I enjoyed yet another excellent year of popular culture and the arts at Comic Con International. All the details of this year's trip can be found in the comic book section of bugimus.com
One of the things I wanted to highlight here in the BugLOG is what happened on the way back from the convention and the following weekend.
I took Friday and Monday off to have a nice four day weekend with the family. Kuya Eps has access to Camp Pendleton recreational facilities and he invited us to camp with his family on the beach.
We got up early Friday morning to pack up our 1999 Honda CR-V full of gear. Our setup is complete with a Yakima storage container on the roof rack. We were in no huge rush because we could show up at the camp site anytime during the afternoon. The only thing driving the schedule was the desire to get down to Mossy Chevrolet in Encinitas. Wella and I had been considering the purchase of a new vehicle and the Chevy Tahoe was looking very attractive to our needs.
I had set up an appointment for a test drive around noon, but we ended up showing up around 1:30PM. Of course the dealer was happy to see the potential customers regardless of the hour. The fact that we decided to test drive a car so far from home calls for a bit of explanation.
On the way back from Comic Con 2005 I stopped at the Del Taco off the Encinitas exit for a bite to eat. In fact, this has become a con tradition for me actually. So as I was eating I realized I was right next to a lot full of Chevy Tahoes and GMC Yukons. I decided to check them out first hand, took a test drive and really liked them. I figured we could possibly afford a GMC certified used vehicle which would get us into the $20-30K range. This all took place one weekend prior.
Wella hopped into a used blue Tahoe with the 5.3L V8 engine and she drove it like she had owned it forever. She loved it just as I had the week before. This vehicle had all the features we were interested in. I wanted the 4x4 V8 for camping and towing capabilities and Wella wanted it to hold lots of passengers and easily convert to hold a lot of cargo, specifically flowers for her business. Well, this Tahoe’s features met each of these requirements.
Of course the dealer knew that this truck was really feeling good to us so they weren’t about to let us out of there without trying their best to squeeze us into one. I didn’t really mind because I wanted them to run the numbers to see if we could afford one of these bad boys. They didn’t have any used models on the lot that matched all our preferences, i.e. cloth seating and color. So they pulled up a new one. Now at fist I thought that was out of the question until I saw what the GM Employee Discount sale did to the sticker price (MSRP). It knocked a full $10K off the top of the price and there was an additional $3K rebate to boot. We found ourselves looking at a brand new dark gray metallic 2005 5.3L V8 4x4 Chevy Tahoe with gray cloth interior for $28K! This was the same price range we had hoped for the used vehicles.
Wow, it sure looked good but then I began to consider what we would do if we said “we’ll take it”. How could we get all our camping gear transferred and still get to the camp site before sundown? Even if we figured out how to do that, how were we going to transfer over the Yakima container?
To make a long story short, I held out for the numbers Wella and I had agreed, the salespeople we were working with volunteered to help us pack our camping gear, and we drove out of the dealership in our brand new gas guzzling SUV about a half hour before sundown.
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A month after owning the vehicle, a cousin asked us about what we thought about it. I wrote up this response on August 29, 2005:
Jem,
We didn’t buy a GMC Yukon but rather a Chevy Tahoe. From everything I can tell they are virtually the same the vehicle. One guy told me the Yukon is made with better quality in the sense that there are less rattles and small things like that, but the reliability of both vehicles gets very high marks on the consumer reports websites.
Actually, I’m not the type to do intense research before buying something like this but I do think about it for a long time. What I mean is that from an outside observer our purchase would look very impulsive.
In fact, I’ve had my eye on the Tahoe/Yukon for about a year. Wella began talking about needing more passenger space and I was getting tired of the little CRV with its little engine on the highway. I also wanted something that was going to handle heavier loads without the backend sagging to the pavement.
We got the 5.3 L V8 4x4 version. There is a smaller engine available and of course the non 4x4 too. If we were going to get a vehicle like this I wanted to make sure to get one that was as capable on and off the highway as I could. Of course, the 4x4 and larger engine bring down the mileage a bit but we’re prepared to handle that extra hit in spite of the rising gas prices. In the city we are getting about 14 mpg and the highway looks to be about 17 mpg. Not too bad for an SUV of this size.
We absolutely love the way it drives! It is very smooth and the big engine feels so nice as it chugs away. We just got back from a 2 week road trip and this thing took the hills like there was no hill at all. I could set the cruise control and the speedometer needle just stayed right where I set it regardless of incline. Very nice!
Wella has noticed that her back doesn’t get sore after driving this around for a full day. She used to have that problem with the CRV. You may be wondering how Wella can drive it at all given her height challenge shall we say? LOL! Anyway the 2005 models come with adjustable pedal position to allow shorter drivers to reach them. Without that feature she wouldn’t have been able to drive it comfortably.
We got the optional 3rd row seating with is very nice too. The 3rd row seats come out fully or they can be folded up and relatively out of the way for cargo. When the seats come our fully then the 2nd row can be set all the way down flat which is really good for a full load of cargo. This thing actually has seat belts for 9 people; 3, 3, 3. The 3rd row seats will accommodate medium size people but you’re not going to get giants back there. Those are usually for kids anyway.
Are there any cons? Well, I suppose the gas mileage is a con but SUV mileage is what it is. The interior styling and materials is typically American. It looks very “trucky” and the materials could be of higher quality to be sure. We got the cloth seating mainly because don’t like leather seats regardless of the vehicle. I noticed on our road trip that when we really gunned the engine up a hill, I smelled a bit of engine smell in the cabin which I thought was odd but it was very minor. I really can’t say much else bad about it thus far and I hope it stays that way.
So as long as you are in a mind set of driving a “truck” as opposed to a big luxury “car”, this thing feels really good. And one could always get the high end interior version with the leather and all the bells and whistles.
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