JoLin
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2007
- Messages
- 5,146
Been shopping for a relacement for the '07 Mitsu Outlander. It's in decent shape, 'only' has 83K miles on it and has been rock-solid reliable. After 5 years of noise, vibration and the cheap/tinny feel of the thing I'm ready for a change. I make one or two long road trips a year and this year's 2500 mile round trip to Florida was just plain grueling. I'm working with a roughly $18K budget and I want miles under 30K. Plenty of choices in that range, but I knew it wouldn't be a 'loaded' anything.
Test drove....
2014 Honda CR-V (first choice based on a ton of research).
2015 GMC Terrain
2015 Chevy Equinox (after talking with 2 friends who own them).
Up-front research eliminated the RAV-4 (all reports said that the Honda rides better). My wife drives a 2016 Ford Escape (company car). It's a nice car, really, but I personally don't care for small, turbocharged engines in terms of long-term ownership.
Surprisingly, the Honda had some weirdnesses and a fatal flaw. Weirdnesses- first, the front seats have a swing up/down inboard armrest (like a captain's chair). There's no passenger side armrest on the LX. Linda got in it and said, 'forget about me being a passenger in this thing." So, test-drove an EX instead. Couple of objections... the EX comes standard with a sunroof that I don't want/need, and you can't get a power driver seat unless you pay for the leather interior. That's a lot of extra money to get an armrest and a power seat. The fatal flaw is that Honda's dashboard design placed it too high. Looking over it made me feel like I was sitting in a hole, and the view out the windshield was narrow. Scratch the Honda.
GMC Terrain. Love, love, love the styling. The cabin is fine- very comfortable seats, driving position, etc. Fairly quiet on the highway. A few minuses - it's a heavy car and the 4-cylinder struggles. It's usable, but the V-6 is a better choice if you can find one. Except for the exterior styling, the Terrain is identical to a similarly-equipped Chevy Equinox, and you pay a big premium ($1500 or more) for the Terrain. There are 4 Equinoxes sold for every Terrain, so you don't have many to choose from. In the end I couldn't justify the extra cos just for the styling.
The winner was a 2015 Chevy Equinox with the the mid-level LT package. 15,116 original miles. Original owner opted for an 8-way power driver seat, remote start and roof rails. It has the same cabin as the Terrain and it's really comfortable for me. Same problem with the 4-cyl being sluggish, but by the end of the test drive I was already getting a feel for the motor's torque curve- I can live with it. The car is absolutely prisitine, and there are 17 months left on the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty. AND, it came in at $600. below my max budget.
I'll be taking delivery sometime next week.
Test drove....
2014 Honda CR-V (first choice based on a ton of research).
2015 GMC Terrain
2015 Chevy Equinox (after talking with 2 friends who own them).
Up-front research eliminated the RAV-4 (all reports said that the Honda rides better). My wife drives a 2016 Ford Escape (company car). It's a nice car, really, but I personally don't care for small, turbocharged engines in terms of long-term ownership.
Surprisingly, the Honda had some weirdnesses and a fatal flaw. Weirdnesses- first, the front seats have a swing up/down inboard armrest (like a captain's chair). There's no passenger side armrest on the LX. Linda got in it and said, 'forget about me being a passenger in this thing." So, test-drove an EX instead. Couple of objections... the EX comes standard with a sunroof that I don't want/need, and you can't get a power driver seat unless you pay for the leather interior. That's a lot of extra money to get an armrest and a power seat. The fatal flaw is that Honda's dashboard design placed it too high. Looking over it made me feel like I was sitting in a hole, and the view out the windshield was narrow. Scratch the Honda.
GMC Terrain. Love, love, love the styling. The cabin is fine- very comfortable seats, driving position, etc. Fairly quiet on the highway. A few minuses - it's a heavy car and the 4-cylinder struggles. It's usable, but the V-6 is a better choice if you can find one. Except for the exterior styling, the Terrain is identical to a similarly-equipped Chevy Equinox, and you pay a big premium ($1500 or more) for the Terrain. There are 4 Equinoxes sold for every Terrain, so you don't have many to choose from. In the end I couldn't justify the extra cos just for the styling.
The winner was a 2015 Chevy Equinox with the the mid-level LT package. 15,116 original miles. Original owner opted for an 8-way power driver seat, remote start and roof rails. It has the same cabin as the Terrain and it's really comfortable for me. Same problem with the 4-cyl being sluggish, but by the end of the test drive I was already getting a feel for the motor's torque curve- I can live with it. The car is absolutely prisitine, and there are 17 months left on the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty. AND, it came in at $600. below my max budget.
I'll be taking delivery sometime next week.