I think my mother has one of these, except a year or two older. Looks the same. She bought it as her "final car", and given the fact she's likely to live for a few more decades, God willing, I just hope it lasts that long. Not holding my breath however.
The reason I upgraded from a Focus ST to a Mustang GT was boost. Specifically, the lack of it. and that applies to the Terrain here.
My ST sprung a coolant leak and had apparently fatally overheated & blew the head gasket by the time Limp Mode kicked in. The boost from the turbo just made everything worse. No more turbos for me - next time, NA engine. I figured I needed a reliable way to work and had been eyeing an S550 for years, so no time like the present. So now that I have what for me is a perfect car and a way to work, what about the ST? And here's where modern engines faceplant. I blame CAFE.
Bottom line, I have an engine that can't be fixed economically, because of progress. Apparently, a 2.0L Ecoboost is indestructible unless you overheat it, at which point you have to check the head for cracking (!) before you mill it, and you might have to deck the block (!!) AND you have to replace a bunch of one-and-done plastic parts & TTY bolts (!!!). Of course, it'd have to machined for an MLS head gasket.
So the ST is getting an eBay long block, then it's getting sold because it costs more to FIX the engine than to REPLACE it. There's something enormously perverse about that.
These Terrains will have the same problem 150,000 miles out. And THEIR engines won't be worth fixing either.
Incubus wrote at least one song about our disposable, single-use world. It's sad and I dislike it, but I might also be guilty of perpetuating it with my purchases....
The early turbo cars were off limits to the bean counters because no one had a good handle on how durable they actually were, and they were going into critical cars for their companies, either halo cars like the last gen Rx-7 or critical cars like the first gen A4.
Now they know how durable they are, so they cut corners with those as they have with other areas. The endless death march of ever-increasing .gov MPG standards doesn't help. I wouldn't buy a new turbo car for any money.
Sorry to correct you, but the 2.0 in my Escape croaked without overheating. The service rep said it was bad casting that led to the coolant leak. It’s a known issue if you look at the forums, but not one Ford is advertising. It was bad enough that the parts to fix it were in back order when it happened to mine. Got it fixed and immediately traded it away.
What happened was that somebody clocked the hose clamp on the intake duct so that it was pressed up against the oil cooler and wore a hole in it. Created a pinhole leak that I didn't notice until I had almost no throttle response.
Why is the window behind the c pillar like that? It is such a weird styling choice. Is it supposed to be sporty? It can't be, not on this car. Is it supposed to look futuristic like those cars in Total Recall or Minority Report or something? I'm not sure it accomplishes that, either.
Good for GM for figuring out how to build a nicer car than Toyota. I'm still not interested, though. It seems like it might be a Pyrrhic victory in the end.
The only running joke inside GM is that people self-aware enough to get that joke could stand to work there. My two favorite examples of 'getting it right too late' are the Fiero and the '90s Impala SS, both perfected just in time to be able to hold their heads high for the hangman.
The Fiero was killed by the Corvette division. They were going to release it with a turbo. All the software was already in the motor. Suddenly you'd have a car that could outperform a corvette for half the price.
It got shut down as soon as they found out about it.
That's insanity....on the part of the people behind the Fiero. They had to know that the project would be killed if they so much as whispered they were thinking about an idea like that.
They'd been thinking about it when they put the v6 in. I had one (bought it used) back in the 2000's. It didn't take all that much work to make it handle better than most vett's did. I knew people who were putting turbo-charged 3800's in them. Mine had a 3.8 v-6 (I forget what it came out of) and a 4 spd overdrive transmission and a 100shot of nitrous. It was very fast.
That's not it, though. The area where the roof and side panel touch is at the edge of the roof. They are welded together there, and that transition is covered with a long piece of rubber or plastic moulding on plebeian vehicles that spans along that join. You will typically only see that transition smoothed out on exotic brands (Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, etc).
The funky quarter panel shape was really a stylistic choice on GM's part. That said, it might save money because sheet metal and plastic trim are cheaper than automotive-grade glass, so the smaller they can make the actual glass area, the more they can save. They are also hiding the fact that the actual widow opening there is small. It has very thick C- and D-pillars, which help with rollover crash safety.
Yes It was dated in 2015. That's why I replaced all that plasti-chrome in my SS with the black dash components sourced from Australia.
Unfortunately the parts bin from AU was not deep enough to sufficiently remove the ugly from the SS, and despite it's lovely engine and manual transmission, I traded it in.
My mother gets a company leased car about every year and a half. When she started with this particular Danish pharmaceutical firm in 2009, the options were plentiful and primarily European: Volvo S60, Audi A4, Mercedes C Class. She had an A4 and C Class, and then a string of Subaru Outbacks. By 2019, the company had grown, and their company car choices had inversely shrunk: the Rogue and Equinox were the two choices, so she had a Rogue for a minute. Now, it’s a loaded Equinox or mid level RAV4 Hybrid. She chose the Toyota, for a few reasons: it got better safety scores, better fuel economy, and she still had a bad memory from an unreliable Impala she drove at a different company (she had it for two years, yet I remember the Avis Jeep Liberty more). I think she loathes the Toyota: it makes odd noises, is jumpy, has dated tech, and uncomfortable seats. It gets great fuel economy, but for its price is pretty dreadful.
I had to drive the Boxster home to put it up in my parents’ garage for the winter, and my mom came up to drive my A4 home so I’d have two cars over break. 2.5 hours in the Audi made her loathe the Toyota even more. Doubt she’ll ever get another one.
The Boxster has a ripped up back window, and tires that won’t hold air. Needed the Audi to drive around, and couldn’t keep the Boxster in my driveway during snow season.
Please take good care of the Boxster! A Car Capsule (with a blower) is a very inexpensive investment, although some people say that the fully sealed kind works better (you put some Damp Rid or similar inside it...just not where the resulting HIGHLY CORROSIVE BRINE could leak on anything)
Its new tires are hanging around Jack’s barn, plus a set of contis on order. I’ll get to the top come spring, probably needs replaced but I’m going to attempt a sew job on a glass window, dealer thought it was possible and has a vendor for that. For now it has some sta-bil in it and the battery on a tender while it’s in the garage.
Also on the list: brakes, a roll bar, new headlights, and power steering fluid change. Going to attempt a few track days this year; it might eat into the R8 budget, but I’m not sure I really care.
There's plenty of reasons to be cynical about this thing, but "the Rav4 will last twice as long" is a pretty weak sauce, journosaur assessment. Even if it's still true.
I wouldn't buy one of these, but I'd gladly give up half the life expectancy to own something that doesn't make me want to kill myself. And 300k miles of Rav4 ownership sounds like a fate worse than death. At least with this you get to ride around in something that feels like at least somebody tried a bit.
Mind you, I wouldn't bother to make that comment or point in a 488 vs. 720 test... even though the Ferrari WILL last longer. I think this is a market segment where longevity is crucial. Even if you don't keep the car. It affects your financial position at the end of it. One could argue that the true costs of the Terrain are much closer to a Highlander or even an RX300 than they are to a RAV4. And at that point what choice do you make?
Maybe just wishful thinking on my part, but depending on how it's driven, and depending on how it's maintained, the GMC should be good for 250k miles without much trouble. My GM service advisor didn't have much faith in the oil change light. He says the worst problem is that a lot of the modern engines will burn oil, and folks don't check anymore, so they literally run very, sometimes damaging low. Good oil. Regular changes. Change all the other fluids too.
I'm on the inside driving it. The outside is your problem. You bring up nothing but the fact you don't like the RAV4. Which is fine. Sales say different. And I mean sales all over the world. That puts you in the minority. BTW, I've never owned a Toyota.
First, I appreciate your “Little Boxes” reference. I cannot imagine what would compel someone to pay ridiculous money for one of those thrown-together tract houses that looks identical to the ones around it, just because it’s new-construction. And they’re *so* close to each other. I don’t get it.
I think that a lot of Toyota products’ main draw *is* in their perceived reliability. A lot of what they make is actually woefully uncompetitive on paper, but it’s styled well and should last. The problem comes when they turn out to be not-so-reliable, which happens more often than people would have you believe. The gen. 3 (2010-2015) Toyota Prius is prone to rampant EGR and head gasket issues, and the 2.4-liter of the late 2000s (*including* the RAV4) burns a ton of oil at higher mileages, just as a couple of examples. To say nothing of the gen. 4 Lexus LS 460/600h (2007-2017), which seems every bit as expensive to own as its German brethren.
Unfortunately, those cars still command high resale prices, because people don’t know that. And so they represent dubious value, especially when they get old. It’s the Toyota Tax.
I have personally flirted with the idea of buying a later (2016+) Toyota Land Cruiser or LX 570. They’re well-styled, extremely capable, comfortable, and they actually fit in my short-ass garage. But I have a hard time justifying something that gets 12 MPG on a good day, is slow and underpowered, has suboptimal rear cabin space and a useless third row due to the solid rear axle and tall floor, and has primitive safety tech. And the 5.7 V8 isn’t exactly bulletproof, either. It’s prone to oil leaks, due to Toyota’s inexplicable decision to make the heads a three-part assembly, including a “cam tower” that is mated to the other two parts with RTV sealant.
The only reason to get one of either is that the resale value is insane, and so I could sell it for about what I paid if I began to get irritated with it. It’d be a low-risk experiment.
As for the Terrain, specifically: what’s really interesting is the Buick Envision, which is nicer than the Terrain. It sits on what is technically the midsize platform, shared with the Malibu and discontinued Insignia/Regal/Commodore, and is itself closest to the Cadillac XT4. Since the MSRP of the Envision Avenir can comfortably crest $45,000...it almost sits in an entry-level-lux category, along with the (soon to be discontinued) Toyota Venza and Mazda CX-50. I think the Envision only makes sense if you can get it for $6,000 off of MSRP or more. Either way, it, just like the other GM compact crossovers, will drop in value like a rock.
Interesting that the Envision is now on Epsilon. It seems like D-segment crossovers are dying out. The Edge, Murano, and Cherokee are either dead or have one foot in the grave. The manufacturers have decided to stretch their C-Segment platforms to the limit and eliminate any remaining quirky utilitarianism that you used to get from the Rav4/CR-V/Forester etc in favor of plastic luxuriousness.
I think the Edge and Murano came from the vestigial tails of people expecting a crossover to be a sodden lump of metal based on their ownership of Explorers and S10 Blazers.
More like the MKX, which was the Lincoln version. But sort of. But there were a lot of midsize 5-seat SUVs at that point; it was a common format. They just changed the construction from being longitude-RWD and body-on-frame to transverse-FWD and unibody.
Yes... but it DROVE like each wheel weighed 200 pounds. Never has a vehicle felt less light on its feet. And I always believed that Ford did that so people coming from 4500 pound body on frame trucks didn't think they were trading down.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that may well have been the case. I drove a CD3 Edge once, but it was a long time ago. I don't remember much about it.
My time with a CD4 crossover, specifically a 2016 MKX, was more extended, as I received it as an insurance rental. I mostly just remember thinking the interior felt inexcusably cheap for what it cost. Lincoln has far better interiors than it did several years ago.
I had a set of prototype Eibach springs sent to us for an 07 Edge when they first came out and I was working for an R&D place. It required a good bit of toe adjustment in the rear afterwards. Stuck a 9” wheel under it with a little fatter and more aggressive tire; better pads.
Subtle changes that made a huge transformation to the vehicle. We actually wound up trying to pitch it as a Police package. I’ve still some pretty cool renderings of it all dressed along with the files to cut the vinyl work.
I had a 2016 or 17 Edge ST as a rental when they were fixing my Escape. That was as entertaining as any SUV I’ve ever driven. It had good features and tech, too. I also had no faith whatsoever that everything would still function at 100k miles.
I stopped renting Edge based Explorers back in the day because of how ponderous they were. It seemed like they had the turning radius of a Great Lakes ore freighter in parking lots.
And the current Audi Q5 is an RX for people convinced Lexuses are for retirees and H1Bs. This would be my father. Car and driver’s description of it as a “dinner roll on wheels” is pretty apt. I don’t mind it, though.
The first two generations of Explorer should have been very lively experiences, considering that people back then seemed to lack the understanding for how poorly behaved a narrow, short-wheelbase, solid-rear-axle SUV drove and so treated them like Taurus Wagons. To say nothing of the Firestone debacle. It had to have been *very* lively when Mommy or Daddy got the family truckster on two wheels trying to get to soccer practice.
The Edge and Murano were much more forgiving and thus easier to drive. We actually had a Murano when I was a teenager and I learned to drive in it.
I wouldn't necessarily say China hates us. It's just that they have zero guilt about making the rope with which we are hanging ourselves, because we're the ones who gifted them the equipment with which they made it.
Eight-speed manual in that RAV4? Be still my heart!
Beat me to it!
It's the return of the Twin Stick!
Or maybe it's just the aforementioned laptop that can't keep up with typing.
Wasn’t that transmission in the colt?
One of my friends had one of these! I believe it was 1982.
I had one. Bought it from my brother in law. Nice little commuter car. Had a hard to solve electrical problem that turned out to be the engine ground.
I think my mother has one of these, except a year or two older. Looks the same. She bought it as her "final car", and given the fact she's likely to live for a few more decades, God willing, I just hope it lasts that long. Not holding my breath however.
The reason I upgraded from a Focus ST to a Mustang GT was boost. Specifically, the lack of it. and that applies to the Terrain here.
My ST sprung a coolant leak and had apparently fatally overheated & blew the head gasket by the time Limp Mode kicked in. The boost from the turbo just made everything worse. No more turbos for me - next time, NA engine. I figured I needed a reliable way to work and had been eyeing an S550 for years, so no time like the present. So now that I have what for me is a perfect car and a way to work, what about the ST? And here's where modern engines faceplant. I blame CAFE.
Bottom line, I have an engine that can't be fixed economically, because of progress. Apparently, a 2.0L Ecoboost is indestructible unless you overheat it, at which point you have to check the head for cracking (!) before you mill it, and you might have to deck the block (!!) AND you have to replace a bunch of one-and-done plastic parts & TTY bolts (!!!). Of course, it'd have to machined for an MLS head gasket.
So the ST is getting an eBay long block, then it's getting sold because it costs more to FIX the engine than to REPLACE it. There's something enormously perverse about that.
These Terrains will have the same problem 150,000 miles out. And THEIR engines won't be worth fixing either.
Incubus wrote at least one song about our disposable, single-use world. It's sad and I dislike it, but I might also be guilty of perpetuating it with my purchases....
Most of that work is par for the course if you want to do it right. Describes most engines. Probably already has an MLS gasket as factory.
It DID.
My problem is how short the distance between "functional" and "fragged" is.
The early turbo cars were off limits to the bean counters because no one had a good handle on how durable they actually were, and they were going into critical cars for their companies, either halo cars like the last gen Rx-7 or critical cars like the first gen A4.
Now they know how durable they are, so they cut corners with those as they have with other areas. The endless death march of ever-increasing .gov MPG standards doesn't help. I wouldn't buy a new turbo car for any money.
Good. Don't. Life is better that way.
Ron, I don't get it ~ I don't see 35 + MPG anywhere and most 1980's four bangers got that easily .
-Nate
I had a 96 Neon sedan with the SOHC and 3.55 FD 5-speed. Easily knocked out 40+ on the Ohio Turnpike.
Adding between 1000 and 1500 pounds to a car will do that, Nate!
Hey ! I'm not _that_ fat..........
-Nate
Sorry to correct you, but the 2.0 in my Escape croaked without overheating. The service rep said it was bad casting that led to the coolant leak. It’s a known issue if you look at the forums, but not one Ford is advertising. It was bad enough that the parts to fix it were in back order when it happened to mine. Got it fixed and immediately traded it away.
https://www.fordescape.org/threads/2017-2019-1-5l-4-cylinder-ecoboost-engine-escape-coolant-loss-engine-rebuilds.112328/page-19#replies
Oh, that's even better!
What happened was that somebody clocked the hose clamp on the intake duct so that it was pressed up against the oil cooler and wore a hole in it. Created a pinhole leak that I didn't notice until I had almost no throttle response.
Quality is job one.
I was very disappointed. I owned Fords my whole life but don’t see getting another one without major changes to design and quality control.
Talk about throwing away a legacy.
Why is the window behind the c pillar like that? It is such a weird styling choice. Is it supposed to be sporty? It can't be, not on this car. Is it supposed to look futuristic like those cars in Total Recall or Minority Report or something? I'm not sure it accomplishes that, either.
Good for GM for figuring out how to build a nicer car than Toyota. I'm still not interested, though. It seems like it might be a Pyrrhic victory in the end.
That's classic GM.
Getting the car right just after it doesn't matter anymore.
Ahem. It ain't a car.
Oh. Yeah...
There are so many examples over the decades that I would hope it’s a running joke inside GM.
Have they ever wondered why the Corolla, Camry, Civic, and Accord nameplates were never discontinued?
The only running joke inside GM is that people self-aware enough to get that joke could stand to work there. My two favorite examples of 'getting it right too late' are the Fiero and the '90s Impala SS, both perfected just in time to be able to hold their heads high for the hangman.
The 2nd Gen CT6, only sold in China, of course, looks great.
The Fiero was killed by the Corvette division. They were going to release it with a turbo. All the software was already in the motor. Suddenly you'd have a car that could outperform a corvette for half the price.
It got shut down as soon as they found out about it.
That's insanity....on the part of the people behind the Fiero. They had to know that the project would be killed if they so much as whispered they were thinking about an idea like that.
They'd been thinking about it when they put the v6 in. I had one (bought it used) back in the 2000's. It didn't take all that much work to make it handle better than most vett's did. I knew people who were putting turbo-charged 3800's in them. Mine had a 3.8 v-6 (I forget what it came out of) and a 4 spd overdrive transmission and a 100shot of nitrous. It was very fast.
"...perfected just in time to be able to hold their heads high for the hangman" - a brilliant line, sir!
Well, the Accord nameplate has been applianced!
I hope that when the Camry wipes the floor with the “Accord,” that the Midwesterners get some influence. But I’m not optimistic.
Sort of like Pontiac doing the G8 just before crashing. Still see a couple of those around and they are still appealing.
Why is the quarter-panel window like that? Because it’s the one distinguishing element of what would otherwise be a very plain side DLO design.
Looks awkward as hell.
That is possibly where the roof and side sheet metal touch. Covering it over with plastic means not having to finish the joint smooth.
Take a look at the Nissan Maxima. Same thing but a bit smaller.
That's not it, though. The area where the roof and side panel touch is at the edge of the roof. They are welded together there, and that transition is covered with a long piece of rubber or plastic moulding on plebeian vehicles that spans along that join. You will typically only see that transition smoothed out on exotic brands (Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, etc).
The funky quarter panel shape was really a stylistic choice on GM's part. That said, it might save money because sheet metal and plastic trim are cheaper than automotive-grade glass, so the smaller they can make the actual glass area, the more they can save. They are also hiding the fact that the actual widow opening there is small. It has very thick C- and D-pillars, which help with rollover crash safety.
Is Aston martin still considered a Luxury Brand? Btw, the capitalization is all thanks to Apple Autocorrect.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.
The center stack with the ugly plasti-chrome wings looks exactly like the Chevy SS dash from 2015.
And the CTS dash from 2008, and the LaCrosse dash from before that. This is no longer a styling leader of a company.
Yes It was dated in 2015. That's why I replaced all that plasti-chrome in my SS with the black dash components sourced from Australia.
Unfortunately the parts bin from AU was not deep enough to sufficiently remove the ugly from the SS, and despite it's lovely engine and manual transmission, I traded it in.
My mother gets a company leased car about every year and a half. When she started with this particular Danish pharmaceutical firm in 2009, the options were plentiful and primarily European: Volvo S60, Audi A4, Mercedes C Class. She had an A4 and C Class, and then a string of Subaru Outbacks. By 2019, the company had grown, and their company car choices had inversely shrunk: the Rogue and Equinox were the two choices, so she had a Rogue for a minute. Now, it’s a loaded Equinox or mid level RAV4 Hybrid. She chose the Toyota, for a few reasons: it got better safety scores, better fuel economy, and she still had a bad memory from an unreliable Impala she drove at a different company (she had it for two years, yet I remember the Avis Jeep Liberty more). I think she loathes the Toyota: it makes odd noises, is jumpy, has dated tech, and uncomfortable seats. It gets great fuel economy, but for its price is pretty dreadful.
I had to drive the Boxster home to put it up in my parents’ garage for the winter, and my mom came up to drive my A4 home so I’d have two cars over break. 2.5 hours in the Audi made her loathe the Toyota even more. Doubt she’ll ever get another one.
"my mom came up to drive my A4 home so I’d have two cars over break"
The Boxster has a ripped up back window, and tires that won’t hold air. Needed the Audi to drive around, and couldn’t keep the Boxster in my driveway during snow season.
Please take good care of the Boxster! A Car Capsule (with a blower) is a very inexpensive investment, although some people say that the fully sealed kind works better (you put some Damp Rid or similar inside it...just not where the resulting HIGHLY CORROSIVE BRINE could leak on anything)
Its new tires are hanging around Jack’s barn, plus a set of contis on order. I’ll get to the top come spring, probably needs replaced but I’m going to attempt a sew job on a glass window, dealer thought it was possible and has a vendor for that. For now it has some sta-bil in it and the battery on a tender while it’s in the garage.
Also on the list: brakes, a roll bar, new headlights, and power steering fluid change. Going to attempt a few track days this year; it might eat into the R8 budget, but I’m not sure I really care.
There's plenty of reasons to be cynical about this thing, but "the Rav4 will last twice as long" is a pretty weak sauce, journosaur assessment. Even if it's still true.
I wouldn't buy one of these, but I'd gladly give up half the life expectancy to own something that doesn't make me want to kill myself. And 300k miles of Rav4 ownership sounds like a fate worse than death. At least with this you get to ride around in something that feels like at least somebody tried a bit.
Mind you, I wouldn't bother to make that comment or point in a 488 vs. 720 test... even though the Ferrari WILL last longer. I think this is a market segment where longevity is crucial. Even if you don't keep the car. It affects your financial position at the end of it. One could argue that the true costs of the Terrain are much closer to a Highlander or even an RX300 than they are to a RAV4. And at that point what choice do you make?
That's a pretty bad car when a FERRARI is more reliable.
It doesn't matter. They are both "dinner party" cars, ie something to talk about rather than actually use, aka Veblen goods.
Which is a shame, because unlike some jerkwagon Cunt-Stache the modern Ferrari and McLaren are almost racecar brilliant at speed.
I am sure you are right, but the speed is now just too bonkers. A 246 Dino with a 300bhp V6 on XWX Michelins would be more fun, I suspect.
This is worth a separate column... so I'll write one.
Maybe just wishful thinking on my part, but depending on how it's driven, and depending on how it's maintained, the GMC should be good for 250k miles without much trouble. My GM service advisor didn't have much faith in the oil change light. He says the worst problem is that a lot of the modern engines will burn oil, and folks don't check anymore, so they literally run very, sometimes damaging low. Good oil. Regular changes. Change all the other fluids too.
I'm on the inside driving it. The outside is your problem. You bring up nothing but the fact you don't like the RAV4. Which is fine. Sales say different. And I mean sales all over the world. That puts you in the minority. BTW, I've never owned a Toyota.
First, I appreciate your “Little Boxes” reference. I cannot imagine what would compel someone to pay ridiculous money for one of those thrown-together tract houses that looks identical to the ones around it, just because it’s new-construction. And they’re *so* close to each other. I don’t get it.
I think that a lot of Toyota products’ main draw *is* in their perceived reliability. A lot of what they make is actually woefully uncompetitive on paper, but it’s styled well and should last. The problem comes when they turn out to be not-so-reliable, which happens more often than people would have you believe. The gen. 3 (2010-2015) Toyota Prius is prone to rampant EGR and head gasket issues, and the 2.4-liter of the late 2000s (*including* the RAV4) burns a ton of oil at higher mileages, just as a couple of examples. To say nothing of the gen. 4 Lexus LS 460/600h (2007-2017), which seems every bit as expensive to own as its German brethren.
Unfortunately, those cars still command high resale prices, because people don’t know that. And so they represent dubious value, especially when they get old. It’s the Toyota Tax.
I have personally flirted with the idea of buying a later (2016+) Toyota Land Cruiser or LX 570. They’re well-styled, extremely capable, comfortable, and they actually fit in my short-ass garage. But I have a hard time justifying something that gets 12 MPG on a good day, is slow and underpowered, has suboptimal rear cabin space and a useless third row due to the solid rear axle and tall floor, and has primitive safety tech. And the 5.7 V8 isn’t exactly bulletproof, either. It’s prone to oil leaks, due to Toyota’s inexplicable decision to make the heads a three-part assembly, including a “cam tower” that is mated to the other two parts with RTV sealant.
The only reason to get one of either is that the resale value is insane, and so I could sell it for about what I paid if I began to get irritated with it. It’d be a low-risk experiment.
As for the Terrain, specifically: what’s really interesting is the Buick Envision, which is nicer than the Terrain. It sits on what is technically the midsize platform, shared with the Malibu and discontinued Insignia/Regal/Commodore, and is itself closest to the Cadillac XT4. Since the MSRP of the Envision Avenir can comfortably crest $45,000...it almost sits in an entry-level-lux category, along with the (soon to be discontinued) Toyota Venza and Mazda CX-50. I think the Envision only makes sense if you can get it for $6,000 off of MSRP or more. Either way, it, just like the other GM compact crossovers, will drop in value like a rock.
Interesting that the Envision is now on Epsilon. It seems like D-segment crossovers are dying out. The Edge, Murano, and Cherokee are either dead or have one foot in the grave. The manufacturers have decided to stretch their C-Segment platforms to the limit and eliminate any remaining quirky utilitarianism that you used to get from the Rav4/CR-V/Forester etc in favor of plastic luxuriousness.
I think the Edge and Murano came from the vestigial tails of people expecting a crossover to be a sodden lump of metal based on their ownership of Explorers and S10 Blazers.
Wasn't the first-gen Edge a Lexus RX clone on the excellent CD3 platform?
More like the MKX, which was the Lincoln version. But sort of. But there were a lot of midsize 5-seat SUVs at that point; it was a common format. They just changed the construction from being longitude-RWD and body-on-frame to transverse-FWD and unibody.
Yes... but it DROVE like each wheel weighed 200 pounds. Never has a vehicle felt less light on its feet. And I always believed that Ford did that so people coming from 4500 pound body on frame trucks didn't think they were trading down.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that may well have been the case. I drove a CD3 Edge once, but it was a long time ago. I don't remember much about it.
My time with a CD4 crossover, specifically a 2016 MKX, was more extended, as I received it as an insurance rental. I mostly just remember thinking the interior felt inexcusably cheap for what it cost. Lincoln has far better interiors than it did several years ago.
Had they made their recent efforts in, say, 2001, they'd still be doing massive volume.
I had a set of prototype Eibach springs sent to us for an 07 Edge when they first came out and I was working for an R&D place. It required a good bit of toe adjustment in the rear afterwards. Stuck a 9” wheel under it with a little fatter and more aggressive tire; better pads.
Subtle changes that made a huge transformation to the vehicle. We actually wound up trying to pitch it as a Police package. I’ve still some pretty cool renderings of it all dressed along with the files to cut the vinyl work.
I had a 2016 or 17 Edge ST as a rental when they were fixing my Escape. That was as entertaining as any SUV I’ve ever driven. It had good features and tech, too. I also had no faith whatsoever that everything would still function at 100k miles.
I stopped renting Edge based Explorers back in the day because of how ponderous they were. It seemed like they had the turning radius of a Great Lakes ore freighter in parking lots.
And the current Audi Q5 is an RX for people convinced Lexuses are for retirees and H1Bs. This would be my father. Car and driver’s description of it as a “dinner roll on wheels” is pretty apt. I don’t mind it, though.
The first two generations of Explorer should have been very lively experiences, considering that people back then seemed to lack the understanding for how poorly behaved a narrow, short-wheelbase, solid-rear-axle SUV drove and so treated them like Taurus Wagons. To say nothing of the Firestone debacle. It had to have been *very* lively when Mommy or Daddy got the family truckster on two wheels trying to get to soccer practice.
The Edge and Murano were much more forgiving and thus easier to drive. We actually had a Murano when I was a teenager and I learned to drive in it.
The Murano had VQ power at least. I drove a 1st generation with the CVT as a service loaner for a week and actually enjoyed it.
Ah, but the Envision is guaranteed to be Chinese, which is even worse than being Mexican!
(Now I sit back and wait for someone to mail an out of context quote to whoever they think my employer is.)
already on it
It's the country that makes the fentanyl vs the one that laces it in to other stuff and smuggles it in. What difference, at this point, does it make?
one hates us and the other isnt a major military power
Which one is which?
I wouldn't necessarily say China hates us. It's just that they have zero guilt about making the rope with which we are hanging ourselves, because we're the ones who gifted them the equipment with which they made it.
(The Chinese are also a generally uncaring people, which to us looks like hate)
Agree
Very superstitious as well.
Why else would feng shui and powdered rhino horn still have any traction?
But they can be bluntly funny when talking about shortcomings of others
Han supremacism is a real thing.
Really not keen on that.