in that crosssover range that you are looking at..
there is the Tiquan, Ford Escape, Honda CRV, Nissan Rogue, Kia Sorento.
Honda CRV is made in Ohio. II would look at that one first because I have become a honda/acura person through the years mostly through product integrity and honda's sense of space in design and they are built on good platforms.
Then I would look at the Tiquan, then the Ford and then the Kia. I think it was Nissan who came out first with the 'crossoveror whatever' concept with the Murano a few years back.
I would go with a $ number in my head to not back down from. If you can assemble some unruly kids to go with you, it is a baragining plus;-) and go at the end of the month because some may have to make sales quotas.
In the small SUV/crossover category, I give a big "thumbs-up" to my Ford Escape. It's not a beast, but it does the job. Mine's a 2001 2/4WD with 4cly and a 5 speed... I think it's they only year they made the stick.
Word of warning... NEVER buy a first model year vehicle... you'll get to know the name of all the dealer's mechanics, parts guys, people browsing the showroom, etc.
BTW: I'd never personally owned a jeep of any sort, but, I've seen tooooo many problems. And, like they say... "It's a Jeep thing... (which I equate to spending lots of money on repeated repairs)". I've heard good things about most VW products, so there is that.
Good luck, Andy!!
Norm
Got to second Carl here.
Whenever we rent a car for out of town trips, if I can't rent what I regularly drive at home, I get an Escape. It serves us well on our Maine vacation too.
They'd better be reliable, because I've heard friends owning VW's say the repair costs are unreasonable compared to similar work on other brands.
Even if it did "learn how you drive", and I would assume this is going to be your wife's daily driver, it is going to get confused when you go to drive it.
We may be moving some vehicles around in the near future and on our list to look at are, Suburu, Honda, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, VW and then on, at least for my wife's daily driver.
Going to go back again for the Mazda CX5 and the Tiguan We emailed the VW dealer and the mechanic just said that's the way it shifts.
We have a 2003 CR-V and love it. We don't put a lot of miles on it -- I think it's still under 100K -- but it's been very reliable. Except for having to replace the fuel filler neck assembly (the cap threads wore out and wouldn't seal properly), the only time it's been in the shop is when we've hit something or something hit us. (Last time that happened, our car was hit by a boat being towed by a truck avoiding a train. It was a multi-modal wreck.)
I bought a second-hand Lexus many years ago and it's the best car I've ever had. Repairs are extremely rare; pricey, but rare. If I ever wear this one out, I'm getting another Lexus second-hand. Currently, I've got 240k on it and it's going strong.
