Vehicle for hauling up to four bikes?

[emily_in_nc]

I guess North Carolina is best for personal reasons to relocate? It is an opportunity to consider another state.

No, NC is best. My mother is getting up there in years and lives in the state, as does my brother. We love the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area and have many ties there, including friends, great doctors and dentists, and bike club friends. Not to say we'd never consider another area, but not for awhile. We just have too many roots there to start over in yet another new place.

We actually regretted committing to Belize by the time we actually moved. We had put money down on the condo in summer 2010 (40%, which was required), so we had to follow through, but by the time we moved, we'd gotten so into our lives in Chapel Hill, made new friends (we'd moved from a much more rural area in 2010 to "the city"), and by the end, we realized we wouldn't have moved to Belize if we had delayed our decision a year. But we had too much money in not to go ahead with it.

And we did give it our best shot; it just became apparent within about 6 months that it was not the best place for us long-term.

[emily_in_nc]

DH just confirmed --> NO mini-vans! I should have known.

So far the Toyota Rav4 is looking like a hot contender. The gas mileage is marginally better than the Element, safety is better, price is similar, and cargo space is only 1.3 cubic feet less (when seats are down in back). I had no idea. Of course, mini-vans have WAY more cargo space, but DH says no. And the smaller SUVs obviously get better gas mileage than a mini-van also.

Will look at the Jeep products too, but I wonder if repair/maintenance could be an issue. Heard some gripes from a couple of Jeep Cherokee owners I used to work with. We're so used to Honda/Toyota quality that it would be hard to take a step backwards. Especially since we'll only have one vehicle.

[emily_in_nc]

After a quick look at the Jeep site, neither the Patriot or Liberty has as much cargo space as the Rav4 or Element (over 10 cubic feet less, surprisingly!)

The Patriot gets excellent gas mileage and is extremely well-priced for a 4x4 SUV, but we gotta have that cargo space. The Liberty doesn't get very good gas mileage.

Honda Civics are definitely not expensively outfitted cars; they used to be the very bottom of the Honda line years ago; not sure they are now. But they sure are reliable, or at least used to be. My father got well over 200K miles on his.

Honda Elements are also very "plastic" inside, but that makes them easy to clean and inexpensive. I've never cared about having a luxury car or adding "appearance packages", stuff like that. I want comfortable seats for driving and a good driving position for a petite gal like me, but aside from that, I'm really looking for function over form and reliability over bells and whistles. I am what you'd call a very "basic" car buyer, I guess. Never had anything fancy, so I don't know what I'm missing.

I forgot to mention that I also had a Subaru Forester that I loved before the Element, but bikes had to lie down in the back, and the transmission gave out after only four years, so I traded it on the Element. I also really disliked the service department folks in my area after many failed attempts to fix the "check engine" light issue, so I am boycotting Subies, even if they did have one that would fit a herd of bikes!

[Penny4]

Emily, in your 1st post, you say you want to be able to transport the bikes with front wheels removed? So, the bikes would be standing?
If so, how do you secure them so they don't tip over while driving?
I have an SUV, and I lay my bike in the back, which is fine since I'm single and only have to transport 1 bike. But when the bike is laying down, it takes up the whole back, and I've been trying to figure out how to stand it up, so I can take it on vaca along with luggage, coolers, etc.
Good luck in your car search!

[Irulan]

You've never seen these? It's easy to build a bike rack for inside a vehicle by mounting them to a 2x4 or similar. About $18

[Crankin]

My DH made one of these to put in the back of his SUV without having to put the rack on the hitch.

[Penny4]

I've never seen one of those. I'll have to look around for one.

[emily_in_nc]

Yep, what Irulan posted! DH made a rack for the interior of our Element that held four bikes (back/front/back/front) with the fork mount brackets. He also made one for the back of his truck when we had a tandem.

Barring that, I have used a few bungee cords to keep one bike upright without removing the wheel in the back of the Element (when we didn't have the rack with fork-mount thingies). You just wind the bungees around various parts of the bike and then around various parts of the interior of your car. Takes a little experimenting to get right.

[Irulan]

You've never seen these? It's easy to build a bike rack for inside a vehicle by mounting them to a 2x4 or similar. About $18

google front fork mounts