Video: What are the Best Features in 3-Row SUVs?

om, USA Today, and MotorWeek's three-row SUV challenge. We're going to take you through some of the things to look for. Let's face it, if you're shopping for a three-row SUV, chances are it's because you have a family, but you need it towing capacity or all-wheel drive, or you just didn't want to get a minivan. Either way, a lot of these cars still take a few plays out of the minivan playbook. So you have, in a lot of cases, things like massive storage areas here, nooks and crannies, along the dash that you can stash things. A big wide glove compartment, center consoles that can swallow a ton. This one's huge. Some of them even have conversation mirrors up top so you can keep an eye on the kids in back, tell them to quit horsing around. Also make funny faces at yourself, not while you're driving though. Speaking of those rear seats, how are people going to get to the third row? That's an important thing to consider and look at how each SUV gets it done. Now, a lot of SUV's have second row captain's chairs with seating for two. Some SUV's have a three position bench seat here, and some SUV's offer either set up depending what you want. The most important thing is that you shouldn't assume that this center aisle here is going to cut it when people are getting to the back seat. Kids will run through here, adults, not so much. The best SUV's have sliding walk-in access here thanks to second row seats that just come forward in one motion, allow you to get back there. A less convenient alternative is tumbling seats, which fold down and then tumble forward like so. Now they can often be less intuitive to work and bulky to kind of fold down and set back up. But, that's kind of how they get the job done there. No matter what you also want to make sure you look at how big this pass through here. If it's real narrow, it's going to be a tight fit for people to get to the third row and you're gonna have a lot of complaining passengers. If it's nice and big, not going to be so much of an issue. Now back to that second row, reclining second row seats are fairly ubiquitous in this segment, but a bigger differentiator are sliding second row seats. They go forward and backward. They allow second and third row passengers to work out a good compromise in terms of room, or you can even scoot them farther forward if parents want to keep an eye on a baby in a car seat or something like that. Features back here can get pretty high-end. It's not just cup holders, rear vents and reading lights anymore. Although you should make sure there are enough of those for your family. You can get all the way up to things like heated rear seats, here dual moon roofs that go over the second and the third row, rear entertainment systems, things like side window sunshades back here. Those can make the difference between a road trip that's pretty smooth or a road trip from hell. Finally, you're going to want to take a look at the cargo area and consider just how easy it is for those seats that fold down. Let's say you just took some kids to soccer practice, and now you need to go on a Costco or a Home Depot run. The key is seamlessness. How easy do these seats just kind of pop down and forward like that. Some SUV's even have handles in the cargo area that allow you to fold down the second row seats while you're just standing back here. Contrast that with other SUV's that make you come all the way around the side like so, and even have multi-step processes to fold down the second row seats. Finally come around all the way to the back here. You got to deal with head restraints that got to come down first. And then finally you can pop these seats down like that. It may not seem like a big deal, but if you have to do it often enough, it can add up. That's a lot to consider, but it should give you a good basis of comparison between these family-friendly SUVs. Now, which one of them won the challenge? Be sure to check out cars.com's blog, Kicking Tires, for full results.