All purpose/all weather city dweller w/highway hauling needs

Member1478

Moving from a smaller city to Chicago, we would like to reduce our fleet...swapping our older Honda Accord and Jeep Patriot for one new, all-purpose vehicle. One which gives us 4WD/AWD for winter use in town, that's also small enough to comfortably parallel park, and with enough utility/space to haul things around as needed. But we also need something with more towing capacity than the Patriot (2000 lbs max), since we are putting most of our belongings into storage @ 700 miles away, and sometime over the next year will move from our current apartment to something of our own, so we'll be making several trips with a U-Haul trailer over time (not to mention moving a kid in out-of-state college back-and-forth as well).

So in my mind I'm looking for a V6 SUV, knowing the gas mileage won't be ideal, but also knowing we likely won't be driving as much (plus dropping to one car, with lower total insurance costs and such, it should balance out).

I keep coming back to either the Jeep Cherokee or possibly a base/Laredo Grand Cherokee?the former being right-sized but also knowing from my parents' ownership of one the back seat isn't great on long trips?the latter being on the upper limit of being too big (though I see plenty around), but I assume it'd be more comfortable on the highway. Both properly equipped should give us ample towing capacity, and would serve the purpose, and as a brand I'm fine with (since Jeeps tend to age well, though the Cherokee is likely due an update since it's been out 4-5 years now). We tend to keep cars 10 years so not as concerned about resale as much as reliability, and parking on the street we don't want anything too flashy that'll attract attention.

So are those two vehicles my best options? Or what am I overlooking that should be on my list? Would rather spend somewhere between $20-30k, though the middle of that range would be preferred.

Priorities: Price or payments / Cargo capacity / Towing

Need minimum of 4 seats

Will consider new cars only

Maximum price: US $ 30000

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