Rental Car Ruckus 2: Electric Boogaloo

[WRXtranceformed]

Since I am on a first name basis with the manager of our closest Enteprise, he hooked me up with a free upgrade to a land yacht for the trip down to ATL:

New Yukon XL, not a bad way to make a 3.5 hour trip. Thoughts and impressions:
- Dang this thing is BIG. Like I feel like bigger than most trucks on the road. Obviously a lot comes along with that in terms of urban maneuverability, parking etc. But I just can't imagine owning anything that large unless I had twenty kids. My wife isn't a clown car so God willing that will never happen, but for a normal sized family I feel like a normal SUV is totally sufficient
- Maybe this is all new cars, or maybe GM cars but it has a lot of electronic nanny warnings. Some I like and understand (blind spot monitors like I have on my car) but I was beginning to get annoyed at a lot of them. Especially the one that constantly warns you when you go above the speed limit. Dude I know I am going above the speed limit! I turned off lane departure because I knew that would be annoying. Seats that vibrate when your wheels are close to the curb or you're close to something behind you is also kind of unnecessary. What brought me around a little though was the collision warning system which vibrates the entire seat and lights up the windshield with bright red lights if someone is braking fast in front of you. An inevitable Atlanta sharp braking and turn maneuver in front of me set the system off. Would I have caught it before I rear ended them? Yeah probably but it definitely didn't hurt to keep me on my toes
- I would like to guess that this is a GM thing (because I have noticed it in every GM SUV I have driven but not in others like Acura, Jeep, etc.,) but the suspension is a serious weak point for me. The car feels VERY bouncy and floaty; it would make me really nervous to have to do any kind of emergency swerving in that thing. I noticed the same thing when pulling a Uhaul trailer with my buddy's old Tahoe. He upgraded the springs and did some kind of leveling kit when he upgraded his rims and it was like a totally different vehicle. That upgrade would be mandatory for me if I bought one.
- Engine is fine, plenty of power for that vehicle like really any modern V8. My big gripe with GM vehicles though, having owned one and driven a number, is that they have really wonky ECU tuning. Very laggy power delivery, sputtery downshifts...this truck had it too. The Trifecta tune mostly fixed it in my CTS, I would have to look into that as well.
- This particular vehicle must have been completely loaded other than a rear entertainment system and the creature comforts are really nice. The voice feature of the nav system was annoying, it kept reminding me how to do stuff instead of allowing me to speak my destination if I waited for more than 5 seconds. I KNOW WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO DO LET ME SPEAK WOMAN! I have to say though I was surprised that I did not find the seats very comfortable. My CTS seats were pretty comfy (despite the crappy leather that wore fast and peeled off the back of the seat) so I was assuming these would be too. Based on that alone I would probably rule this vehicle out if I needed a big SUV and drove long distances.

Overall not a bad vehicle but it definitely reaffirmed a lot of my feelings about GM vehicles and I can guarantee I would look the other direction when I saw how much this thing costs. Vehicles like this are fantastic to pick up a few years experienced like Jake did because of their depreciation curve...taking the size out of the equation there are just much better brand options on the market.