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Originally Posted by kurty[B]
Good luck, and send some of your front range snow up to the mountains for us!
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Good God, I wish I could. I suppose getting a bad winter under our belts is a good thing, but this is beyond anything we expected. Yeah, the Nissan is rear wheel drive, and I'm getting pretty good at controlling slides. The Jetta actually does well like you said, it's the ground clearance that bites. She already tore out the oil pan on a chunk of ice in the middle of the road.
Status Report:
We had big plans to go out this past Sunday and get some serious comparisons going, test drives, tire kicking and so on. We had an all-day sitter for Baby Coaster, and plenty of places lined up to see. Of course nobody told us about the Colorado blue laws that force all car dealerships to be closed on Sundays. Whatsupwitdat?
So we ended up going out yesterday WITH the baby (which we knew would limit our time and test drive ability). We hit up Toyota and Nissan...
Toyota... Well we know they are dependable, well liked by owners, and are overall good cars. But we didn't like them, none of them. It was mostly the interriors, they all seemed cramped and would quickly run out of space once the baby seat was in the 2nd row. OK, we did like the Sequoia, but with a base price of $40K, that was more than we want to spend, plus it would be a tight squeeze in the garage. They had a used '01 for about $22K with leather, but it wasn't cleaned up yet. Potential, but I dummo, I didn't really want something THAT big.
Nissan... Accross the board we liked every comparible model of Nissan better than the Toyotas. They all had better interrior space, virtually identical specs, and a lower price. I think I remember these same findings in 2001 when I got my current truck. The Frontier double cab was roomy in the back, but I think Mrs. Coaster has her heart set on an SUV. The Xterra was nice, but just a bit too small. Then we saw the Pathfinder... very impressive. Apparently they really revamped this line in '05, and the changes are all for the better. It doesn't look that big from the outside, but interrior space was nice, even has a 3rd row seats (small, but useable). And it starts about 10,000 less than the Sequoia. They also had a used '06 for 26K, even better. So far the Pathfinder is the frontrunner. I'm going to do some research and see what kind of a deal / real market value we can find on a used '06 or '05.
I hate car shopping, and I refuse to get ripped off. And we still need to look at other models, but at least we already found something we think we like.