If you can see an emergency about to occur then no problems, but I can tell you from experience and study that in an absolute emergency that comes unexpectedly, no one without a lot of training can without thinking thange down gears to use the needed acceleration if they are in too high a gear when some sort of emergency occurs.

I had to take into consideration the wife, who would be driving the car a lot so at the end of the day, it was much safer all round to go with an auto.

I would have liked the 4motion but the 2wd is good, most of the problems anyway as far as traction around my area relate to clay top soil, and whether you have 2wd or 4wd does not matter much unless you have the apropriate tyres to give more byte on the soil and clay.

Love the car, mind you It does certainly not drive as well as my Ford Territory, although I knew this going into what I was buying. I have always preferred rear wheel drive to front wheel drive. Mainly because with a slide in a rear wheel drive you can drive out of it, get in a front wheel skid on a front drive and basically you have have to waite, much harder to drive out of it.

Anyway, I got the multivan for the comfort for the family etc and there aint no better car out there. In fact I would not even buy the targo now, if I was to go to a competitor I would have to go to a new kia grand carnival for the bucks. At least 15 grand cheaper than the tarago.