- Kelly Stumpe, also known as the Car Mom, has test-driven and toured 65 family cars.
- Stumpe, who grew up in the auto dealership business, has built a platform around family-car buying.
- Here's her advice for moms buying a family vehicle, as told to reporter Alexa St. John.
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Kelly Stumpe is a 29-year-old car reviewer, also known as the Car Mom. She grew up around her family's dealership group in St. Louis, Missouri, and started her career selling BMWs there. After two children, Stumpe reevaluated her professional aspirations and began blogging, writing, and advising everyday moms about the car-buying process and choosing the right family vehicle on her The Car Mom platforms. She's also a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
My family owns five car dealerships in St. Louis. Out of college, I started selling cars and fell in love with it. But the retail hours of automotive are tough. When I became a mom, I started trying to figure out what I was going to do. My husband gave me the advice to try to sell cars to moms.
I started making content of my day working at a dealership and showing used cars we had on the lot. The content really took off and that's when I realized there was a national need for car reviews and car-buying tips for women and for families.
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Many women don't feel like they can go to a dealership without a man
I've been really able to relate to my audience well because the same grievances they have about buying a car are the same as I had about being a 22-year-old trying to sell cars. It was very intimidating. I really have taken those experiences and tried to show that there are bad eggs in this industry, but there's also a lot of good eggs in this industry.
I've focused on how to find a good salesperson, how to connect to them, what you should put up with, what you shouldn't put up with, and what to expect. From a dealer side, they can do a better job of educating their customers on the process. Because ultimately, if dealers don't do this, the dealer market is going to become extinct.
Buying cars online isn't ideal for families
I put in car seats for a living and I would never advise a mother to buy a car without first trying out her specific car seat with her specific height and her specific needs to make the vehicle fit. The problem with buying a family car is, it's not just a matter of: "I don't like the drive." It's, "I can't fit three across." Okay, now what? "Now I'm pregnant with twins, now I need a new car."
I love all the online research, but I am excited to get back to a point where there is inventory and people can go see cars, they can try them out, because buyer's remorse is a real thing and it's really tough when you realize you can't fit three car seats or your family is going to grow quicker than you thought.
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It's important to try to forecast your family's growth
Parents — especially first-time moms —might upgrade their Corolla to a Hyundai Santa Fe and think 'This is it.' What families quickly find is needs change very quickly. I always like to use myself as an example. I had three kids in four years. The car that worked in 2019 versus the car that works in 2023 are significantly different. I was driving a Nissan Rogue in 2019 and now I'm in a Ford Expedition.
They just do not realize either how many kids they want to have, how quickly those kids are going to come, and how much room kids actually need. I think there's so much misinformation about what it takes to install a car seat. It is not as simple as if it has a seatbelt, it can fit a car seat.
In the Toyota Sequoia, there's one tether anchor in the middle seat. My Ford Expedition has three tether anchors in the third row, so I could put a forward-facing seat in any of the seats. In the Sequoia, I can only put it in the middle seat, so I could not have another child in this car who would still be in a car seat.
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If you're going to keep this car and finance it for 60 or 72 months, what does month 71 look like and where are all these kids that you might have sitting?
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I'm a big fan of leasing for growing families
Leasing brings a lot of benefits. Also, two of my kids are still rear-facing, so vents from the back of the center console do nothing for them because they don't get any airflow, so I'm a big, big fan of ceiling vents. I like sunshades. A few cars have what's called a car seat tilt. It actually allows you to access the third row when a car seat is still installed.
I'm a big fan of all crash prevention tech. I like the fun features. Moms spend a lot of time in their car and we give up a lot of our identity to become mothers. I want her to have anything to make the drive more enjoyable.
Choose your salesperson
On DealerRater, you can read reviews about individual salespeople and then you can decide who you want to work with. I always advise my audience, do not show up to the dealership at 3:00 PM on Saturday and think you're going to have a good experience.
The salespeople who are available on a Saturday afternoon are not the good salespeople. The good salespeople have appointments. If you really want to empower yourself through the car buying process, you have to put yourself in control of who you work with.
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If you want to pay less, you have to justify your offer
You can do that by going on Autotrader, Edmunds, or Cars.com, and finding similarly-priced vehicles, whether they be 100 miles away or 500 miles away.
It's also about not being scared to tell the salesperson you're actually interested in the car. The worst car buying advice is 'act like you're not interested,' because then why would they ever sell a car to you? The best advice is to say, 'I'm going to buy a car. Do you want it to be here, or do you want it to be at the dealership next door? Here's what I want to pay, and here's why I want to pay it.'
I always get women who say, I'm nine months pregnant, I'm looking for a car and I'm just so scared to go to the dealership because they're just going to take advantage of me because they know I need a car. I'm not saying there's no validity and truth to some of those theories, but a lot of the time it's: You know what the car's worth. Try to negotiate it. Not everyone's out to get you. I think that's your secret weapon. (Read how automakers are keeping prices high, whether vehicles are finally below sticker price, and how much $20,000 gets you at these links.)
The Ford Expedition is the best full-sized SUV out there
It has the best car seat set-up, a ton of great safety features, it drives great, and it's a good size. If you compare it to some of the General Motors vehicles like the Yukon and the Tahoe and the Suburban, those vehicles are also great, but they're just really missing some key features.
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All the minivans are great. I'm super excited about the new Sienna being a hybrid. I think that's a huge win for families. I think in a way, families have been very left out of that conversation and we are in some of the least fuel-efficient vehicles.
There are lots of great options in the midsize market. I like the Honda Pilot, the Palisade, and the Atlas.
Don't be scared of a used car with 100,000 miles on it
100,000 miles isn't what it used to be. Vehicles are lasting longer. Every mom wants the $300 or $400 payment. But when it comes to a three-row vehicle, that's even harder to accomplish. But the 100,000-mile car has some proven reliability behind it.
I don't think enough people slow down and really think about what their ownership of the car is going to look like, because so many times they say 100,000 miles is too many. I say, how many miles do you drive a year? If it's 10,000 a year and you only want to keep it for about five years, at the end of this ownership, it's only going to have 150,000 miles.
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