Hey all,

We are considering buying my brother's CX9 (they are looking to 'upgrade'/downsize to the new Mazda 3). We were looking exclusively at minivans (Sienna) before all this as we currently have two kids and may plan for a third in the near future. We are also looking for something to transport my parents or in-laws, and have some extra space, in a pinch. Currently we have a Rav4 which is pretty tight on space.

That said, I was curious about carseat installation/configuration in this older model CX9. I came across this video, which I *think* may be very similar in the options -
How he configured his carseats is exactly how I would envision configuring ours if we got the CX9 from my brother. We recently bought one of those Ride Safer vests ( ) which we would put our son in and have him sit in the 3rd row driver's side. It doesn't look/sound like the 3rd row has any latch/tether/anchor system for carseats on these older CX9s.
The two carseats we have are the Graco 4Ever and Cosco Scenera. I'm not sure if those would be able to fit side-by-side in the middle row, so if not we might have to get a Diono Radian or similar. And it sounds like using seatbelt installation all around would be the only way we could pull it off too, more than likely.
But I like this configuration because it still allows for access to the 3rd row passenger side seat and frees up the 2nd row passenger seat to meet the 'requirements' of hauling two more people around.

Main reason we are considering this is because his CX9 only has 78k miles on it and obviously we'd be getting some form of a 'family discount' and can trust that it's in good shape overall. For the Siennas that we are considering, we'd be looking to spend at least 2-3x what we would probably be paying for the CX9. The trade-offs being things like power sliding doors, more cargo space, foot room, 8th seat option and generally just easier access and configuration for carseats... but I don't think any of those are non-negotiable.

Thoughts/advice/opinions?

EDIT: I nearly forgot but if we do have a 3rd kid, they'll likely be in an infant carrier (we have one that is being stored at my in-laws' - don't recall which exact model but it's the Graco Snugride). So the configuration would probably look like this:


We would then lean towards putting the Graco 4Ever in the back but I'm not sure how to best install that forward facing... I guess just seatbelt? My brother said he actually has a Diono Radian/Sunshine in the car now (for my younger nephew)... he may grow out of it soon and if he does they will probably just give it to us.

 

What we may end up doing if we got this is to put all three kids in the 2nd row across and put the 3rd row down until we need to transport more people. That might be the 'safest' way to go about it if we'll just be transporting 4-5 a majority of the time.