Licensed to Il wrote:I have never been a SUV guy, but I find myself with four kids, and living in the mountains, in a place with 10 months a year of snow.
Luckily I don’t have to drive much, my annual mileage is very low.
What is the best full size SUV?
There are a ton of options so I won't pretend that there's one answer, but I leased a Dodge Durango R/T a few years back and we liked it enough that we ended up just buying out the lease a couple months ago. It's a bit smaller than a Ford Expedition/Chevy Suburban type but the three rows are more than enough for us (1 kid, 2 dogs, annual road trips from Texas to Wisconsin). Doesn't have the "luxury" of top end brands, but we got it in black with the Blacktop package so I like the sporty/aggressive look, nice creature comforts (ventilated seats, middle row captain's chairs, GPS), and generally it has really nice driving dynamics for a 3-row SUV. I think we ended up getting it for around $40k which felt like good value relative to other 3-row SUVs.
I'm definitely not an SUV guy per se, but it's definitely nice having a big vehicle for road trips and carting around random crap from Lowe's. It's also not lost on me that one of my cars is electric and the other is a gas-guzzling V8 SUV
We also looked at the Explorer and Jeep Grand Cherokee but decided we wanted the third row and liked the ride of the Durango over the Explorer. Interestingly, I'm not sure I'd recommend shelling out for the V8 R/T in hindsight -- the power and engine/exhaust note are fun, but the V6 should be enough for most people. We've had a very good experience in terms of reliability through 50k miles (basically just oil changes and regular maintenance), but it's also not a Honda or Toyota in that department.
). I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone in the market.
