Hyundai was a bust. There were two cars that we wanted to look at, the Santa Fe and the Veracruz. The dealer didn't have a Veracruz on the lot and the only Santa Fes they had didn't have the 3rd row seat.
And the maddening thing is that they kept trying to convince us that we didn't want a 3rd row. We were asked what we were looking for in a car. Bryan said, "We want a car with a 3rd row." And then they would spend several minutes trying to convince us that we didn't want a third row. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I'm sure that it is some kind of Jedi sales technique taught at weekend seminars, but it only served to make me annoyed. It would have been entirely different if that had actually taken the time to listen to what we wanted and then offered more information.
Anyway, we did check to see if we could get all three kind in proper restraints across the 3rd row. And we could. And the Santa Fe passed my reach around test from the drivers seat. But I was so turned off by the sales experience that I didn't really want to test drive it. Plus, they had managed to convince us that a 3rd row in the Santa Fe was a bad idea. Which eliminated the car from consideration. And then they told is that the Veracruz was probably going to be removed from the line-up next year. Which killed off any lingering interest we had in that model as well. If someone had been recording the interaction, it could be used to illustrate how to kill a sale.
Since we skipped the test drive at Hyundai, we drove up El Camino to the Honda dealership to look at Pilots. I had pretty low expectations for the Pilot, since Bryan has been telling me for weeks that I wouldn't like it. And his parents told me I wouldn't like it. And one of the teachers at work. Although my boss has a Pilot and really likes it.
We started off with the new 2009 model. It is huge and the dashboard does look like a cockpit. But the back seat is nice and roomy and there are latch points for all three seating positions. The third row is not cramped. An adult could reasonably sit back there and not get deep vein thrombosis. But a new car is not really in our budget.
So we next looked at a 2008 pilot, which is the old design. It was still nice. Although it only has latch points in the two outboard positions. I don't understand why car manufacturers skip on the latch points. We did take it for a test drive and I thought it was OK.
It is massive to drive; Bryan thought it felt more like his parents Ford Explorer than the others. I don't really have a frame of reference. All the cars we have been looking at feel huge to me. Just like when I moved from my Civic to the Forrester, I have to get used to being higher off the ground.
We need to drive the Highlander again. It has been weeks since we did it and neither of us really remember the experience very well. And I pretty sure that I was in a bad mode that day, which tends to color everything a little grimly.
Now that we are done with the car seat testing part, it might be worthwhile to get a baby-sitter and go drive all three in the same day.
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