Question 2014 Safest Car with third row?

Thank you for this website! I ran across a post on your website from 2008 that discussed safest 3rd row seat vehicles. I was looking for an update! I have known so many people that have been in car accidents! If you have a young family one of the best ways to protect them is with a safe car IMHO. When we bought our last car I tried to the research for safest third row car available and found it very difficult. We live in Colorado and were looking for an all weather vehicle. I was amazed to find at the time that many SUVs had traction control to stop a rollover but did not have ultra high strength pillars if they did rollover. I found that certain brands I thought were safe were really no better than other vehicles. I found out that certain tests were not performed by the IIHS so manufactures did not protect their vehicles in these areas. Does anyone have a study on 3rd row vehicle safety that relates to actual accident results? With todays technology it might be just as good to look at vehicles that "avoid" accidents as well. I will say I ended up purchasing a foreign car that seemed to me to have the greatest number of safety features for their 3rd row, including airbags for all three rows and ultra high strength pillars.
Thanks] you!

I'm curious as to what car you ended up buying.

In terms of 2014 models, it looks like the only 3-row vehicles that have earned the Top Safety Pick (or TSP+) rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are:

Toyota Highlander
Acura MDX
Honda Odyssey
Volvo XC90
Mitsubishi Outlander

There certainly may be other vehicles that are equally safe, but IIHS has not yet tested them. (It's annoying that they don't do the full suite of testing on popular family vehicles like minivans and midsize/large SUVs.)

I would add this: Make sure you have adequate top tether anchors for forward facing harnessed seats. Had a mom who bought a new SUV and wanted to put her two preschoolers in the third row and the new babe in the second. Unfortunately her plans changed when she discoved only one tether in the third row.

cantabdad said:

In terms of 2014 models, it looks like the only 3-row vehicles that have earned the Top Safety Pick (or TSP+) rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are:

Toyota Highlander
Acura MDX
Honda Odyssey
Volvo XC90
Mitsubishi Outlander

There certainly may be other vehicles that are equally safe, but IIHS has not yet tested them. (It's annoying that they don't do the full suite of testing on popular family vehicles like minivans and midsize/large SUVs.)

Click to expand...

Besides these, also consider the Honda Pilot, Chevy Traverse/GMC Acadia/etc and Toyota Sienna. I'd scratch the Outlander; it doesn't weigh enough. Basically, if safety is your priority, you're looking for the heaviest vehicles you can find with good front, side, and roof scores, as well as with ESC and head airbags by all windows.

Since you mentioned avoiding crashes as well as surviving them, you might be interested in Consumer Reports' road tests, which have information on steering, braking, and acceleration. One of their interesting metrics is "avoidance maneuver" speed, which is the maximum speed at which one of their drivers could negotiate a series of turns on the track. All of the data are available online to subscribers; I was also able to access it for free via the public library.