So people in two (or more) car families? Do you use each other car, or is it “his and hers”? Which is used as the family car?
In my own family, both parents had their own cars, which they used, my dads doubled as the family car when needed. My dear beloved mother has always been blissfully ignorant of all things mechanical, so my father did the maintaninace on hers as well as taking it to the shop. Since he loves cars, I think it made there marriage stronger.
How be your family?
Two vehicles: the main mini-van and the ancillary Jeep. We work together so we always drive in the van together, depositing children in their various locations along the way. If anybody needs to do anything different, the Jeep is deployed.
2 cars - his car (a Toyota Corolla) and my car (a Toyota Yaris), but when we go out as a family, we go in his car, since it’s bigger.
We have two, my SUV and his pickup. Family trips we always take mine, although we did squeeze my gigantic 16 year old into the tiny half backseat of the Ranger recently when mine was in the shop, that was fun.
If I need a truck bed, I take his, or if he needs mine, whichever. If we screw up the parking order and don’t feel like playing musical cars we’ll take whichever is last in the driveway. With only one kid to drop off, it works well either way.
My wife has a company truck, which for corporate reasons I am not allowed to be in, yet alone drive. We have one car besides that which we consider “ours”. In practice, since she either has the company vehicle or uses light rail for work, I end up driving it 90% of the time.
When we lived in Atlanta we both still had the cars from before we were together. We considered both cars “ours” rather than yours and mine, but in practice we did tend to drive the cars we brought into the relationship. My wife had a company truck then too, so it was sort of ridiculous having three vehicles to manage (and only one off street parking space), one of which being unused weeks at a time.
Looking back at my parents back in South Africa, I think they had a more clearly defined “your” versus “my” car system that sounds similar to yours: my dad’s car would be the default touring car for family outings. That isn’t to say each others car was strictly off limits, but there would typically be a reason for the switch (a car in the shop, etc).
We still have the cars we bought prior to marriage, so it’s very much my car and his car. It might be interesting to see what happens when we buy a car together.
The Mr. has his truck and I have my Concorde. Definitely His 'n Hers…
We each make our own payments. My car goes on the long road trips and his truck pulls the travel trailer on comping weekends. Very seldom do we have need to switch vehicles, and if we do, it’s because he needs my car, not because I need the truck.
Two drivers, three vehicles: comfy van, newish compact car, old trashy compact car.
We use them according to purpose. Hubby usually drives the newish compact to work because it has the best reliability/gas mileage combo. The van is for longer trips or when we need the comfort ride and/or passenger/cargo space. The trashy car is for hauling dogs to the vet, garbage to the dump, mulch and manure from the garden center, etc.
We keep separate accounts, so it happens that right now I’m making payments on “his” car (the new compact) and he’s paying on the van, which is usually here for my use.
Five cars: Three mine, two hers. We use hers for commuting most of the time (we carpool) because mine tend to be unreliable/gas hogs/high-performance.
My wife drives the one with gas in it. Since there are never gas stations where she goes, I put gas in whichever car that is left.
Same here. But there’s an added twist. It’s still mine and hers largely because hers is stick shift, and, uh, I don’t do those. So she drives hers when I’m at school or out somewhere, but she’ll take mine if it’s available because it’s newer and nicer. I can’t take hers, though. It’s starting to look like neither one is going to survive until I finish grad school. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about that when the time comes.
Ours is definitely a his/hers affair. We mainly use her car for trips we take together because it’s newer and has the comfier ride and gets better gas mileage. I often drive her car if I go somewhere by myself on a weekend. My car is sportier and my wife doesn’t like to drive it at all.
Two vehicles, two drivers. I’m 6’4" tall and I generally don’t drive her little compact car because it really isn’t comfortable. She’s 5’1" and she generally doesn’t drive my monstrous crew-cab long-bed pickup because it’s just too big for her. I don’t mind her driving the truck and she doesn’t mind me driving the car, but we rarely swap because we each have what we want/need.
Family trips: my truck if we are taking the camper or the horses (her car can’t pull the trailers), or her car otherwise (it gets much better gas mileage).
My convertable, her SUV. We inevitably take hers when we go somewhere together. Mostly when we’re on our own we drive our own. Although, we have a one-car garage with a small drive where the other car goes, so if one person is headed off for an errand, s/he’ll just whichever is accessible instead of having to move them around.
–Alex
Two SUVs. We take mine on road trips. In two or three years my Wife will get a new one and we will switch to that for long trips.
Otherwise, we never use each others vehicles.
He has a Mazda SUV because he needs it to pull his boat. Mine is a yellow v6 Mazda6, manual transmission. I love my car, and still think of it as a baby though I’ve had it for over 6 years now (March 2003- 2004 model).
Two cars.
Mine: Mini Cooper S
Hers: Honda CR-V
Hers is mainly the family car. Through shear coincidence they are matching colors.
Bwhahahaha! I know it must be observational error, but I *swear *every time I drive his car it’s running on fumes.
We have two cars and mostly drive our own. Several reasons: habit, it’s a pain to readjust the seat/mirrors every time, his clients probably wouldn’t be especially impressed with my 12 year old Escort ;), and we each have parking permits for our workplaces.
We’re a one-car family. My parents have always had two (now they have three, including a pickup truck). Each car was always either Mom’s or Dad’s. The pickup and one of the cars are Dad’s now, the other car is Mom’s.