Hiking vehicles

[rally_toad]

What kind of vehicles do you guys all drive when your going hiking? Im thinking about investing in a 4wd high clearance Jeep or something of the sort so I could get to some places where I definitely couldnt get to with what Im driving now (73 mustang):) I saw a Jeep Grand Cherokee today for $2600 and I was thinking about checking it out. What "hiking vehicle" is easiest to drive and which gets the best gas mileage (even though I know most wouldnt be too fuel efficient.)

[PLC92084]

@kingsnake
If it's any consolation... did you see where the earth swallowed up some of GM's "prized" production pieces? :STP:

[chumley]

I've never purchased a vehicle that gets the kind of mileage that even approaches the MPG posted on the window sticker. Not Ford, Toyota, GM, or Honda.

[Hippy]

Not Ford, Toyota, GM, or Honda.

Try a Subaru. my beastie was getting 26-28mpg last spring (before she went kablammy! )

[Bradshaws]

@chumley That MPG on the sticker is in the most IDEAL CONDTIONS. Temp, humidity, barometric pressure and road conditions. And that place where all those come together does not exist on earth.

[Bradshaws]

And since we're so off topic.... Take it from someone who has to stick his hands in steaming piles of GM everyday, buy a FORD!!

[juliachaos]

Try a Subaru. my beastie was getting 26-28mpg last spring (before she went kablammy! )

In CO in 2012, my average for the five weeks I was out there was 33mpg, going up and down the mountains, and over lots of slow, rocky roads. I'd been driving the car for a little over 2.5 years at that point. Of course, now that I've put the bike rack on the back, and have been toting around kayaks off and on, and have been on so many rocky dirt roads, the alignment is off and I probably need to start looking at a new suspension, and the mpg has dropped a bit.. on average 24-25mpg with (admittedly aggressive) city driving. But until July of last year (when I got the bike rack), it was staying strong around 27-28mpg in the city. The car is now a little over 4 years old and will hit 93k miles sometime in the next two weeks. Still, not bad for all that wear and tear!

[FOTG]

@chumley
its the way you drive... ;)

[FOTG]

I love my Xterra, but have really bad Jeep envy, not going to lie..sigh..

[Jim]

My Honda civic got high 30s in Flagstaff, with mostly city driving, and 41 to 42 MPG on long western highway trips, and back east on the I-95 corridor. Actually above the advertised fuel rating. It rode very nice and smooth, too, right up to when I stupidly traded it in, last June. After I put some performance tires on the 2003 civic in mid July of 2012, handling and ride improved dramatically, over the touring tires. When I lived in Kayenta in the spring and summer of 2012, I would leave my house early to get to places which were never less than 120 miles away, and so I would cruise on US 160 between 100 and 110 mph, and a few times up to 115 MPH, and yet it still had a smooth ride on new asphalt, and had a MPG in the upper 30s, despite aggressive driving with frequent down shifting and engine speeds of 5500 to 6000 rpm while passing the slow pokes (non-speeders) on the highway. I got that car places like: close to the Hesperus Mountain trailhead (sharks tooth), up the shelf road to the Grizzly Gulch TH for Handies Peak, down a rough road in the Black Hill of South Dakota and Wyoming, up to the Mount Massive TH, up the lower part of the Lake Como Road, tons of Arizona Forest Road, and plenty of other Colorado roads, and yet it did really well. I even took my old civic almost to the summit of the Mount Elden Lookout Road (not the trail, the really rough road). My Outback is vibrating and shimmying at 60 to 65, forget 75 MPH.

I thought the Subaru would be a happy marriage of the economy, ride and comfort of the civic, with the increased off road ability that approaches an SUV or truck, but instead, it is like I bought a limited junker with the ride of a 20 year old suspension and junk tires, bad shocks, and a steering box that is bad. I really, really miss my old, much cheaper, and better car. :tt: :bdh: :-({|= If this isn't taken care of, I see no reason to keep the P.O.S., since the negative far, far outweigh the positives. Because highway driving to far off places to use the Subaru for potential positives is so unpleasant, there are almost no positives, other than it being new, but I have no one to impress, so who cares if it looks old. At least my old car ran better than this new one.

[kingsnake]

I'm a firm believer in if you got a good horse, ride him til he drops ...

[Bradshaws]

@friendofThundergod The best vehicle I've ever owned was a 1999 Jeep Wrangler I bought it with 13 miles and traded it in at 105000 I never had any major repairs and it went anywhere I wanted. I abused that Jeep more than any vehicle before and since. I put a 3" lift on it, 3 batteries, 1 set of brakes and I only changed the oil 6 times in 100000 miles. It never missed a beat :wlift:
I regret getting rid of it every time I see another Jeep

[Dave1]

Jim, If you think the Subaru is bad, just wait until you get that old Camaro!

Actually above the advertised fuel rating.

I found the same thing with my Civic. Original rated at 28/33 city/ highway MPG, I get a combined 38-40. Usually 40-42 for Grand Canyon runs. On a long trip to Moab I averaged 50mpg! 375k miles and still running strong!

[tibber]

I'm a firm believer in if you got a good horse, ride him til he drops ...

unfortunately, MYTONTO is just about there . I am having separation anxiety since it's been my faithful companion for 13 years.

I am looking at the Ford Escape SE 2.0, Mazda Touring CX-5 and Subaru Forester 2.5i Premium... all about the same price. My bigger criteria is HP since MYTONTO is a v-6; I am used to getting up those hills in zoom, zoom, zoom fashion.

Interestingly enough, MYTONTO is more than likely going to be in my brother's x-wife's hands...

[Jim]

@tibber
Well, I would strongly recommend against any Subaru.

[Alston_Neal]

@Jim_H
I like your new signature.
I've never owned a Subaru, but everyone I've known was pretty happy with theirs. So it's too bad you've put all this time and energy into this vehicle only to have regrets. No vehicle should be like that especially a Japanese car.

[Jim]

@Jim_H
I like your new signature.
I've never owned a Subaru, but everyone I've known was pretty happy with theirs. So it's too bad you've put all this time and energy into this vehicle only to have regrets. No vehicle should be like that especially a Japanese car.

Thanks, I thought it was a more humorous way of posting my feelings.

I never had a honeymoon period with this car. My last car was great and never had any issues for years. Even after all the attempts to correct this, the vibration was always there at a reduced level when going over 65MPH or so, and seems to always come from the rear wheels. More over, it returned to intolerable levels after a tire rotation 2 days ago. Now, I have considered that it is all bad luck and by some coincidence, the balance on the tires went out right when I rotated them. Also, the front tires were really only not producing a noticeably vibration because of the weight from the front keeping the movement in check and now with them on the rear the vibration came back in a big way, but I doubt that. I think, unless it really is these lousy continental tires, which I doubt, that this car is damaged, has suspension damage, and is probably just throw away. This has been a problem since I first got the car up to 70 MPH when it had maybe 20 miles on it, it is never going to go away until the car goes away. That is my feeling.

Maybe, I should stop even caring about it? Perhaps, after less than 8 months of having this PoS, it is time to consider what I will buy that I will keep for 10 years, like I did my Honda Civic. Is it even worth my time and money to keep at this stupid Outback PoS? It wouldn't be such a big deal, to attempt to take care of, if the dealer wasn't in Albuquerque, so I guess I won't buy a car that far away. Not to say it wouldn't be angering. Honda, Toyota, Ford, the usual dealers are all here. At least, if I buy a civic, which I don't want, it's cheap, so who cares if it is junky?

[kingsnake]

It might be more cost effective less to buy a junker for, say, $1000, that lasts 6-12 months,, throw it away when it dies, and buy another junker. But I've never been brave enough to try. I always go, first and foremost, for bullet proof reliability. (Due to having once owned not only the Pontiac, but a Mercury as well. plz: )

[Jim]

Edmunds lists my trade-in value for my 2013 Outback at a little less than $20,500. Obviously, that is upsetting as it is many thousands less than I paid, and I had thought I would have the car for up to a decade. Why did I have to be so stupid and buy a Subaru!?!!

[CannondaleKid]

I abused that Jeep more than any vehicle before and since. I put a 3" lift on it, 3 batteries, 1 set of brakes and I only changed the oil 6 times in 100000 miles. It never missed a beat

That's pretty rare for a Jeep... when I bought my Cherokee a few years ago everybody I worked with said to save my $$ because Jeep meant Just Empty Every Pocket.

When it came to US cars I used to be all GM (mainly Chevrolets) until I started working at the largest Oldsmobile dealership in the US (in mid-80's, when Oldsmobile was still alive) when I realized it was great to work at a place where they had cars that broke down, but I'd rather own a car I didn't have to work on.

That's when I went started with Hondas & eventually a couple Acuras. All were totally reliable and got what I felt was exceptional fuel mileage, with my '87 Accord doing the best with a 12 year/200,000+ mile average of 37 mpg.

My absolute worst vehicle (new or even used beaters) was a '99 Lexus RX300... When Toyota was about to release a new platform they liked to make their mistakes on the Lexus models before releasing the Toyota variant, in this case the RX300 clone was the Toyota Highlander.

My RX300 was not only unreliable but unsafe, even at 25 mph. The AWD model had way too much torque sent to the front and the rear used a Torsen differential, which was fabulous when traction was uneven from side-to-side, but terrible when traction in general was poor yet the same side-to-side, like on wet pavement or ice... a slight turn under those conditions and with absolutely no warning you'd be going backwards. After the second time it happened I got rid of it immediately... going to the Acura TL.

So all said and done, while there are always some lemons out there for any make/model, in my experience working on cars since the mid 60's, once Japanese made the transition from thin-metal rust-buckets to real-world cars the Honda's, Toyota's & Nissan's (and their upscale brethren) usually led the quality parade. The American cars were just plain poorly designed and built, Korean had to make an awful-to-good transition to stay alive, the English had awful electrics (Lucas, the inventor of darkness), Italians slightly better on their electrics (Magnetti-Marelli) and the French... well they were just weird.

Edmunds lists my trade-in value for my 2013 Outback at a little less than $20,500. Obviously, that is upsetting as it is many thousands less than I paid

Every vehicle pretty much loses the same amount as the markup from cost to sale price. (except exotics where you put a $50,000 down payment, wait on the list 2 years then pay the rest of the quarter million... or flip it to someone with more money then time for a modest 10% markup)
After all, why would anyone want to buy a current year car with miles on it for anything close to what they could buy the new one for?

[Bradshaws]

That's pretty rare for a Jeep... when I bought my Cherokee a few years ago everybody I worked with said to save my $$ because Jeep meant Just Empty Every Pocket.

Don't get me wrong, it had problems but most of them were minor or caused by the/my low budget lift . I feel that a lot of the problems that Jeeps have had stem from thier 4.0l straight 6. I know that the 6cyl had many problems with fuel delivery and just powertrain managment in general. Some people swear by the 4.0l but I'm not a fan. My jeep had the 4 cyl. Yes, the 4cyl. has its downfalls, the biggest being lack of power on the road but with the lower gears it would climb anything and being a mechanic I'm sure I put off many repairs that the "average joe" would have fix right away.