The Short List

What these numbers are and aren't

• MSRP is the 2026 base trim including destination, pulled from Edmunds / KBB / Cars.com / manufacturer sites in July 2026. Every field is editable — type over it once you have a real quote.
• A trade-in is worth more than its number, because Pennsylvania taxes the difference. Trading a car in at $8,500 doesn't just knock $8,500 off the loan — it also removes $8,500 from the taxable base, saving 7% of it in sales tax. So a private sale has to clear the trade‑in plus that tax saving before it's actually the better deal, which is the number the “sell privately if” row shows. Against that, a private sale means listing it, meeting strangers and handling the title yourself.
• The two trade-ins are earmarked separately — these are two deals, not one. The Forester offsets Bethany's replacement and the GX offsets the truck; neither one subsidises the other. Turn them off entirely with the Trade‑in applied button if you'd rather keep a car or sell it privately.
• Trade-in values on high‑mileage cars are guesses with wide error bars. Both of ours are well past the mileage these estimates assume — a 2019 Forester is priced off roughly 84,000 miles and ours has 150,000, and the GX has 200,000 — so the figures here are a starting point, adjusted down for mileage by hand. Condition swings them by thousands either way and a dealer's offer is whatever they feel like that day. Get a real number from CarMax or Carvana before believing any of this; both fields are editable.
• Trucks: payload is the number that matters, not towing. A slide‑in camper sits in the bed, so its weight, the people and the gear all come out of one figure. The card shows what's left after People aboard and Gear, and grades it against roughly what these things weigh loaded: a shell or ultralight around 700 lb, a pop‑up around 1,400 lb, a hard‑side around 3,000 lb. On this list only the F‑250 clears a hard‑side; every half‑ton and mid‑size lands in shell territory once two people and 300 lb of gear are aboard. That is the honest answer, and it is why people so routinely run these trucks overloaded.
• Payload figures here are approximate and configuration‑specific — they swing by many hundreds of pounds with cab, bed, engine and options, and the only number that counts is the yellow sticker on your actual truck's door jamb. Type that in. Crew cab plus 4WD, which a 4‑seat requirement forces, is the heaviest and therefore lowest‑payload way to buy any of these.
• Bed length gates it too. Pop‑ups for mid‑size trucks want about a 5‑ft bed and full‑size versions 6–6.5 ft, so a short‑bed crew cab narrows the catalogue before payload even comes up. One thing no spec sheet on this page can tell you: the camper's centre of gravity has to sit forward of the rear axle once loaded. Check that against the camper's published COG and your bed length before buying either.
• Heavy‑duty trucks have no EPA rating at all. Above 8,500 lb GVWR they're exempt, so the F‑250 and Ram 2500 MPG figures are marked est, no EPA rating — unlike every other mileage number here, those two are not measured.
• Safety ratings are NHTSA's overall 5‑star score, pulled from their API for the exact drivetrain on each card. Like the MPG figures these are real data rather than estimates — but note what they are: NHTSA crash tests, not IIHS awards, and a 5‑star overall can still hide a weaker sub‑score, which is why rollover is shown separately. Two cars here are not rated yet, which is not the same as rated badly: the X5 sDrive40i (only the AWD X5 has been tested, at 4 stars) and the redesigned 2026 Outback. They show a dash and sort last.
• Drivetrain changes the rating, which is the strongest argument for reading the fine print. The RX 350 scores 5 stars with AWD but 4 with front‑drive — and front‑drive is the version priced here. The Jeep Compass is the only other 4‑star car, and the only one with a 3‑star rollover score.
• Every MPG figure here is the EPA combined rating, checked against fueleconomy.gov for the exact drivetrain shown on each card in July 2026. That is the one number on this page that is genuinely authoritative rather than estimated.
• Nine of these want premium fuel — the two BMWs, the RX, all three Volvos and all three Acuras — and are charged the premium price; everything else takes regular. Both prices are editable above. That gap is worth roughly $30 a month on its own and is easy to forget when comparing sticker prices.
• Drivetrain is shown on every card rather than buried in the trim name, because it isn't uniform and it moves price, MPG and — as above — the safety rating. Roughly half this list is AWD; the Atlas, Pilot, RX, RAV4, CR‑V, Grand Highlander, Tiguan and XC40 are front‑drive, and the X5 and both Grand Cherokees are rear‑drive. Use the drivetrain filter before comparing on price — adding AWD to a front‑drive car here costs roughly $1,600–$2,500 and 1–2 MPG that these numbers don't include, so a front‑drive car looks cheaper than the one you'd actually buy. Filtering to AWD only compares cars already priced with it. Rear‑drive is broken out separately rather than lumped in with front‑drive, because in a Pittsburgh winter they are not the same thing. Adding AWD costs roughly $1,600–$2,500 and 1–2 MPG, which the numbers here do not include.
• The 2026 RAV4 is hybrid‑only — there is no longer a gas‑only version to compare, so it appears once, at 43 MPG. The CR‑V still comes both ways and appears twice.
• Insurance is the weakest number here. Published estimates for the same vehicle ranged from $1,766 to $2,890 a year across sources. Treat these as class-level placeholders and overwrite them with your actual quotes. Between the CX‑5 and the X5 the insurance gap alone is bigger than most of the MPG differences.
• Honda's max cargo number is inflated relative to the others. Honda measures to the roof and includes floor space between rows; most rivals don't. Compare the behind‑last‑row column instead — it's the honest one.
• The list mixes three size classes and a wide price band. It now runs from subcompacts (HR‑V, CX‑30, Corolla Cross, Crosstrek, Encore GX, Compass) through the compact mainstream to three‑row and luxury. Most are two‑row five‑seaters; the Atlas, Pilot, Highlander, Grand Highlander, XC90, Grand Cherokee L, Enclave and MDX are three‑row. Use the row filter before you rank anything — and note that once you set an age at buy, a used X5 lands in the same money as a new Crosstrek, so the price band stops separating them the way it does when new.
• The Highlander has the smallest third row here — 16.0 cu ft behind it, against 20.6 for the Grand Highlander and Atlas. If the third row is the reason a car is on this list, that number is the one to compare, not the max‑cargo figure.
• The photos are the current body style, not necessarily the 2026 car — and not the base trim or the selected paint colour. They're from Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0, credited under each one, because those URLs stay put while manufacturer press images rot. Paste your own URL over any of them; clear the field to get the silhouette back, which is the only thing that follows the colour swatches.
• Colors are approximations for visual reference — names and shades are close but not paint‑chip accurate, and premium colors often cost $395–$1,200 extra.
• Default APR of 6.97% is Bankrate's 60‑month new‑car average as of July 29, 2026. Manufacturer promo financing (VW was running 0% for 60 on the Atlas) will beat it badly — worth checking per brand.
• Buying used inverts the ranking, and the maintenance number decides it. Set Age at buy above zero and the saving is largest on the cars that depreciate hardest — someone else already absorbed the drop — so the X5 and X3 gain far more than the Forester. That is exactly the conclusion most likely to be wrong, because it lands right where out‑of‑warranty repair bills are worst. Each vehicle carries a factory warranty length and an assumed annual escalation past it; those escalation rates are guesses and they are the swing factor in the whole used case. If a used BMW is genuinely on the table, replace them with real numbers before believing the ranking.
• Used prices are estimated from the depreciation curve until you type a real one. The asking‑price box is empty with the estimate shown as a placeholder, and the card says est. rather than asking until you overwrite it. Pay under the estimate and the modelled resale drops with it — a good buy stays a good buy rather than being marked back to market.
• Used loans cost more. Used APR +pts is added to the APR above whenever the age is non‑zero; the default 1.75 points is a typical new‑to‑used spread, not a quote. Lenders also cap terms on older cars — the term field will happily let you finance a 10‑year‑old car for 72 months, which no one will actually do.
• Insurance does not yet fall with age, which flatters the used case slightly. The comprehensive and collision part of a premium tracks the car's value while liability doesn't, so a real used quote lands somewhat below the figure shown here.
• Resale and maintenance are rough brand‑level estimates, not sourced figures — softer even than the insurance numbers. Resale is the share of MSRP retained at five years; maintenance bundles scheduled service and tires into one annual figure. Both are editable per vehicle. They're here because leaving depreciation out entirely is the bigger error: over five years it outweighs every other line on this page.
• Two ways to read the monthly number. Cash out‑of‑pocket is what leaves the bank account — loan, fuel, insurance, maintenance. True cost swaps the loan payment for what the money actually buys: depreciation, the sunk tax and tags, and loan interest. Cash tells you whether you can make the payment; true cost tells you which one is cheaper to have owned.
• The depreciation curve is front‑loaded — roughly a fifth gone in year one — and pinned to the five‑year resale figure. It's a smooth approximation of a lumpy reality, and it ignores mileage, condition and the used market entirely.
• Still not included: tires beyond the maintenance line, unscheduled repairs, extended warranties, and any manufacturer incentive.