Originally Posted by JCL

Fair enough. I did include the annotation "In My Opinion" so as to try and not insult those that like their 3rd row seats

My personal solution is to buy a smaller vehicle that handles better, and gets better mileage, in our case an X3. Then a couple of times a year we rent a vehicle when we need the utility and don't want to take two cars. I rented a 2011 Expedition two weeks ago. $89 per day unlimited mileage, to get a carload to a family event through snowstorms. Upped it to the Expedition Max, and had room for unlimited suitcases behind the 3rd row. 15 litres/100 km, not bad on fuel for a weekend. I could have bought a larger vehicle like the X5, but then I would have had to drive it the rest of the year with one or two people in it, and it wouldn't have carried all of us and our luggage without a rooftop carrier on this trip anyway. Just my $0.02.