|
What happens when your tow vehicle ends
up becoming the family carrier?
9/14/2011:
I'm getting a bit tired of being the family hauler and not doing
much towing. I bought a 3500 Ram Dually for towing a car trailer
and we aren't doing much towing lately. However, it's funny driving
up to the kids school to pick up the them up in this massive beast
of a truck. Puts to shame the minivan soccer moms.
11/23/2011:
We got a wild hair and went and drove a Tahoe, Silverado 1500
and then an Avalanche. Loved the ride on the Tahoe and the Silverado
isn't bad. It drives like a truck, well duh shouldn't we expect
that! The steering is better than the old trucks I've had in the
past and current Silverado is much improved. However, the Avalanche
drives like the Tahoe, which is more car like and it does have
a bed. Hmmmm, best of both worlds?
The Avalanche is more refined than a Silverado. No offense I've
owned 2 Silverado's and a S10 and I've felt the quality could
have been better in the new Silverado. The dash remined me of
the 1997 model. The Avalanche has center console with bucket seats
instead of a bench. I didn't like the narrow opening to the 2nd
row of seats in the crew cab Silverado. Seriously, you need a
dainty foot to get it in there. If wearing work boots your going
scraping dirt off on something. Maybe I'm just spoiled with the
Mega Cab on the Dodge? The Avalanche seemed to have better egress
than Silverado, which is odd considering it's the same cab and
doors. I'm guessing on the crew cab it has a larger rear seat
and that eats up opening.
It's got the locking side storage just like the new Ram's option.
It had leather seats, but you have to step up to the LTZ to get
them heated. The covered bed area can be converted to 8 ft worth
of bed or the 5.3 ft of covered area. Option the 4WD and you have
a great hunting truck.
We had been at the dealer for about 3 hours and dinner was calling
our name. So we bid ado to our salesman and went off to eat and
discuss.
11/26/2011:
Well, being a Dodge guy of late I wanted to go drive a new Durango.
Ok, yes it's an SUV and all that, but I really liked the way it
looked. Maybe I'm getting liberal in my maturity. I've always
felt that what's called an SUV was for the most part a macho version
of a minivan, so dads would not be ashamed to drive it. SUV (Sport
= Athelitic, Utility = Versitile, Vehicle = Transportation) an
SUV is 4WD and goes anywhere, does anything and anything else
is a pavement crawling immitation of a tall station wagon. Jeeps,
FJs, Land Rovers, or anything with a decent locking differential
are true SUV's.
It seems though these days there are two types of SUV. One for
adventure and one of life. One that takes you places and one that
gets you through life with minimal fuss. I've got an adventure
SUV, maybe I need one for life.
Now it seems I'm well rewarded for my curiousity. I would put
the new Durango on a comfort level to that of a LTZ Tahoe. It's
smaller with a tighter body than the Tahoe, as compared with a
Olympic swimmer to a weight lifter. I drove the R/T, which suspension
wise is more like a sports car. I dearly miss having a sports
car, but I'm not to have my mid life crisis yet. It's firm suspension
and reminds me of a BMW X5 and that's is what I believe Dodge
wanted. It's every bit as good and 10K cheaper and less pretentious.
It's got loads of power thanks to the 5.7L HEMI and handles sportier
than any SUV or Truck I've driven recently. Very impressive.
Pricing though is where they vary. The Avalanche has leather
and it's a Texas Edition of the truck. The Durango is an R/T with
a full leather upgrade and navigation. The Avalanche starts at
$42,242.00, with discount to $39,376.60 add in a $5000.00 rebate
and comes out at $34376.60. The Durango is $39,305.00 with
a discount to $36,995.00 add in a $1000.00 rebate, so we're at
$35995.00.
(Side note about the dealer experience)
Now the strange thing is I went into Grapevine Dodge, before researching
the pricing tonight and sales manager writes down $40,000.00 and
I let them work it out to see if they can get me in it for roughly
$525.00 a month. They inspect my trade, which is the 2008 Ram
3500 6.7L Laraime Mega Cab Dually and it's a no go. He doesn't
put it to a hard figure, but suggests a payment of $649.00.
Now, I found out what they were offering as trade on the Ram,
but before I go there, let me digress. I can go to Dodge's website
with their payment calculator and at $38,325.00 which is close
enough for this. 0 for a down payment and 0 for a trade inat a
3.34% rate and 72 months, which is what I've been working off
of the payment is $596.00. Now this is all warned as an estimate
through the Dodge's website, but seriously why was the dealer
so high. I know they didn't spell out nothing and they were just
throwing figures to get me hooked. One of the major things I found
after the fact, was that they were only going to give me $22,000.00
for the trade in on my truck, which is $5K less than what is owned.
Are you serious? I could sell it for $28K any day of the week.
Ah, so disppointed by the sharks.
If they had called the truck a wash and we started at the $35,995.00
then we could have come in around $535.00 at month in payments
and I would have jumped on that like a stripper on a $100.00 bill,
as is they tried to take me on the trade in.
Anyway, I'm going to pursue things further. Maybe it's time for
a "For Sale" sign on the big beasty. Definitly going
to have to go back and drive an Avalanche again. Maybe tomorrow,
so I can compare it to the Durango while fresh in my mind.
| 
