I May Be Loyal, But I Finally Gave In!

I wrote awhile ago about the car I drive and the issues it has. This is the car that I've had since I graduate college, and it is long past the decade mark. And some things about it have become a little less reliable, like ohhhh I don't know, starting in warm weather after I've driven it for more than twenty minutes.

I've been under pressure for awhile to get a new car -- primarily from my dad. Because he wants a new car, too, and he wants to cut a deal with me. And he isn't nearly as patient as I am. Give me a moment, the thought of my dad being patient and delaying gratification just reduced me to tears of laughter.

I've been debating between a couple cars. I have an Explorer, and with the wee ones getting into the age of carpooling and my parents living so close and wanting to drive with us, seating more than the four my car currently seats (due to car seats) is pretty critical.

I refuse to do a minivan. I'm just not ready to give up the false sense that I have a tiny modicum of cool left. That leaves a few three row SUVs, primarily the Pilot and Highlander. I already discussed my experience with the Chevy dealer, and that is SO out.

I finally decided on the 2009 Pilot, as they've made a number of improvements over the 2008 model (and Highlander) including dash design, room for storage with the third row up, totally flat storage area with the third row down, etc.

It was sooooo hard to give up the only car I've ever had title to though. I stick with those who've done well by me, and my trusty Explorer has -- for the most part, even though I've sworn to never buy another Ford again in my lifetime (and at the rate the health of the US automakers is going, this may not be an issue!). I almost couldn't make the deal.

Of course, they didn't have the color I wanted. And they really wanted my business. If I agreed to take one of the cars they had on the lot, they'd give me the built out car at the base car price. So I now I have a nimbus grey 2009 Pilot.

Oh, except that they sort of made a mistake. Apparently the 2009s havevn't been around for that long, and the salespeople are used to selling the 2008 models. When they wrote up my invoice, they charged me based on the 2008 invoice and not the 2009 one. Whoops. Needless to say, when my dad went to get that same deal they realized what they'd done and refused. That made me feel a little better!

So look at my beautiful new toy. It had only 8 miles on it (ok, 7.6 for the geeks among us) when I drove it off the lot, which is about 112 fewer than any car I'd ever driven before. So shiny. Smells so good!



The storage area is great. It actually fits my massive water bottle that I take with me everywhere -- my Explorer and my husband's Camry do not. Lots of space for the ummm stuff that accumulates when you have a car that children ride around in.


And check out how nicely it closes all the way, even when I've stocked it (neatly) full of all the necessities, from the Thomas CD for the wee ones to my lotion to paper and pens to nail polish to my coupon folder to umm other stuff.

I love the one handed operation!

And check out the lack of an ugly hole here. Do you see the beautiful armrest with nary a mark or scratchy ugliness to mar my happiness? Nope, me neither!

The only real complaints I have are in the dash, although I generally like it. To change the radio station, the tune button is a round dial. You have to spin it rather than pressing up or down, which is not the easiest (or probably safest) to do while driving. Not that I would ever do that.

Trying to change any of the settings on the stereo or clock there is also not intuitive. You press the menu button, then you pressing the "tuning" button to select something and then turn the tuning button left or right to get to an option and then press the button again to select. My only hope is that by writing this here, it somehow cements in my brain. I get the whole wanting to save space thing while adding new widgets and functionality, but for my brain at least this has gone a little too far.

And the gearshift was a bit to get used to, but I'm ok with it now. That was just more in a totally different place and setup than what I'm used to. I had the same issue with the windshield wipers. The poor people who I accidentally flashed with my brights when trying to clean my windshield. No matter what direction you move that stick in, it will do something. The trick for me is remembering what direction does what action.

The odometer is also more functional than the one I had before. The sad part is that my wee ones will never know the joy of watching the numbers turn slowly slowly and then suddenly you're at a new milestone. This is all digital. In fact, it's all digital enough to tell me (depending on the view I'm using): how many more miles I can go before I run out of gas, the average mpg I've had on the car in sum, the average mpg of the car on the current trip, the percent of oil life left, and obviously miles driven. Underneath this, it shows an instant readout of your mileage. You know, like 10mpg when you're accelerating and up to 50mpg when you're coasting down a hill.

That part is actually my favorite feature of the car, I think. It's a challenge to get and keep the mpg up. You know you're doing ok when the little green eco light shows up on the dash -- this is the light that tells me I'm driving gently and the car only needs four cylinders so it shut the rest down until I need them again, saving me gas. It's quite addictive. And it's nice enough to prove to me that I'm a better driver than my husband because he can't keep the mpg as high as I do. Granted, I've only let him drive my car twice, but for any consultants out there, we all know that two data points is a trend!

As far as the mpg goes, the model I bought is supposed to get 17/22. I'm a bit dubious of this claim. I know that previously the mpg tests were done in empty cars with all the extra gadgets shut off and in perfect conditions so they were always high, and now they've changed it so that they drive in more real life situations, but I'm getting much better mpg than they state. On the surface streets, I'm getting just under 21mpg (20.9 actually). And on the highway, I've gotten it consistently to right around 25mpg.

Trust me, I'm not complaining about this at all. I just think it's interesting how off this is. I'm also thinking about getting a Vornado or whatever it's called to put in my car somewhere that's one of the few mileage increasing devices that's actually been shown to work. For $40, I figure it can't hurt. Of course, first I have to go to a car store and find one and buy it and then convince someone to install it for me, but it'll happen eventually!

I have yet to mention that it also came with a 90 day free trial of XM Radio. Yeah, they try to sucker people into buying yet another ($13) monthly subscription that they don't need. And umm yes, my dad's already extended his agreement. Me, I'm still not so sure. While I'm going to take full advantage of the trial, I don't know that I spend enough time in the car to justify it, nor are there enough things that I can get only on XM.

The middle seat also earns kudos from me. It's actually comfortably roomy. And the 60/40 split seat moves forward and back to give more or less room to those in the second and/or third row. What an idea!

And the armrest goes fully down with cupholders for the days when the wee ones are out of carseats and arguing over how Little Miss is putting her hand in Mister Man's space and so forth. Not that I ever did anything like that with my sister or anything. (""Mom, make her leave me alone!" "I'm not touching her, see! She's making it up!" And it's possible that my hand was about an eighth of an inch from her face at that point. Only possible.)

So the back is pretty cool. You can see how much room I have with the third row down. It's actually more room than my Explorer had (and the car is slightly longer and wider than my old one, too).

Plus, you can see that the middle seat has a full seatbelt vs just a lapbelt, which I love. The third row has the same seatbelt, but I don't have it down right now. When you don't want that seatbelt, it actually stores in the ceiling. Way cool!

Under the storage area behind the third row seats, I have a cool nice wide storage area that opens up. It's a great place for me to put my uncommonly needed essentials like winter gear and emergency devices. That netting also hooks horizontally to better hold things in and down and I think I'm gushing. Do I have a crush on my car?!


Putting up the third row is truly a one hand operation. Grab the handle and pull up. It locks into place easily! Putting it down means pulling the same handle and pushing the seat down. I could do this with a baby on my hip (not that any babies are on the horizon!).

And seriously, check out how much room I still have with the third row up! My sister actually sat in the third row. To get in, we put up one of the seats, and she clambered through the back to get there. But the second row leans forward and slides up to provide easy access to the third row via the more traditional route.

It's hard to really get a good picture of the third row from the side, but this gives you a little bit of an idea of how much room there is. This is with both the second rows all the way back, so more room is possible. And yes, my 5'4" sister very comfortably sat back here.

All in all, I'm happy with my new car. But I do miss my old one, just for its familiarity. And I realized that my next door neighbor and another really good friend of mine both have identically colored Pilots. At least they're all different model years!

Can Someone Just Choose For Me?

My car turned 11 years old today. Well, at least 11 years old in my ownership of it (and I’m the only owner). I’m still calling this its birthday though. It’s seen a lot of history with me, and a couple of minor incidents.

It’s an Explorer, and to be honest I hate Fords at this point and am not likely to buy American (or at least Ford) again given the quality issues I’ve had with this car (and my previous Explorer – which says a lot for me being a slow learner, right?)

For as many issues as it’s had over the years – the most recent being a mysterious unwillingness to start again if I’ve driven awhile in hot weather, stop the car and restart it in under twenty minutes. Given that this last issue cropped up last summer, you’d think that I would have replaced it before now. Knock on wood, I haven’t had this issue yet this summer.

I haven’t replaced it yet though for several reasons. The first is that I tend to be a bit ummm frugal, shall we say. I hate spending money on things like this, and a car is a huge money pit of a depreciating asset. More importantly, I couldn’t decide what to replace my Explorer with.

Part of the debate was sedan vs SUV (minivan isn’t a consideration – I just can’t bring myself to buy one). Gas mileage alone, sedan all the way and hopefully hybrid. However, I have two small children and am already starting to need to carpool. Plus, when my family goes somewhere with my parents (which we do frequently since they live 15 minutes away), we always take two cars because 6 people don’t fit into any of our cars.

I did finally decide SUV is the way to go, but I continue to have the dilemma of what to buy. There isn’t a car that jumps out at me shouting BUY ME! Many marketers will be crushed to hear that, I’m sure. I definitely don’t want a car any bigger than my 1997 Explorer (the current Explorer is already a bit bigger), but I also want a third row.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read my blog for more than a couple weeks, but my dad has decided that he’s going to get a new car after the breakdown he had on Wednesday (fuel pump went on his 12 year old 150K mile Yukon). So yesterday, we went car shopping together.

The first dealership we went to was a Chevy dealership to look at the Tahoe hybrid. Ray greeted us, and internally I groaned. I hate to stereotype, but Ray lived up to it in the end. He was a quite elderly, slightly unkempt looking man in a non-matching plaid collared shirt and pants.

We asked about the Tahoe, and luckily there was one on the showroom floor. As we asked what the third row seating looked like folded down, he tried to describe it until we asked him to actually show us with the car sitting in front of him. He walked around to the back but couldn’t get the tailgate to lift – entertainingly, he did the “Hey, watch this; it’s really cool!” – because the battery was dead in the car. Hmm. “Well, I suppose if you really want to see it I can find a car on the lot and bring it around for you to look at.” Uhhh yeah, actually we were hoping to do a test drive, so please bring a car around, thanks.

Ray then disappeared for the next 15 minutes. Had I not been with my dad, I would have been out of the dealership well before he finally walked back to us. My dad, however, really wanted that test drive, so he hung out in the driver’s seat of the non-functioning showroom car looking around the interior.

Ray’s expression wasn’t too promising, and well… neither of the two hybrid Tahoes he had on the lot were functioning. They both had dead batteries, too. Apparently it had been awhile since anyone had expressed any interest in driving them. He was going to have someone jump them though. Comforting.

We finally got into a car that was running, and my dad noticed that the gas gauge was on empty. Ray then went back into the dealership to get a voucher for gas. Apparently either changing to the other car that was now also running wasn’t an option or it’s normal for cars on the lot to not have gas. We drove to the gas station, and I won the bet with my dad. I chose the under on his line of 5 gallons. Yep, 4.65 gallons – just under $20 – went into the tank. My confidence in the dealership continued to plummet – the two-thirds empty lot for a brand whose fortunes are down (along with the caliber of salespeople still there) makes me wonder how long the dealership will remain afloat.

As we drove down a side street, I commented that I had not seen a certain neighborhood before but that the houses were really cute. My dad explained that they were actually Habitat for Humanity houses, which was pretty cool. Then Ray piped up from the back seat that nope, they weren’t Habitat, they were built in 2000, they were like townhomes but with no wall sharing, they have full basements, the neighbors are all really nice, etc etc. In case you can’t guess, Ray himself lives in that not-Habitat neighborhood. My poor dad.

Unfortunately, the Tahoe wasn’t even an option. The seats didn’t even come close to folding flat in the third row (a need for Costco trips!), it was really hard to get into the third row, etc etc.

We then moved on to the Honda dealership a mile or so away. There, we were greeted by someone opening the door and welcoming us. All the employees wore smart looking matching outfits. Dustin was able to answer questions we had about the Pilot (unlike poor Ray). He could walk through all the features on the various levels of the Pilot, plus the differences between the 2008 and 2009 models.

He quickly brought around a 2009 for us to drive and kept us up to date with everything he was doing, so we never wondered where he was or what he was doing while we were patiently twiddling our thumbs. That alone earns Honda some points in my book. Plus, the Pilot is a far superior car in my book.

It’s a much more comfortable drive – the Tahoe really was too big for me. The cupholders and storage areas are intelligently designed vs just dumping space together. Lots and lots of clever little things within the car, including my dad’s favorite feature, the backup camera mounted in the rearview mirror. On a lark, I’d stopped by the Toyota dealer about a month ago and test driven the Highlander and been perfectly content with it. But it’s hard-pressed to compare with the Pilot in terms of intelligent features.

We then proceeded to the Toyota dealership, where the intelligent and put together guy I briefly spoke with at my previous test drive was not around. Instead, Raymond helped us out. What is it about people named Raymond? He was very similar to Ray from the Chevy dealership in both looks and attitude. Actually, his attitude was worse than Ray’s.

We did finally get a hybrid Highlander to test drive, but unfortunately he knew nothing about the car. C’mon the 2009 Pilot has been out a few weeks and Dustin can recite everything it has and all the changes from 2008. The Highlander has been out since October of last year, and Raymond couldn’t answer half the questions we asked him (and they weren’t hard – things like does the third row support LATCH? Not a good sign when he’s never heard of LATCH).

Raymond never tried to sell us on the car. There was no reason in his mind why we should purchase this over anything else. In fact, he walked away from us twice to go talk to his buddies when we were looking at the car before driving it. And when we finished the test drive, he went inside and basically shook our hands and that was it. Truthfully, if I do go with a Highlander, I will be sure to not deal with Raymond as I don't want him to get any commission off me for his poor performance. And my dad, who's generally far more patient than I am, feels the same way.

Anyway, we drove the Highlander hybrid, as well, and we were definitely not as impressed. The storage space wasn’t as intelligently designed as the Pilot, nor was there as much of it. The backup camera was in the center console vs rearview mirror, which meant my dad couldn’t see it for the glare of the sun when he was driving. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable inside, and the seats don’t fold as flat. Plus, it is more narrow inside, so the middle seat of the middle row is literally about 5 inches wide and not really a feasible seat.

However, it isn’t a bad car. Plus, it gets 25/27MPG vs 17/23 for the Pilot. Given the state of the economy and me already feeling bad that I’m going to get another SUV vs a smaller car, I’d tend to go for the higher mileage. But the hybrids still aren’t even close to perfected. If I keep the car for say 6 years instead of 10 plus and get the much improved hybrid then, maybe that’s the smarter move. Plus, I already get more than the stated mileage on my Explorer because of the way I drive (my insurance company loves me), which means that I’d be closer to the 20s than high teens with the Pilot. And it’s a much better car.

Then, there’s the price differential. The hybrid is priced a whole lot higher than the Pilot, and I’m not sure I can justify the increased cost, although I’ll be creating a spreadsheet on the breakeven under a number of scenarios within the next few days. And the way Toyota does their features, I tend to end up with a package that has things I really don’t want (e.g., DVD player) to get things I sort of want (e.g., navigation system or other minor upgrades). That drives the price up even more.

When talking to my dad today, he’s definitely going with the Pilot. And he’ll probably buy one sometime next week, knowing him. I don’t know that I’m quite that ready to pull the trigger this quickly, but he doesn’t have quite the same issues given that he’s retired and puts fewer than 6,000 miles on a car annually. Oh yeah, and do I really want the same car my dad has? Sorta weird, no?

I do know that I need to replace my car somewhat soon. I really don’t want to get stuck somewhere with the wee ones (or needing to get to the wee ones). But I’m still not sure. Anyone have any experience positive or negative with any of these? Or for that matter, any tips on how to ensure I get the best deal?