Rented a vehicle

[DCIV]

Have a swim meet 3.5 hours from home and didn’t trust the crv to do it all (it’s gotten an odd vibration lately) so I rented a vehicle. It was gonna be a mid size premium, a maxima if I recall correctly, but when I get there they had a suburban sitting next to it. I wanted to do the suburban anyways but they wanted something like 50 more a day to rent it. Well I made the comment to the guy walking me out that I wish I could have gotten it but dang it was expensive. He told me someone canceled on it and he would give it to me at a discount of 30 more bucks total. I said sure.

Holy poop I love this thing. Well it has its downsides, it’s 2wd, and it’s a suburban instead of a Tahoe. I have driven some nice vehicles but this takes the cake. I have always loved weather sensing wipers, so I wasn’t surprised by that. Also have driven things with the lane warnings. But this has some new things like automatic bright lights and vibration to get your attention. It also has the feature to shut down to 4 cyl when not needing 8. I think that could do a better job but I averaged 23mpg and really a lot of the times I was getting more like 26. I am sure if I kept my foot out of it I would have. It made the drive in the dark, rain, and crazy hwy not near as stressful. I was super, super impressed with it. To bad it’s way out of my price range!


Coop

[ChargerX3]

My sister has the smaller Yukon Denali just like the Tahoe. She loves it. Plenty of space and all the creature comforts. They are quite nice.

[DCIV]

It’s a shame in town driving would still be as horrible as gas mileage as most v8’s because on the interstate this thing shines.


Coop

[Jeff V.]

I just can't imagine trying to maneuver that thing in parking lots on a day to day basis. Even something as big as a Tahoe would be a pain.

I see all these guys with these jacked up brodozers and Superduties, and all I can think of is, how the hell do you park that monstrosity?

[Duck Vader]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]I just can't imagine trying to maneuver that thing in parking lots on a day to day basis. Even something as big as a Tahoe would be a pain.

I see all these guys with these jacked up brodozers and Superduties, and all I can think of is, how the hell do you park that monstrosity?

[/quote]

You get used to it.

My first vehicle was a full-size truck. I have owned 3 full size trucks and have driven many others as well. Also used to drive a box truck for work for a bit. It is really not that hard once you get used to the size.

[alienviking]

I disagree on the getting used to it.. I've driven huge vehicles on and off my whole life (pickup trucks, tractors/trailers, full sized trucks.. anything smaller than a semi basically) and maneuvering the Tahoe around in parking garages was still a major pain in the ass. Had to let people out before pulling in and the spots were so narrow that if I wasn't skinny I wouldn't have gotten out.

[stealthee]

Eh, you do tend to get used to it. I drive an F250 for work and yeah it's tight in some spots, you just have to be careful. Our one sales rep drives an extended cab 8' bed F250 and she gets around fine.

[Duck Vader]

[quote=""alienviking""]I disagree on the getting used to it.. I've driven huge vehicles on and off my whole life (pickup trucks, tractors/trailers, full sized trucks.. anything smaller than a semi basically) and maneuvering the Tahoe around in parking garages was still a major pain in the ass. Had to let people out before pulling in and the spots were so narrow that if I wasn't skinny I wouldn't have gotten out.[/quote]

That is why you don't park in spots like that. You drive a big vehicle you park where you can. Such as parking at the end of lots. A lot of parking garages have areas for bigger stuff too. Just have to be smart about it.

That being said, I never had an issue parking in tight spots with my trucks when I had to. Honestly, if it was your daily you would get used to it.

You said you have driven them on/off your whole life, but did you daily them for years? It becomes 2nd nature.

[Jeff V.]

They're just getting so ridiculously large these days. My dad had a 91 GMC 1500 for the longest time. Vira's dad has an old 96 F250. I still wouldn't want to daily drive one, but I'm fine driving something that size. Both of those are smaller than a "mid-size" Colorado now. I'm 5'8" and I can barely see over the hood on a the new 2019 Silverado 1500. The 2020 HDs are going to be gargantuan.

[Chris GTO TT]

You can thank the way they calculate CAFE for that. Somewhere in the 2000s they changed the way they calculated what CAFE standard a vehicle had to hit. They started calculating it based on the vehicle footprint. The larger the footprint the lower the standard they have to hit. The example the article refers to is the change from the 4th gen Explorer (like my old one) to the current 5th gen. The 4th gen was smaller in every way, and was more capable, but if they had stayed in that footprint size it would have meant meeting stricter CAFE standards.

[alienviking]

[quote=""Duck Vader""]That is why you don't park in spots like that. You drive a big vehicle you park where you can. Such as parking at the end of lots. A lot of parking garages have areas for bigger stuff too. Just have to be smart about it.
[/quote]

When you live and drive inside a city you don't always have choices. This was the only place to park the Tahoe (Tempe, AZ for an IronMan) - a big parking garage. Hell the spots at work here are tight (see that with the people driving trucks) and at home the parallel park spots are long but the regular spots are tight. Heck even the CTS at 192" long has been tricky to navigate through some tight parking garages. One in Ohio comes to mind for sure..

And you are kind of making my point for me when you say "when you drive a big vehicle you park where you can". Annoying.

[Chris GTO TT]

Just threw your CTS Wagon in the side by side comparison with my old Explorer and they are basically the exact same size, except for height obviously.

[alienviking]

It is not a small car per say. One of the things I love about it - can get my large bike into the back without taking the wheel off of it.

[ChargerX3]

You get used to it. I’ve been daily driving quad cab trucks 1500 and 2500 sized since 2011 and it’s no biggie now. The standardization of rear view cameras has been welcomed though.

You actually grow to prefer the added size and height over time. I still would take a 1/2 over anything larger though. It’s the perfect size.

[stealthee]

Another perfect example of getting used to it is when I had to drive my Stealth without reverse for almost a year. It didn't take long to adapt to figure out how to get around and get in and out of parking lots without it. I only ever had a problem one time and that was due to going to an unfamiliar place, along with weather adding a level of difficulty.

[Jeff V.]

I could probably get used to driving with just one arm. But that doesn't mean I want to, or that I should.

[ChargerX3]

Not exactly an apples to apples comparison. I guess you wouldnt know until you commit to it for longer than an occasional drive or two. Not saying you will love it as we all have our own flavors but until you try it for an extended period of time you won’t know. Also a similar argument could be made for various sports cars as well.

[DCIV]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]I could probably get used to driving with just one arm. But that doesn't mean I want to, or that I should.[/quote]

Lol. Yeah well I could get use to steering with my teeth! Just sucks everything tastes so bad.


Coop