First of all, guys from Enterprise car rentals confirmed that if you book a small car for a weekend and come to pick it up on Friday evening, most likely you will get an SUV or a crossover for the price of a small car, because everybody else prefers to take a car in the morning and by the evening they don't have any sedans. I
Enterprise!This time we had a 2017 Chevrolet Traverse. I drove 670 km in three days, enough to get an opinion. It has 8 seats, big trunk; it is a very big vehicle. I compare it to Nissan Pathfinder, which I had earlier this summer, since it is in the same vehicle class.
"+"
- perfect for a big company, comfortable for long drives
- if back seats aren't used, trunk fits two families' worth of camping gear without blocking a mirror. Even without going over top of the seats.
- Pretty powerful, stable on the road, nice to drive in rural Canada (though loses to Pathfinder - it was with the same 3.6 L engine, but much quicker and sensitive in reaction on gas and brakes, softer in driving); however, the braking was rather rough and slower than I expected it.
- rear window wiper
- gas consumption was about 12L/100km. I think it is not bad for this class of vehicle. Pathfinder was more efficient though
"-"
- This is not a city car. Not needed unless you drop off a hockey team for training on a regular basis.
- Too long, pretty wide. Wouldn't fit on my condo's parking lot, parking is a bit challenging in narrow places with obstacles (in my case I was trying to park it between neighbor's car and a fence without touching any. Hated it. Pathfinder, actually was more flexible or it was shorter)
- Dashboard is not intuitive at all. accidentally pressed rear wiper button by putting down a GPS device, and it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it off. Thanks to the Universe, it was raining and the other drivers didn't think that I was cuckoo. Lights where on the left side, while full beam was on the steering wheel. Turns, wipers and full beam where combined on one switch. The fancy touch screen required learning the manual before using. Couldn't figure out how to manage anything but audio.
- Trunk was big, but it had a gap between the folded back row of seats and the middle row. As a result, if anything rolls down there, finding it is challenging. Extracting things from the back of the trunk is also a stretching exercise. Too long.
- Like in the Pathfinder, blind spots were... blind. Difficult to see if anybody small is hiding there.
- Open doors or trunk started the battery. I was afraid that the battery would die in the forest, because the car was often opened.
So, it is a great car to rent and go camping or travelling long distance. May let you save money and gas by having one big car instead of two small ones. Big "No" for buying it, though. Too much on all dimensions and specs for a daily use of a small family.
No comments:
Post a Comment