Well, when I say daily, it's not that often, as I'm the work-from-home dad to our 6-month old boy. It's a 2003 Ford Escape (sold as the Maverick in 2001-03 in the UK, I think) 2WD with the 2l petrol engine and manual transmission - finding a manual tranny in the US isn't that easy! Our other car is a 2005 Hyundai Sonata saloon, so with a baby and two dogs (Dalmatian/Black Lab mix who gets very excited on car rides, and a Shih-Tzu that is very chilled about them), we needed something with an accessible boot area for the dogs to travel in - hence SUV or estate were on the shipping list. Does better on MPG than the Sonata's 2.5l V6 anyway Of course, Hilts (Escape, natch) does occasionally get a smattering of snow on him: Neither car goes in the car port (that's where Harvee lives), and neither can currently fit in the garage as the spare Westy pop top and roof cut etc is in there
