We have 6 young kids and we just traded our 01 Expedition in for an 04 Excursion. Both are great for the kids and the necessary 4wd. Expedition was very dependable truck for 9.5 years and the kids cried when we traded it in (big part of their lives). I was nervous about the AWD but it was flawless for over 223,000 miles.

I remember those days, Gm's are horrible trucks for kids, unsafe, and unreliable.

I was 17 years old before I ever rode in a car with a shoulder harness type seat belt. Before that very few cars had belts at all and then they were usually just lap belts in the front seats.

It was the wild west in the back seats back then. And most cars had no seat belts at all.

By 1970, all new cars had modern seat belts, but that was not good enough for the liberal nannies in Washington who then insisted that every car have air bags and little bells that started chiming whenever you tried to drive without putting on the belt.

Around the same time, American liberals were going coo-coo if your child did not ride to school in a bus. Seat belts in school buses? Not so fast Mr Smarty pants! To this day school buses are the wild west of safety belts.

The safety weenies really crack me up when it comes to commercial aircraft. You better wear that seat belt!!!

If you don't you could die in a crash. Like there's any chance of surviving a fall from six miles up in any aircraft EVER built. Safety belts and car seats are like a religion to liberals.

I remember those days, Ford's are horrible trucks for kids, unsafe, and unreliable. They don't even need to be in a Ford truck to die, could light their house on fire in the night while they sleep, or pop out of park and run the kids over.

Kid started grade school this year and I have been taking her to school since dropoff is on my way to work, still in one of those halfway between full car sear and booster seat things. The struggle is real.

No amount of seatbelts or any harness or latch will make any child safe in a Ford.
Thats why I drive my kids in a Chevy Silverado.

Chevy. Runs deep.

I'd like to see how well each make and model hauls bags of groceries. Why not? Guys here always accuse others of driving "grocery getters" so let's put them to the test.

Uh...the cars.com article is nearly 18 months old. Top notch find there.

A kid ran a stop sign going 60 mph and plowed directly into my wife in our newly purchased f150. The kid never even hit the brakes. Probably texting. The impact was directly where my daughter was sitting in the backseat. The truck rolled onto its side, hit a power pole which flipped it around violently and back around landing upright. Truck was totally destroyed beyond repair, but the cab was intact and my wife and two kids completely safe and uninjured. I credit the f150 for saving their lives. Should have been much worse than it was. We immediately went out and bought another f150. Maybe they would have been ok in a car or other truck, but I'm thankful they were in the f150.

@Jerry good to hear your family's survived that crash ok. What was the other guy driving? Just curious.

Honda civic. He was ok too. Probably more shook up than my family. Though I wanted to bash his face in. Didn't seem the least bit apologetic. Both my kids were under 2 years old at the time.

It's a shame trucks don't come with a rear seat delete option. Some of us prefer to have some cab space for precious cargo, rather than kids we'll never have.

Great to see that most modern trucks with full size crew cabs fare pretty well.

Low comment rate for this article my say a lot about the age demographic for this site.

so where oh where is the Crew Max Tundra? It would most certainly score all A's in every category.....

I've been saying it since the new Colorado came out and this proves it, if you area family man the Frontier will serve you better than the new GM twins.