Crossovers continue to grow in popularity for a few very obvious reasons: many offer the space and convenience of an SUV or smaller minivan but drive like a car instead of a truck. That’s because crossovers are actually built on car platforms. For instance, the Toyota Highlander shares the same platform as the perennially popular Toyota Camry and the Acura MDX shares a platform with the Honda Odyssey minivan and Honda Accord.
That means the bouncy, trucky ride you likely remember from early SUVs is now a distant memory when you buy a crossover. And American buyers like that improvement a lot. Of course, you can still find SUVs that look like crossovers but are extremely capable off road (we’ve highlighted our favorites in the 2012 SUV Buying Guide). We realize the lines between crossovers and SUVs can be a bit confusing.
Read: 2012 SUV Buying Guide
Nearly every manufacturer sells a crossover of some type and we evaluated the entire lot for our 2012 Buying Guide. By our count, there are more than 60 crossovers for the 2012 model year. Of that large group of vehicles, we’ve identified nine crossovers that Vehix editors strongly recommend for 2012. We’ve broken the crossovers into three categories:
Once we set the categories, the Vehix editorial team reviewed reliability, safety, fuel economy and pricing data and weighed those elements against our own experiences driving these vehicles. Then we voted and three winners emerged in each price category. With that introduction, we give you the Vehix 2012 Crossovers Buying Guide.
View the 2012 Crossover Buying Guide
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