Surprise?

[DetroitNut90]

I come home today to find this in my driveway:

Yeah...not the Amber Bronze '07 Impala LS my mom took to work this morning. It's a rental while the Venture is in the shop getting some collision damage repaired. The original plan was for mom to borrow my grandad's car (the Impala) while the van was getting worked on, but mom said the smoke smell in the car (grandad's a heavy smoker) was bothering her, so she called the at-fault driver's insurance to see if a rental would be covered. Begrudgingly, mom was told she would be reimbursed, and she promptly called the local Enterprise to request a minivan. They were out of minivans, so she upgraded to an SUV. So, what we've got is an '07 Aspen "Limited" (how can they call it Limited and give it cloth seats?) with the 4.7L Flex-Fuel V8.

My initial impressions (just got back from a brief drive):

-It's fat

-Interior is adequate, there is some soft plastic on the upper door panels, the gauge cluster hump, and the passenger's airbag cover; switchgear seems good, but plood is ugly

-Sits rather high

-The brake pedal is mushy, accelerator is a bit stiff

-The 4.7L kicks out unexpected power, first gear holds until 50 mph, sounds pleasant to boot

-I like the black gauge needles

-Handles ok

-A-pillars are kinda thick and the headrest intrudes in rear vision

-interior room is generous, but rear cargo room is lax with 3rd row up

-interior hood release is different; to open it, it must be pulled like a door handle rather than towards you (like every other hood release in the world)

So far, mom says she put $50 into the tank to fill it up from half-full...ouch. She's also managed to scrape some paint off the passenger side rear-view mirror on my Intrigue when opening a rear door . But all-in-all, it's better than I thought it would be.

[NOS2006]

I don't know what you're feeling, but my mom's 4.7L Durango was slow as balls.

[DetroitNut90]

What I meant was for a SUV that weighs 5043 pounds, it moves faster than I thought it would, especially with the smaller 4.7L V8. It's by no means an SRT8.

Edited January 30, 2008 by DetroitNut90

[NOS2006]

Gotcha. I still didn't like it, but to each their own.

[Intrepidation]

Nice color.