Decisions, Decisions, Decisions . . .

The time has come to decide whether I should keep my current mode of transportation or go for a newer model. My present wheels, 2003 Chevy Trailblazer is 4 years old at the end of this month. When we first decided to try a SUV rather than a normal car that we had had for years, we figured we'd go for a lease. That way we could 'opt out' when the 4 years were up and go back to a typical auto type vehicle.

As things happen, the SUV has been great for us with Sandra's walker and allowing us to haul equipment back and forth to the lake etc. We talked it over and without a doubt neither one of us are ready to go back to a 4 door automobile type vehicle. However, we have talked about possibly going to a normal pickup truck. Well that isn't quite right as for the minimum we'd want a crew cab and 4X4.

Then we looked at our current Trailblazer. It is 4 years old, but has only 59,000 kms on it, so it is hardly broken in. For 99.9% of the time, I have been the driver so I know that it has not been driven hard and of course all the normal servicing has been done when it should be. I can buy the truck out for just over $18,000 or walk away from it. Purchasing the vehicle and going for another few years would not be a bad thing and I/we could certainly live with a decision like that. The truck has served us well and should supply many more years of quality service. Of course it would also be nice have a brand spanking new vehicle to drive around in.

I have been in touch with a fellow at the dealership I leased the current Trailblazer from and he has a few vehicles lined up. Then I also have done mucho typing in 'search fields' trying to find just the right vehicle.

I think we have narrowed it down to a couple choices, but trying to make the final decision is driving us up the wall. A few pics of our thoughts:

The first pic is a Chev Equinox. This is quite a bit smaller than a Trailblazer, but the mileage would be better. I would tend to say that it probably is sitting as our last choice, but then things change. The one part that I'm not crazy about is the lack of 4X4 and the trailer hitch setup. Other than that the vehicle does appear to be fine.



Our next is the GMC Canyon. I do like the look of the vehicle and all of that. My only negative is the 5 foot box. Then if I went to a full size box, the darn thing would appear to be a mile long. As well the normal pickup has a bit less for mileage due to the rear end setup. Still it could work :)




Now this next one is a Hummer H3. My first impression when the salesman suggested it was 'whoa no way, too huge and what a gas guzzler'. But this Hummer is the baby of the family and not your typical H1 that the military use. As to the gas mileage, the ratings say it should be about 25-26 mpg on the highway. I take that number with a grain of salt though. The one drawback I'm seeing with the H3 is that to get a better gas mileage, you should go with a 5 speed manual transmission. Now I don't do a lot of city driving so that is not a great concern, but I do some driving in Saskatoon and it would appear to be a pain in the butt to have to be manually shifting all of the time. It has been a long time since I actually had a manual transmission in a vehicle (like about 1977). However, there is a bit of 'Oh Yah' to driving one of these guys.



The last picture is a current 2007 Chevy Trailblazer. In all honesty there is not a lot of change in the look of the vehicle or for that matter the accessories. It appears that the engine has worked out quite well on this vehicle, and GM has kept using it. Why not, it works, so why change. While speaking to the salesman, he advised that he had a 2007 Trailblazer LT available in the colour that we would be looking at. This one also has running boards already installed which definitely would be a plus for Sandra. The other nice thing with a Trailblazer is that it is set up for towing trailers (at least for me). I'm used to the vehicle so that is also a plus. Then of course, being 4 years newer than our current vehicle is also a very nice plus.



We don't have a lot of time to come to a decision, but for my mind, I think I definitely would like to do a test drive at least. I feel we have probably narrowed it down to either the Trailblazer or the Hummer. But I do think the test drive will allow us to figure out which vehicle we will be driving in May of 2007.

It is a nice decision that we are having to make, but still it is a difficult one as you hate to make the wrong choice on anything....