Month: November 2015

We test drove the 2016 Honda Pilot EX-L, and loved it.

Bought it.

Picked it up Thursday.

Friday we loaded 5 adult humans, 4 collapsible lawn chairs, and Apollo into it and headed off to the dog show for the morning.  Apollo still had room to lay down.  Yup, this’ll do exactly what we wanted and more!  I was sitting in the smaller of the 3rd row seats.  There was enough room, though a longer drive would have left me a bit cramped.

We really wanted one in one of the blue shades they’re offering.  The one that Husband looked at briefly on Saturday was blue and he loved the color.  But when we came back Tuesday for the test drive the blue was gone, and all they had was a black and a couple white ones.  We didn’t want white.  They did a quick search for us but none of the dealerships in the surrounding areas had any blue ones either, and we didn’t want to wait for one to come off the line, so we bought the black one with the black interior.  More than we wanted to spend, especially once taxes etc had been added on.  But not as bad as it could have been.  Plus they gave us more for Husband’s old Nissan than we’d been afraid they would.

My Caliber is a bit closer to the camera, screwing with the perspective, but you can still see the size of the Pilot there.  We put a good 200 miles on it this week, between all the back and forth, and the dog show, and then running Arty up to a Barn Hunt practice.  Averaging 24mpg for those 200, considering that a good portion of that was on city streets I’ll take it.

Husband’s current car is a 10yr old Nissan Sentra.  He got it because prior to this car he and several of his family members had owned Nissan’s and liked them quite a bit.

This car broke that record.  Its been nothing but a massive PIA.  There’s a screwed up sensor that apparently Nissan either can’t or won’t fix.  Every year in order to get his car inspected he has to have them re-set the sensor.  He used to replace the sensor every year, but there was no point.  It would still fail within the year.  And to top it off he’s had to replace bearings on it 5 times.  Now its doing this random, start-never mind not going to start, thing that appears to be related to the sensor again.  Its left him stranded a couple times with a car that won’t start, and replacing the sensor only temporarily fixes it (battery, alternator, fuel pump have all been checked, repeatedly).

In addition the Sentra just isn’t big enough.  Its not big enough to haul Apollo around (he doesn’t fit on the rear bench seat).  Its not big enough to haul materials for projects around the house.  Its just not big enough.

My car is a Dodge Caliber.  Like it quite a bit, though I’d not go so far as to say I love it.  It has some issues.  But in general its almost big enough for what we need.  I can haul Apollo, and even Apollo AND Arty in it as long as I fold down the entire back seat.  I can fit 8′ lengths of lumber in it (though not while the dogs are in it).  I can fit 2 other adults in the back seat comfortably (though not while Apollo is in it).

We made the decision that if we were going to replace the Sentra we wanted something just a bit bigger than the Caliber.  Something we could haul Apollo in, AND at the same time haul a 3rd adult or a small amount of cargo.  In addition we want AWD or 4WD as there have been multiple occasions where Husband has been nearly blown off the road on his way home from work in the winter.

And thats where we got stuck.  We don’t want to go for a full-sized SUV, but Apollo is such a big boy…..he’s 27+” at the shoulder, and if he’s sitting the top of his head hits 36″.  So either there has to be room enough for him to stretch out, with no more than half the rear seat folded down, or the roof has to be high enough to reasonably accommodate him while he’s sitting.

Since Husband is going to be the one doing 90% of the driving of this new car I let him do the initial narrow down of choices without my input.  And then we went down to the big name multi brand dealership in Syracuse to test drive as many as possible.

The 2016 Mazda CX-5 was an awesome car, I’d have bought it in a heartbeat if we were looking for something comparable to the Caliber, but it just wasn’t big enough for what we wanted.  Not enough room for Apollo to sit in the cargo space, and when we folded down the larger half of the back seat the remaining seat was very cramped even for me.

The 2016 Jeep Cherokee was even shorter on space than the CX-5.

2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee (V6) didn’t quite have the gas mileage rating we’d been hoping for and was pushing the upper end of what we were willing to spend, but omg the space!  Husband fell in love on the test drive.

2016 GMC Traverse was borderline on space, and we both disliked it on the test drive.

2016 Kia Sorento had the space, and we took the V4 on a test drive.  Not bad.  Didn’t love it the way we both loved the Grand Cherokee, but not bad.  We might have to go back and test drive the V6.  It’s also quite a bit cheaper than the Grand Cherokee for similar options.

2016 Honda Pilot (the CRV not having enough space) had plenty of space, but we ran out of time to do a test drive.  We’ll be going back to do a test drive this week though.  Pushing back onto the upper end of the budget again.  Especially with the options we’d probably pick.

Choices choices……we have to go back for a test drive on the Honda.  Jeep has a rep for needing constant work.  My SIL is a perfect example of several Jeep owners I’ve talked to who said that they LOVED their Cherokee, but wouldn’t recommend them due to constantly needing work.  I’ve never been a huge Kia fan, though supposedly they’ve been improving over the last 10yrs or so.  Honda of course has an awesome rep, and I’m partial to Hondas having grown up with them.  But the 2016 Pilot is the first year of the new re-design, which means that its more likely to have problems.

*sigh*