Any decent $300/month toyota deals in your area you could tag the negative eq on to?
Offer a $5K incentive and swap it to start fresh
Highlander’s are 365 in MA this month
Even a smoking deal on a Jaguar XF loaner could work well
At that point would a bank even approve that kind of LTV? For that kind of money why not just get the Highlander or something in that range, maybe even a RAV4 (if the 2018s are still available, or the 2019s are leasing OK) or CRV (Hondas seem to be leasing OK recently?) and just keep the Audi for other things, either offsetting the miles on the family car in certain situations, or maybe holding out for a lease swap, or even monetizing it on Turo, provided it’s allowed? From personal experience a CRV sized two row SUV will work just fine with a double stroller and car seats. Also, the onus should be on finding the most space efficient solutions possible for the stroller and car seats. They aren’t all created equal. Spending a little more on those and getting a compact solution from Chicco or City Mini could help alleviate space constraints. Uppa is expensive, but their strollers, even the doubles are lightweight and compact, really high quality too. There’s reviews out there of double frame strollers that will take infant car seats and fit in the back of Aveos and Altima Hybrids if you look around.
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It def is. Longer wheelbase and more rear room make a big difference when it comes to RF child seats.
All great points, my siblings have had children in the past few years and I’ve seen them have hybrid RF/Stroller set ups to fit in tighter spaces such as WRX STi and Tacomas.
This is going to require OP to get creative with the solutions, but I think the solutions ARE out there. It just requires advanced planning.
X100 I’d hate to see anyone paying that high of a (lease) payment on a sub $50K vehicle, rolling in that kind of negative equity. Look at it this way - for $11K in negative equity you could literally BUY and payoff a semi-decent vehicle and you would end up with a vehicle, whereas rolling the negative equity onto the lease is ONLY making the lease more expensive. There is nothing to show for it.
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@Jon the basic Ram 1500 not the new style body can be had for 249 a month, no money in oct of last year. I was typing that response late last night, have to dig up my buddies paper work for exact numbers, but it was more of a reference of what could be done. Ballparking the suv he got was Msrp 27k, they took his negative 8k equity on a high mileage vehicle trade in and took 4K off there’s and rolled the other 4K into payments. Essentially they took the 8k and stacked it on top of there 23k sales price. Dodge dealerships around me had 249 a month nothing down. Ally was offering something like 12k in incentives on the backend which I think they still may be. As my buddy was signing the paperwork the salesman looked at me and said I could get you one too if you want for 150 a month.
Even if all this remained true today, I dunno if a Ram pickup would really be a viable solution here. Two rear facing seats in a crew cab? And are we using tie-downs for the stroller in the bed?
you mean: thinking “outside box” ? 
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The ram deal was merely a reference although my buddy has front facing seats in his but that wont work for OP. I would work a unicorn till the day the kids came haha
To me, the biggest issue is the 2 rear facing car seats the kids will need once they hit one or so.
How tall are you and your wife/gf? The front seats need to be pushed up to accommodate the rear facing seats. I have an sq5, and it’s impossible to comfortably fit a rear facing child seat directly behind the driver or passenger seat (it does fit fine in the middle seat).
I’d imagine you can make a double stroller work- we have one and it doesn’t take up much more room than a single stroller (it’s a really expensive model, however).
all i’m saying is that there’s a solution to be had that doesn’t cost $11k. Is it a little inconvenient? sure but unless you really don’t care about $11k, then it can be managed
Sounds like a QX60 is needed, luxury badge, cheap payment and enough room. And you could keep the audi or roll it in. I have a feeling she won’t go for it.
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Most important thing is the safety of the kids.
I definitely agree that he can and should inconvenience himself with the stroller to save $11k.
But, he cannot compromise on installing and using the proper car seats to save money.
My hope is he doesn’t take any of the advice here and just decide to keep the a3 and put the kids front facing to save room.
If he gets rid of the a3, he needs to come up with a more creative way to mitigate the $11k negative than rolling it into a Mercedes lease.
Closing this momentarily to break the cycle of off-topic replies. I’ll open it up again to focus on what vehicle satisfies the OP’s needs.
TL;DR
Tiguan maybe? And keep the Audi? I dunno. I agree with many peeps here, it is not savvy to just eat the $11k. Of course, if you add $0.98 to my ramblings, you’d end up with a single espresso.
Something doesn’t add up here. I had two kids and used rear facing seats until about one and a half. After, we used front facing and those fit nicely in a small car.
Op is in California and by law must keep the kids rear facing until 2yrs.
Nobody mentioned anything about front facing, that’s a piece of cake.
So I just got someone to take over the Audi! Game is on! Lol. Now I’m looking into GLC 300, GLE Mercedes, or RX350 F sport