Family Sedan Review

Reviews hone in on the best family cars

For the purposes of this report, a family car is defined as a midsize or large four-door sedan with a starting price of around $18,000 up to $30,000. More expensive sedans are covered in our report on sports sedans. Less expensive sedans and hatchbacks are included in our report on economy cars. We also cover hybrid cars in a separate report. If you're looking for an environmentally friendly or exceptionally fuel-efficient family sedan, you'll want to investigate hybrid versions of the Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata, Kia Optima, Nissan Altima and Toyota Camry, along with the Toyota Prius.

We saw a lot of shakeups in the family sedan class this year, as three former Best Reviewed cars fail to even make it into the top picks for 2011. One of Car and Driver's 10Best Cars, the 2011 Honda Accord (Base MSRP: $21,380 to $29,630), performs admirably once again, but the redesigned 2011 Hyundai Sonata (Base MSRP: $19,395 to $27,245) and 2011 Kia Optima (Base MSRP: $19,200 to $26,200) proves even more compelling. The bestselling 2011 Toyota Camry (Base MSRP: $20,195 to $29,845) wins a family sedan shootout at Motor Trend -- and nearly wins one at Cars.com -- and two-time Best Reviewed winner, the 2011 Mazda Mazda6 (Base MSRP: $19,990 to $29,320) still manages to inject a little sporty fun into the daily carpool, but both falter in a rear-crash test and must settle for runner-up badges this year.

The 2011 Mitsubishi Galant (Base MSRP: $21,599 to $23,999) and 2011 Buick Lucerne (Base MSRP: $29,730 to $44,460) likewise manage only "marginal" grades in a rear-crash tests, a real handicap in a category clogged with perfect-scoring paragons of safety. Both family cars strike reviewers as outdated, anyway. The Galant "needs to gain some muscle, lose a few pounds, and concentrate on some semblance of handling," Car and Driver says; Edmunds.com adds that the silver-painted controls "look as if they came from an old boombox." And more than one reviewer has trouble parking thanks to the big, wide Lucerne's "bargelike" turning circle. It's an old-fashioned far cry from its replacement, the sportier new 2011 Buick LaCrosse (Base MSRP: $27,130 to $33,205), which is the Best Reviewed large sedan for the second straight year.

The best sources conduct head-to-head tests of the major family cars, and each source declares a winner -- though it's not uncommon for them to be different, depending on the outlet doing the testing. Editors at Car and Driver and Edmunds Inside Line concentrate on performance, Cars.com stresses value among family cars, and Motor Trend considers other aspects in its reviews.

To further sort through the confusion, we turned to scientific testing by nonprofit and government agencies. We found fuel economy and pollution data at FuelEconomy.gov (operated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy) and GreenerCars.org (run by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy). To find the safest family cars, we studied crash-test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the independent, nonprofit, insurance-industry-funded Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Still, the best overall review source for family car reviews is ConsumerReports.org. Experts there purchase the vehicles they evaluate from regular dealerships and consider all possible aspects of just about every family car on the market, before ranking them from best to worst. ConsumerReports.org's refusal to accept advertising or freebies puts an exclamation point on the organization's objective testing processes.