Crossovers and SUVs account for more than 50% of all new car sales, but despite that, finding a reliable three-row model that doesn’t break the bank isn’t always easy. The cheapest three-row SUV you can buy – the now hybrid-only Mitsubishi Outlander – costs over $32,000 before options. So, if your budget is around $25,000 and you have a big family that needs a big car, going for a used model that has already gone through its steepest part of its depreciation is a solid choice. The good news is that there are plenty of used options at that price, but the big question is whether you’ll find one you can rely on and ease the pressure of rising living costs.
Thankfully, the analysts at Consumer Reports (CR) have gathered the best minivans and three-row SUVs and selected the most reliable options you can buy used on a $25,000 budget in one place. Each one of these offers the blend of everyday practicality, comfort, and dependability you’ll appreciate, whether you need it for long-distance holiday trips, a school run, or a morning commute. Although both SUVs and minivans were considered, every car in the top three was an SUV, suggesting SUVs came out ahead for reliability at this price point. Let’s see how they compare and why they made CR’s reliability shortlist.
2021 Honda Pilot
Consumer Reports rated the 2021 Honda Pilot above average in reliability and third among all SUVs released for that model year. As Honda’s biggest SUV, the Pilot is as family-friendly as it gets at this price point. It’s packed with a variety of clever storage solutions, strong safety tech, enough room to accommodate kids and tall adults, and up to a cavernous 109 cubic feet of maximum cargo area, so it should easily accommodate bulky items, too. Additionally, you get rear seat backrests that split and fold 60/40, along with advanced safety features like adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, automatic high-beam headlights, and forward collision warning with automatic braking.
And if those base features aren’t enough, higher trims such as the Pilot EX, EX-L, SE, and Touring are also available within our $25,000 budget, as the 2021 Pilot hasn’t resisted depreciation well. Depending on your trim of choice, you can get additional features such as wireless smartphone charging, heated front seats, heated rear seats, a sunroof, and a hands-free liftgate. While sub-100,000-mile examples regularly fetch over $20,000, scroll through CarGurus’ listings, and you’ll find the cheapest examples cost around $13,000, but these have covered well over 100,000 miles. Whether it’s a base version or any of the range-topping models, the Pilot offers one engine option to meet your performance needs: a 3.5-liter naturally aspirated V6 good for 280 horsepower and 262 lb-ft.
2019 Toyota Highlander
In general, Toyota models do well when it comes to reliability. The 2019 Highlander lives up to that reputation, earning well above average in Consumer Reports’ survey. Looking through CarGurus listings, the 2019 Highlander is also proving to be exceptionally durable, as we regularly see examples with well over 250,000 miles on the clock looking for a new owner. Such mega-mileage models are priced from around $13,000, but for a little more (around $17,000), you’ll find sub-100,000-mile examples that haven’t had a hard life.
If you’re considering the base-spec LE trim, it comes standard with a 6.1-inch touchscreen, 18-inch alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and a 2.7-liter inline four-cylinder engine making 185 horsepower and 184 lb-ft of torque. This means if you want gobs of power, you’ll find the LE Plus or higher trims to be the keener bargains. Those models are equipped with a 3.5-liter V6 that outputs 295 horsepower and 263 lb-ft. Along with being more powerful, the V6-powered Highlanders are also a tad more efficient than their four-cylinder siblings, returning 27 mpg on the highway and 23 mpg combined versus 24 and 22 mpg for models with the 2.7-liter inline-4, respectively.
2018 Toyota Highlander Hybrid
If a good miles-per-gallon rating matters very much, you could skip the nonhybrid Highlanders altogether and go with the Toyota Highlander Hybrid instead. It gets up to 29 mpg combined from a hybrid setup comprising a 3.5-liter V6 engine paired with 650-volt AC permanent-magnet synchronous electric motors. The efficiency didn’t come at the expense of power either, since owners get up to 306 horsepower to play with. Not to mention, the 2018 Highlander Hybrid’s reliability is stellar as well, considering CR ranked the second most reliable model among 2018 SUVs. And for times when you need to move the entire family, there’s enough room inside to help you deal with family life, even if space is tighter in the third row. There, occupants make do with 35.9 inches of headroom and 27.7 inches of legroom.
That’s a big drop from the 39.9 inches of headroom and 38.4 inches of legroom enjoyed by those in the second row, and it’s even less than in front, where there’s 40.7 inches of headroom and 44.2 inches of legroom. Space is also at a premium on the cargo side of things, with the Highlander offering 13.8 cubic feet with all seats in use, 42.3 cubic feet behind the second row, and a maximum 83.7 cubic feet behind the first. Around $13,000 will get you into a high-mileage 2018 Toyota Highlander Hybrid in good working order, but models with less than 60,000 miles still cost up to around $35,000.
