Car PICKING advice? (Trying to find a mid-size or larger AWD SUV, preferably a plug-in hybrid)

In My Humble Opinion
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After a recent arson attack (see So, someone set our car on fire), we need to replace our destroyed car in the coming weeks. We recently on had a thread on how to buy a used car (answer: Carmax, apparently). But what about picking one in the first place? How does one best evaluate different cars, read reviews, etc. in 2025?

Consumer Reports used to be very good, but in my on and off experience with them, it seems to me like their data is less trustworthy these days (maybe fewer users and data points?). Any other good comparison or review sites?

We will of course also go to dealers and do test drives.

Any other car picking advice?

Finding a good car

The car that’s being replaced was an older Subaru Forester, which my partner and I both liked (and I drive a Crosstrek).

Ideally, we’d like to find a recent-ish used car that:

  • Is a mid-sized or larger SUV, with ample cargo room for outdoor gear
  • Has all-wheel drive (preferably) or 4WD (if we must)
  • Is reliable and preferably from a major Japanese (or Korean? are they good these days?) brand
  • Bonus: Has foldable or swappable third-row seating
  • Extra super duper bonus: Is a plug-in hybrid

So far we’re considering between:

Why the need for cargo space?

We frequently take long-ish road trips with outdoor toys: two folding kayaks, an inflatable stand-up paddleboard, camping/cooking gear, sometimes a folding mattress… along with two bikes on a hitch rack. Yeah, we’re total “glampers” :slight_smile:

What about an electric car or plug-in hybrid?

The times, they are a changin’, and these days gasoline isn’t the only option anymore. Having the option to use electric power for short commutes (to/from work, the grocery store, etc.) while still being able to fuel up at a regular gas station for longer trips seems like the best of both worlds. We’d consider an pure electric too, but since we live in a rural area and often take longer trips, it’s not always easy to find charging stations along the way.

We love our Subies, but they seem to mostly be stubbornly stuck in the gas era, barely dipping their toes in other fuel types. Technically they now have a mediocre EV (the Solterra, a rebadged Toyota bZ4X) and a newer hybrid (the Forester Hybrid). But we’re a bit afraid of both, because their previous hybrid Crosstreks were not very good, adding a lot of weight and price for minimal benefit. It’s a bit surprising, since Subaru is partially owned by Toyota… you think there’d be more tech-sharing between them, like there was with the Solterra. Who knows…

Any advice? Does our dream car exist, especially for a reasonable budget (under $50k)?

Maybe we’re trying to squeeze too much into one car…? Another thought that’s floating around in my head is maybe we should just buy the cheapest, simplest EV we can get and use that around town, renting something bigger for the occasional camping road trip.

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What about the Kia Sorento plug-in?

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We own a 2023 Toyota RAV4 Prime pluggable hybrid which we like a lot. We get 40 to 50 miles per charge, depending on the ambient temperature (less in winter here in New Hampshire). Off peak charging is equivalent to $2.24/gal of gas, which is quite a bit cheaper than the price of gas here.

With the back seats up for three across seating, there is a moderate amount of cargo room in the wayback, but not enough for glamping, it sounds like. It comes with rails for a roof rack though, so that might be an option.

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This is interesting as I am thinking about a Hybrid SUV, slightly larger than your options, and wouldn’t mind hearing about them.

–Toyota Highlander
–Hyundai Santa Fe (Tuscon might be more in your range)
–Kia Sorento

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As mentioned in a few other threads, my wife bought a 2024 Rav4 Prime (ie PHEV) in September, so we’ve had it for 10ish months. The factory all-electric milage is 42, though outside temps above 80 or below 20F, we’ve exceeded by up to 10 miles. So we heartily endorse it. Yes, it doesn’t give the true AWD or equally distributed power of a Subie (mine got traded in for this one!) but the computer controlled traction is very, Very smart. So I’d trust it in bad weather. Oh, and the sub-6 second 0-60 is really impressive if you need some fast acceleration (not as good as a true electric though).

We did look at the Sorento PHEV @Czarcasm mentioned, but it seemed somewhat worse in all categories (both engine and all electric range which we were concerned about), and in 2024 and now 2025 it kept getting substantial rate increases, which means it’s not the value it would have been in earlier years.

Anyway, we’re so happy with Toyota’s PHEV line up, we’re working out the possibility of trading in my wife’s old car (2007 Rav4 ICE) on a 2025 Prius PHEV (years of global warming meaning that we’re more-or-less okay as long as we have one larger, 4WD vehicle).

I really, Really want to love the Hybrid Subarus, but they just aren’t there yet, even considering their partnership with Toyota. And everything I’ve read seems to show the bulletproof simplicity in the last 6 or more years is largely lacking.

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My KIA Niro PHEV has been a great little car, but may be a bit small for @Reply 's needs, though it’s got a lot of room in the back with the rear seats folded down. Based on my experience with the Niro I would also suggest checking out the Sorento.

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My Wife has an Ascent. She has had lots of problems with the CVT transmission. Subaru could not figure it out and has totally replaced the transmission twice. This is just one data point, and I suspect that Subaru has got this straightened out.

Otherwise, it’s got a lot of cargo space, more than my 4Runner. She wanted something bigger than an Outback

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In the past, I’ve used Edmond’s for model reviews. I don’t know if it’s still good, or not.

We have, and absolutely love, our Chrysler Pacifica PHEV. It gets about 82 mpg when running both electric and gas. We fill the gas tank so infrequently that we forget how to open it.

It’s a bit big, but we use it for frequent road trips to go fly fishing. You can remove the middle seats and fold down the back seats into the floor which means its cargo space is absolutely cavernous. With the seat out of the way, it is long enough for me to sleep in the back (but the floor slopes a bit, they make inflatable mattresses for the minivan to correct this). It’s big and so uncool, it’s actually kind of cool.

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Mazda CX-70 or CX-90, depending on if you want 3 rows or not. You’ll have to check the storage space, but better engine than its competitors, and good interiors.

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Look at head room.

When we were shopping, back in 2020, we looked at the RAV4 and while getting into the driver’s side was easy, getting into the front passenger seat required me to bend my neck at a very uncomfortable angle. Even my husband, who is shorter than I am, had trouble. The seat height was not adjustable on the passenger side. If it otherwise meets your needs, maybe the cargo issues could be partly resolved with a roof rack?

I would have loved a plug-in hybrid: most of our trips are quite local (within 10 miles of home), and while we still only refuel about once a month, it would be even rarer if we’d been able to get a plug-in. In 2020, though, there was only one on the market (a Kia, I think), and there were none in our state to even look at. We wound up getting a regular hybrid: a Honda CRV - its first year, which I know was risky but it’s worked out, even if the mileage has been nothing like they claimed.

Look carefully at Rivian’s reliability stats - I don’t know if they are any good. I’d be leery of going somewhere with an all-electric, unless you were sure of being able to plug it in (that’s why a PHEV would have been my first choice).

Given our usage patterns: mostly close-to-home, with the occasional LONG trip: while charging stations are becoming more common, I’d be a bit leery of going all electric just yet. However, since we have one hybrid which could serve for those trips, I’d be delighted if our next car was all-electric - we’d use that for daily stuff and the other for longer trips.

Sadly, our older car is still doing okay. It’s mostly our son’s, since we had to get rid of his 22-year-old Civic and get ourselves a new car. The old car is also a CRV - a 2006, with 185K miles. Once that goes, we’ll have to put some thought into what to use to replace it.

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Thanks so much for all the advice, folks! We spent the week researching different options and test-driving several. We ended up leaving the lot with a leased Subaru Solterra last night, thanks to a good manufacturer’s rebate.

For anyone curious or in a similar boat, I’ll explain our thought process below.

Here’s the proud new leasee (in the red shirt) of her first EV! The other guy is the nice salesman.

In terms of costs, we ended up leasing the Limited trim for $14.5k for 3 years ($1500 down, $361/mo), after which we can buy out the car for another $21k. It’s a pretty good deal for a new Solterra, and would be about $36k total if we were to keep the car. The Solterra is also one of the better values among BEV (battery/pure electric) AWD SUVs… but with some big compromises. Subaru has had to discount it several times over its lifetime, and it’s not a very popular EV (only sold a few thousand), for reasons that I’ll try to make clear in a moment. But it seemed like the right fit and budget for us. Mostly the budget.

The thought process…

TLDR: Once she really thought it all through, she decided to get something that would be better for her daily use, even if it meant sacrificing the road-trippability a few days out of the year.

Although my initial hope was to find a bigger PHEV, the reality was that they are still relatively rare and expensive, and would’ve been at least $15k more than the Solterra. Availability in our area is limited (not impossible, but would require a couple weeks’ wait). They also couldn’t match the lease and financing offers that Subaru was offering.

Prior to our test drives, I ended up sitting down with my partner (the new owner) and explaining in depth the differences in lifestyle compatibility, handling, performance, range, maintenance, long-term value, etc. between gas, PHEV, BEVs, and regular hybrids. We did the math, and given the relatively low mileage she drives every year (her commute is 3 mi), fuel efficiency really wasn’t a concern with any of the vehicles. I tried to convince her to just buy a cheap used gas car and bike to work instead, for both maximum savings and the least environmental impacts. But the “we can buy you studded bike tires and a heated vest” argument didn’t go as far as I hoped, and I unsurprisingly lost that battle :laughing:

So after thinking it all through, she backtracked and instead decided she wanted to try BEVs instead, primarily due to their ease of use and low maintenance relative to a ICE (combustion engine) car. The most significant worry was of course range. For daily use around town and the occasional trip to the nearby cities (Portland, Eugene, etc.), really any EV or car would’ve been fine. But for the longer 8-10 hour trips, where she likes to drive straight through and stop at most once or twice, it would’ve required a 400+ mi range, which was only really available with the $100k+ Rivian R1S. Below that, the range difference between EVs with ~200 mi (on the low end) to ~350 mi (on the high end) wasn’t significant enough to make a big enough difference. We would have to make multiple short stops at fast DC chargers anyway.

What ultimately swayed her was my suggestion to buy a car that would suit 90% of her needs 90% of the time, rather than trying to optimize for the 4-5 road trip days we might have in a year (which we still have our other gas car for anyway). So EVs became the top choice, for the simple ease of plugging in at home and never having to do oil changes. With her short commute (6 mi/day), even a Level 1, 120V charger at home would be fine. We would still look at some PHEVs though.

The competitors

  • Our absolute DREAM car would’ve been the Volkswagen ID Buzz, a really cute mini-bus/minivan EV. It would’ve been the ultimate road trip car. But sadly it starts at $70k, way out of our budget.
  • The RAV4 PHEV seemed like the top choice for a PHEV, but none were available locally. They had one en route but wanted a $1000 reservation fee to hold it for a test drive. Seems like they’re still quite in demand, and we didn’t particularly feel like fighting and queuing for one.
  • The Kia Niro EV happened to be my rental car for the week. Happy, fun, zippy little thing and the perfect urban commuter (much nicer than the Leaf or Bolt), but a tad small for our needs and doesn’t have AWD. But having it for the week helped convince my partner that EVs weren’t so bad after all.
  • We looked at the Kia EV9. It was huge and luxurious and would’ve been a really great choice, but it was also out of our budget. (I think her eyes were bigger than her wallet at first, but a spreadsheet sobered us up real quick.) If we were rich, this is what we would’ve chosen, but at nearly 2x the price of the Solterra, it didn’t make sense. We didn’t even test drive it, for fear of falling in love.
  • We did test-drive the Kia Sportage PHEV, but didn’t have a great experience. The dealer neglected to charge it at all, so it had no electric power left, only the ICE, which just made it feel like any other car. We didn’t like the touch-screen controls — in fact we hate them, and hope that trend reverses. It was also more expensive.
  • The Kia EV6 would’ve been a very interesting option to consider, but the dealer didn’t know when they would get more. It would’ve been the most directly comparable to the Solterra, except with more range, a higher price, and much lower ground clearance (6.1" vs 8.3" on the Solterra). The EV6 seems like the perfect car for mostly-urban use with the occasional gravel road, and is probably very much worth looking at for anyone in the market. In our case, though, we opted for the cheaper and higher Solterra.
  • We actually forgot to try the Kia Sorento PHEV, another good option… she was tired and more focused on the EVs by that point.
  • The Hyundai Ioniq 5 was a very nice and futuristic car, full of creature comforts and a dramatically nicer interior compared to the Solterra. It was one of the only car UIs (user interfaces, as in the infotainment/dashboard electronics) that I’ve liked, but it was still a tad too touch-screeny for my partner. It also didn’t handle as well as the Solterra, with a lot of body roll on tight turns and a big turning radius. Coming from the low, tight Subarus, it was a hard adjustment, and made for some queasy high-speed turns. Like the EV6, seems like a really nice urban family car for occasional outdoor use, but also not quite right for us. The Solterra still had higher clearance, drove better, and was significantly more affordable. We didn’t really care about the in-cabin tradeoffs. Whereas Kia and Hyundai seems to prioritize creature comforts and a luxurious feel — it felt like captaining a starship — we just wanted something simple and rugged and cheap, which Subaru prioritizes more.
  • We did not look at the Toyota bz4x or the Lexus RZ, which are the same car as the Solterra. The Subaru version just adds standard AWD and some other minor details, like a trapezoidal steering wheel. My partner’s a Subaru lady, so she wanted to stick with that brand, even if it’s the same car. (The stickers inside the car all say Toyota.)
  • The Honda Prologue EV was jointly developed with GM/Chevrolet, but I don’t really trust GM. The Bolt was was an unimpressive car, and GM doesn’t have a great reputation for reliability.
  • Nissan also has a few options, but there isn’t a dealer in our town, and it was unclear whether there are any in our state at all (Google Maps showed some, but Nissan’s own website said there were none in Oregon… I dunno.)
  • Tesla’s cars are still (by a large margin, as far as I can tell) the best bang for the buck for anyone who’s OK with Musk. We were not.
  • Rivians look really nice on paper, but are way too expensive ($100k+) and notoriously unreliable. It’s a young company, though, and I look forward to seeing how they develop… hopefully they’ll be a major Tesla competitor in a few more years.
  • Polestar, common in China, seem like nice cars. But I don’t think there’s a dealer near us, and it seemed like a bad idea to consider a Chinese car in the middle of a trade (or maybe soon, cold/hot) war with China. Sigh.

For anyone else looking for a EV SUV, I would probably start by looking at the Kia Niro and EV6, and maybe the Hyundai Ioniq 5 for a more upscale experience.

Solterra thoughts

For anyone who wants AWD and high clearance at a budget, though, it seems like Solterra is actually the best option. Subaru is trying to offload them at nearly firesale prices, both since they were never popular to begin with and because the 2026 redesign is right around the corner, with the NACS plug, more range, higher horsepower, and a new styling. We didn’t care about any of those, though.

The major tradeoff between the Solterra and other EV SUVs is range (just a tad over 200ish miles) and slower charging (100 kW on the '25, 150 kW on the '26, compared to 200kW+ on other brands). By standard EV measures (range and charge time), the Solterra is one of the worst — if not the single worst — option. But if AWD and ground clearance are important, it surprisingly becomes one of the best, especially at its current price.

With the Limited trim we got, the panoramic camera and auto-park (push a button and it backs into a parking space for you automatically) were nice add-ons. All the other creature comforts are great too, but probably pretty standard now… just a huge upgrade from a 20-year-old Forester :slight_smile:

Hopefully she’ll like this one, at least for 3 years, and hopefully no one sets it on fire! A li-ion explosion won’t be pretty…

Thank you all again for the suggestions!!

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Personally, what was most surprising to me who how quickly and deeply she fell for the pure BEVs. On paper they’re full of headaches and range anxiety. And it doesn’t help that her first EV experience was with a terrible, 50-mi-range Leaf a few years ago, along with several broken chargers along the way.

But once she tried the Niro and then the Solterra and other “modern” EVs, the simple and profound difference in driveability compared to an ICE immediately swayed her. The quietness, the low-end torque, the ability to charge at home… once she got in the seat and really thought it all through, the day-to-day comforts overrode her initial desire for something big and road-trippy.

I did not expect this (and I wasn’t trying to sway her either way). But I’m happy with the choice. Certainly it’s way more fun to drive than a big minivan would’ve been. I just hope the Trump/Musk administration doesn’t implement the new EV tax or stop charger deployments, etc. Or even if they do, hopefully California and Oregon will keep plowing forward with their own incentives and deployments. At best, things settle down and she can choose to buy the car after 3 years. At worst, if it all goes to hell… well, it’s only 3 years, at a pretty decent monthly price. We can figure it out after that…

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$36,000 isn’t too bad for an electric car. Many are a lot more than that.

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Yeah, that’s what ultimately sold us on it. It’s a pretty hefty savings over the other comparable options on the market. $50k would’ve been our absolute upper limit, but that would’ve required stretching our rather meager resources quite a bit. We were happy to have found a more affordable (and still fun!) option.

The similarly-specced PHEVs would’ve been even more (which I didn’t realize before I started shopping… makes sense, given that they have both engines!)

I think the Solterra was Subaru (and Toyota’s) “compliance EV”, and they knew it wasn’t very competitive at its initial pricing. At $36k for the Limited trim, though, it’s quite a steal, especially with the option to lease it and try the lifestyle for a few years without a full commitment. I guess we just got lucky on the timing, with the '26 model right around the corner… these will be the last few Solterras of the first generation.

Seems like it at least did well enough that they are continuing the line, and adding a smaller option next year: the Subaru Uncharted (looks like a 2-door compact? Hard to tell)

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I went with a Highlander Hybrid over the RAV4. I’m glad I did so you may want to look at a HiHy as an option.

Yeah, Highlander not RAV4.

If you decide on a Highlander Hybrid, then maybe a used one. I have a 2023 Limited and it would sell for $40k-$45K. It’s a Toyota before they started grenading themselves and you’ve let someone else pay the first years’ depreciation.

ETA: Oops! Looks like the decision has already been made.

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(Sorry, she was eager and already signed a lease)

But yes, the Highlander was another option we briefly glimpsed at, but unfortunately it doesn’t come in a PHEV variant. It seems like a great car on its own merits, but my partner was partially driven by ideology (wanting less environmental impact from daily driving) and so that narrowed our options to BEVs and PHEVs primarily.

Of course, all of that will probably get undone if we end up charging at Tesla superchargers anyway, and end up funding Musk’s rockets and AIs… sigh, lol. And though for now the Oregon electrical grid mix seems mostly hydro-powered, if that changes in favor of fossil fuels again with the way the federal government is moving, even home charging may become quite dirty again. Really seems like a no-win scenario…

I wish we had towns like Houten, in the Netherlands, designed around cycling instead of cars…

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Is the Toyota equivalent the bZ4X? Because that Toyota has one of the stupidest model names around. Nissan has one called the Ariya, which isn’t great but not nearly as bad.

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Yep. It’s the Toyota bz4x or the Lexus RZ. Same car rebadged with minor differences. And yeah, what stupid names!

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Thanks for the great write-up. the whole thread has been very informative.

Your / her particular parameters aren’t mine, but my next car in a couple years will almost certainly not be a pure ICE, and your roadmap here will surely be helpful as I navigate the poorly-charted waters of 2028/2029 car buying.

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Congrats!!

The tradeoff in cost for a PHEV versus all-electric seems a no-brainer: if you need an internal combustion vehicle for a long trip, that’s a hundred bucks a day. You’d have to do a LOT of traveling before that added up to 15K. Plus, depending on where you are traveling, there may well be charging stations en route.

That was our logic in hanging on to our older car - a 2006 CRV. We didn’t like taking it on long trips - it had well over 150K miles and was getting on in years. But until maintenance costs added up to 500 or so a month, it was cheaper to hang on to it and rent something for longer trips.

We finally bought a new one when our even OLDER car, at 230K miles and nearly 22 years old, needed repairs that were many times its value. At that point our son got the “newer” car (then 14 years old) and we got our hybrid CRV.

Not sure what we will do when the older CRV dies. Maybe look for a used Civic.