Subject: Which Auto is Right for My Family
From: (RobertG1)
Date: 2/12/2004 10:29 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: >

Greetings,

I love autos and this is my first posting to this newsgroup. I'm always
reading Car and Driver, Consumer Reports, and looking at autos on Ebay, Carmax,
and Auto Trader.

Here's my problem: I can't decide which vehicle would be best for my family.
I'm married with 2 children, ages 10 and 14. We went through the minivan stage
for 9 years, owning a Nissan Quest GXE. We got tired of the minivan life and
the van began to costs me quite a bit of money in problems. So, I bought my
wife a 2001 Toyota 4Runner Limited.....loaded with everything. We love this
vehicle and have had no problems with it since we purchased it. However, my
kids are at the age where they're wanting to have friends over to spend the
night, go to the movies, bowling, etc. Well, our 4Runner and my older Explorer
each only seat 5.....so whenever we pick up their friends, we end up having to
take both of our vehicles to the bowling alley, movie theater, etc.

I'm just not sure what to do. Now the kids are asking if they can each take a
friend to the beach this summer! I don't want to drive 2 vehicles to the
beach!

My wife and I recently test drove a seven seater 2002 GMC Yukon Denali with
about 33,000 miles on it. We drove about 2 and a half hours away just to get
to the dealership. We ended up not getting it for several reasons: The
vehicle had quite a few scratches on it inside and out and the fit and finish
inside and out was not even as good as our 4Runner. But the big disappointment
we had with the Denali was the room inside. Now I know it is one of the
biggest SUVs on the road, don't get me wrong. But there was less room behind
the 3rd seat of the Denali than we have in our 4Runner! To take 6 of us to the
beach, we would have had to leave the one-piece bench seat in the 3rd row of
the Denali and be forced to put all of our beach stuff in the back.....which
just wouldn't fit. My wife declared that the Denali did not have enough room
inside for me and her, four kids, and all our beach stuff...so with the
scratches and disappointing inside room, we left the dealership in our 4Runner
instead of the Denali. We usually like to put all our luggage inside the
vehicle we take to the beach. I have never used one of those storage carriers
on top of the vehicle....they never look that secure to me and I don't like the
idea of our stuff being on the roof of the car.

So now we're at a standstill. I'm just considering maybe renting a big
conversion van or something along that line for the beach. It would be a lot
cheaper than trading in my 4Runner and beginning another 5 year loan. Then
Denali was $34,000, plus it was a bigger gas hog than my 4Runner.

Can any of you suggest what might be the right vehicle for my family? I've
been looking at slightly used vehicles...no more than $35,000. Another bad
thing about making the trade with the Denali would have been that the warranty
was only a 3 year/36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty on the Denali, no
powertrain warranty like my 4Runner has.

I am looking forward to your responses and thanks in advance.

Robert in Virginia