessness, yet having an ATV will provoke an 8 y/o kid to ride it, it also depends on you you descipline your child, if you do it good enough, then the child would not take the atv by theirself or with out asking first.

so my advice on this, is just be careful, and tell your hubby to be cautious about taking the kid for the ride, and not to raise hell with it with the chil on board...


then again, this is just my opinion, i might not make sense, but hopefully i do

 

Il tell you this right now me and my buddy are riders our selfs we have top of the line saftey gear like top of the line we have ate **** a couple times and nothing happened but i ride a KTM Super cross bike KTM Is a brand similair to honda,yamaha,Suzuki etc anyways point being we were going through this trail quads are beefy and fat as there are and they roll easy!!!!! like EASY!!!! anyways we were going through this trail and hisquad hogged up ths whole road being on a faily big quad i was right behind him hauling we were doing about like 40-45 mph and there was no way he could have stoped in time on his quad anyways there was this BIG BIG BIG BRANCH sticking out the branch went through his neck and down into his colar bone area. not to scare you anything. but me i just downshifted on my bike and went around all the wreckage so my point being. Quads are fun BAD PART They roll, they are not menuverable, you cannot react to a situation as fast as you would like weight, the fact that its fat, big, BIKes on other hand have good menuverablity you can dump a bike in worst case senario you can down shift and stop faily fast due to not being so big fat and bulky. on other hand bikes are not that safe either, for an inexperianced rider they are faily jumpy, hard to menuver(turning) and then there balance. riding a dirt bike is nothing like rideing a street bike i own a 93 Civic DX thats HEAVLY modded and a Yamaha R1 street bike and let me tell you this BALANCE IS DIFFRENT ground is diffrent everything slippery less stoping power, and 9/10 if you get in a BIG RECK with bike yer gonna die. rofl sorry hun hard facts but yeah if you want something thats sorta safe rather then a rolling fat quad, get a dirt bike for the kids like a 50cc or a 80cc and like a 250cc dirt bikes for the husband thats pleanty of power for a grown *** man. hope this helped and did not hurt your eyes reading

PS IF YOU WANT A REALLY REALLY REALLY SAFE CAR

get a volvo or a volkswagon #1 saftey cars in the world and they arnt gutless either =-D