Brigala
CPST Instructor
So, I'm looking for opinions.
We have decided we want a Diesel rig for towing. We've been mostly looking at Crew Cab Silverados & Sierras, but I hate giving up the passenger flexibility of our Suburban (Suburbans haven't been produced in a diesel for 15 years or so).
Our core family includes:
Me, Husband, 4 year old daughter, new baby coming up, and one of my adult kids who will probably be living at home for a few more years (he's decided to take us up on our offer to feed and house him through college to cut down on the cost of higher education). We can fit all of us in a Sierra or Silverado crew cab just fine.
But... we also have lots of "extended" family it would be nice to be able to transport together. We have another college-age son who does not live at home, my husband has two grand-kids (ages 2 and 8), and a myriad of other teen and young adult family members we do stuff with.
So, we started looking at Excursions, and I was disappointed to see that the entire 3rd row has NO head restraints at all.
In the short term, the youngest kids who can be in car seats can go in the 3rd row when we need to transport additional family members, but eventually even little kids grow up and need to move into backless boosters and seat belts.
Reality is that we really don't need to tow AND haul lots of people at the same time, so one option is to get a mini-van or a lighter-weight (i.e. better on gas) Suburban to be our family passenger vehicle, but I'd rather have one vehicle that can double as both our people-hauler AND our vacation boat-and-RV-hauler. That way I can get something smaller and more economical for day-to-day use. Maybe a Tahoe Hybrid would be a good compromise for the daily-driver. We are going to be moving onto a gravel road and may need to become an all-truck family because that road tends to eat up sedans like candy. Boy I'm going to miss my Civic. (sigh)
Thoughts? Help me work this out in my head.
We have decided we want a Diesel rig for towing. We've been mostly looking at Crew Cab Silverados & Sierras, but I hate giving up the passenger flexibility of our Suburban (Suburbans haven't been produced in a diesel for 15 years or so).
Our core family includes:
Me, Husband, 4 year old daughter, new baby coming up, and one of my adult kids who will probably be living at home for a few more years (he's decided to take us up on our offer to feed and house him through college to cut down on the cost of higher education). We can fit all of us in a Sierra or Silverado crew cab just fine.
But... we also have lots of "extended" family it would be nice to be able to transport together. We have another college-age son who does not live at home, my husband has two grand-kids (ages 2 and 8), and a myriad of other teen and young adult family members we do stuff with.
So, we started looking at Excursions, and I was disappointed to see that the entire 3rd row has NO head restraints at all.
In the short term, the youngest kids who can be in car seats can go in the 3rd row when we need to transport additional family members, but eventually even little kids grow up and need to move into backless boosters and seat belts.
Reality is that we really don't need to tow AND haul lots of people at the same time, so one option is to get a mini-van or a lighter-weight (i.e. better on gas) Suburban to be our family passenger vehicle, but I'd rather have one vehicle that can double as both our people-hauler AND our vacation boat-and-RV-hauler. That way I can get something smaller and more economical for day-to-day use. Maybe a Tahoe Hybrid would be a good compromise for the daily-driver. We are going to be moving onto a gravel road and may need to become an all-truck family because that road tends to eat up sedans like candy. Boy I'm going to miss my Civic. (sigh)
Thoughts? Help me work this out in my head.