[Steve Carlton]

I'm thinking you'll be on the hook for repairs and that can come back to bite you. As Denis said, something from the Toyota/Lexus isle is unlikely to haunt you much. Same goes for Honda. I'm not a fan of Nissan or Mitsubishi, and not so sure of Hyundai or Kia. A lot of the Japanese offerings are tin cans, and I'd look toward safety as a priority.

So, I would also suggest a Volvo XC60. Design, safety, seat comfort all top notch, especially safety. The only SUV I believe that passed the partial offset front collision test with a good rating. They get spendy from around 70-120K, so you could put a warranty on it (CPO the best value) and have some clear sailing. Also a 2008 and up XC70 is a safe tank and is elevated some, not as much as the others. I wouldn't consider seat height to be that overwhelming a priority vs some of the other concerns. If you go back to ground level, you can get a nice, 10-20K mile 2012 S60 CPO for $19K to low $20Ks. 4 years of CPO warranty remaining up to 100K miles. Solid value.