The yellow machine is beginning its downward death spiral into the abyss of "been there" vehicles.
:(
205,000 miles; we got her in 2003 when she was only 40,000 miles young.
For the past few months, we have only been looking around for Chevy Traverses.
We know we want something with the 3rd row seat due to the girls getting older; having friends to bebop around here-there-everywhere. Of course, with the 3rd row seat, the back row has a tendency to be a bit squished, BUT I actually sat in the back of one yesterday, and had decent leg room. Mind you, I'm only 5'4". However, when we had Cassie crawl in back (currently 5'6"--that girl is GROWING!!!), she also had adequate leg room. Sitting 3-wide is a different story for any trip of distance, BUT kiddos can manage if it came to that scenario.
Even storage is adequate with all the seats available.
Of course, even better with the seats removed (if need be.)
Many of them come with AWD (all-wheel-drive); always a nice PRO for those of us in the northern parts of the nation getting dumped on with snow for over half the year. And the towing capabilities should make Paul happy; no more need to have the truck pull the boat.
Acadias were looked at as well; being so similar to the Traverses; sadly those prices were also similar.
And THEN!..... Enter Chad from a Chevy/Chrysler dealership.
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| 2001 Ford Escape when we were building the house in 2003 |
SO....now; the decisions!!!!!
The rest of this post sounds like something out of a Car-n-Drive magazine. If you are also a family searching for a new vehicle, by all means; read on! If not, continue at your own potential boredom :)
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| Chevy Traverse |
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| Traverse Interior - 3rd seat (seats 7) |
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| Traverse Storage |
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| Traverse Storage with seats folded |
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| Traverse towing capabilities |
Everything sounds GREAT right?!?!?!?!?!
The sad reality; the price ticket has the potential of being in our ballpark, but many of the low-mileage ones we looked at yesterday were starting to jump out of our budget :(
So, we put the mileage on yesterday traveling around from town-to-town 9AM until 4PM, stopping at any and most dealerships we saw.
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| GMC Acadia |
GMC Yukons are also an ideal consideration; until you look at THAT price tag!!!
And don't EVEN get me started on Suburbans! LOL. Noooooooooo thank you, Sir!
That lil' man ACTUALLLLLLLY started wheeling-n-dealing for me to consider a MiniVan.
Showed us a spiffy lil' Chrysler Town-n-Country (as spiffy as they can be, I suppose) decked out with every little add-on under the sun!
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| Chrysler Town & Country (trying to look bad a$$) LOL |
Showed us how this seat can fold this way; that seat can fold that way; the "Stow-n-Go" capabilities or to use that space under the floorboard as storage; the roomy no-need-to-exit-vehicle to move from seat to seat if needed...
The prices are in our range
The interior space is exactly what we need
There truly are a LOT of PROS that Paul and I seriously started to consider as we continued our dealership trip.
After all was said-n-done.
We don't have a vehicle yet.
Ummm......we haven't narrowed our choices down either! In fact, we added some. LOL
For me, the two CONS about a mini-van; NO 4WD/AWD and NO towing capabilities (more like NOT able to pull our boat out of the water from the landings).
The PROS; COST being #1--a 2010 standard features we looked at yesterday is waaaaaay into our budget with LOTS of room to spare.
Hohum; hohum.
NOT liking about having to choose from all of our choices now.
To be continued....
6 comments:
It is so hard to choose a different vehicle. I too have traveled across a state, actually multiple states, looking at vehicles. You might want to try carsoup.com or some other website to try and do some searching.
The other thing you should look at is the insurance costs when you are finalizing your decision, it is amazing how the cost between similar vehicles and different brands can differ. That factor has made up my mind several times, when I could not decide between a couple of vehicles.
Good luck
PB from MN
It's really hard to choose a new vehicle, it took me a while to choose mine. I have a Dodge Grand Caravan which is pretty much the Chrysler minivan (same manufacturer) and I love it. Wouldn't trade it for anything, I can fit lots of stuff in it, take 7, (including a toddler in a car seat) to Disney for the day), as well as take a trip across the country all in comfort.
We really like our Totoya Sienna - seats 7, back seats fold down, and the middle 2 seats can come out easily.
Good luck...it's a big decision and mucho dollaro!
My daughter has an Acadia and isn't very happy with it. It seems underpowered for what it is. I rode with her and had to agree. Shift up, shift down, shift up, shift down. Very aggravating experience. I love my Equinox, but it would probably be a little small for your family.
I feel your pain. It is hard to avoid falling into the minivan trap, but there is a reason that so many families have them. Ours is a Honda Odyssey and it is our second. It is comfy on long trips, holds all the kids with room for friends and can fold down for hauling cargo. It is hard to find amongst all the other minivans at malls or sporting events, but sometimes things are popular for a reason. Good luck with your decision. I'm sure whatever you get will drive you where you need to go.
I am sure you will wind up with the right car...good to keep open minds and maybe find something better than you had in mind to start! :)
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