average_bear said:Saw you asked about the grand Cherokee: my dad just bought one of the 6k rated ones and his 5000lb boat trailer combo BULLIES the Jeep. He tells me it needs 3000 rpm to maintain 50 on the flat.
I towed a BMW E46 on a U Haul trailer from Pittsburgh to Akron using a 2017 Grand Cherokee Overland, and it was pretty well drama-free. No issues maintaining c.60mph (my normal "safe" towing speed) even on the hills.
I came across a couple more newer listings that I want to go check out. One is a GX460 that also has the heated/ventilated seats in the front, the heated seats in the rear, but this one also has the heated steering wheel and the adaptive suspension. It's got about 10k miles less than the one I looked at and is listed at only a couple hundred bucks more. It's too new to have pictures posted, so I don't even know what color it is or if it has the tow hitch installed.
The other vehicle is a 2019 Armada Platinum. That's got basically all the goodies except it has a bench seat for the second row instead of captain's chairs. Adaptive cruise, heated everything, ventilated front seats, bird's-eye-view camera system, tow hitch, power folding third row which the Lexuses don't have. It's got about 14k miles fewer than the first GX I looked at. I'm going to go see if I can look at that here this afternoon.
I'm a little surprised at the lack of "stuff" on the GXes that I'm finding. Adaptive cruise seems to be a unicorn and even the heated steering wheel is a strangely hard-to-find option. I know the Nissan doesn't have the cachet of a Lexus or Mercedes, but if the ride is as smooth and quiet as I remember, that might come full-circle to be my winner.
The Armada experience yesterday has pretty much turned me off of the Armada/QX80. I love the truck - it's big, it makes nice noises, it's got all the little toys that I love. The one I test drove yesterday had every option available on the Platinum trim except for rear captain's chairs. Unfortunately it also very likely had the option of a scuffed #7 cylinder wall. I thought I heard something while I was stopped at a light on the test drive, so when I got back to the dealer's lot, I popped the hood and stuck my head in there. Sure enough, it's got a little knock-knock-knock going on. If the Internet is to be believed, the supplier for the engine blocks had one machine that was mal-aligned and every block that came off of that machine will develop scuffing on the #7 cylinder wall that turns into piston slap that turns into a knock and it wasn't fixed until mid-March 2019. Loved the truck, but even if it's one of those noises that can go on for tens of thousands of miles before it becomes a problem, I'm just so over driving around in a time bomb.
I got some pictures of the GX460 Luxury and confirmed that it has the adaptive suspension and does not have a receiver hitch installed. I can get a class III bolt-on that's good for 5k pounds for under $200 locally and it should only take a few minutes to install. It's also black with the Ecru interior. I don't particularly like black cars, however, a dark exterior with a beige leather interior just makes me swoon for some reason. A slight drawback is that it has the 2nd row captain's chairs instead of a bench seat. Given the amount of storage space behind the third row (spoiler alert: approximately one box of Kleenex and a tube a Chap=Stick), that would make it tough for all five of us to go anywhere together, as opposed to sitting three-across in the back and putting the third row down. But we don't often have a chance to go anywhere all together and if it's a longer trip, that would be in a motorhome, so that's probably not a big deal. We're going to go up and look at it tonight and see how it presents itself.
wae said:The Armada experience yesterday has pretty much turned me off of the Armada/QX80. I love the truck - it's big, it makes nice noises, it's got all the little toys that I love. The one I test drove yesterday had every option available on the Platinum trim except for rear captain's chairs. Unfortunately it also very likely had the option of a scuffed #7 cylinder wall. I thought I heard something while I was stopped at a light on the test drive, so when I got back to the dealer's lot, I popped the hood and stuck my head in there. Sure enough, it's got a little knock-knock-knock going on. If the Internet is to be believed, the supplier for the engine blocks had one machine that was mal-aligned and every block that came off of that machine will develop scuffing on the #7 cylinder wall that turns into piston slap that turns into a knock and it wasn't fixed until mid-March 2019. Loved the truck, but even if it's one of those noises that can go on for tens of thousands of miles before it becomes a problem, I'm just so over driving around in a time bomb.
If you know someone at a Nissan dealership, there is a chance that you can get a brand new shortblock even if the vehicle is well out of warranty. My '18 Titan had knock knock and a scored #7, but the dealer assured me that they'd cover it under warranty even though I was over on mileage. Now I have a brand new engine in an 80k mile truck.
In reply to glyn ellis :
2017 was an older platform, and that very well may handle towing better than the newer ones. For context, my dad's GC is a 2023
Funny story... Granted, I don't have a ton of experience buying actual cars from dealers, but I've never before managed to lowball them so hard that they're the ones that got up and left the table.
They gave me a quote with the price of the truck, the title and doc fees, a $900 "protection package", a $4000 extended warranty, sales tax, and offered $2k in trade value for der Scheißwagen. I grabbed the paper, crossed out the warranty and the protection package, took around $900 out of their vehicle price, and scratched out the $2k and wrote $4k. Turned it around and said this is what I'd like to see.
Oh, we couldn't go that low.. we have to make money, etc etc etc. But, what if we met in the middle and went about $1600 more on the total deal than I had written down.
Well, that's not a "I drive it home today" price, but go see if you can do that and we'll sleep on it.
The guy draws a line on the paper, puts an "X" in front of it, turns it around, and tries to hand me a pen. This doesn't obligate me to anything, he says, it's just to show that I'm committed. Naturally, I flat-out refuse to sign anything because at this point the game has turned from rather fun to just getting stupid. Listen, says I, I'm not signing anything, see if that's something that you guys can do, and if you can, great, I'll stack that next to the other offers I'm looking at and make a decision. If you can't, then, no problem. In my mind we've gone from offer to counter-offer and now it's their turn to counter my counter-offer. I've seen My Cousin Vinny. I know how the system works.
So he goes back to "talk to his manager", which is fine, and after a few minutes, said manager comes out and introduces himself. He says that they haven't even put the car through service yet and they don't know if they'd even make any money at the original price that they started out. Which, I might add, was also on their website and advertised on autotrader.com. He says that they're going to put the car through their service and once that's done, they'll call me back and we can talk, and he got up and that was that.
Personally, I was quite amused at the whole thing. My wife was rather unamused.
As to the car itself, it wasn't bad. I'm not really sure there was that much difference in the day-to-day driving with the Luxury versus the Premium trims, though. And the luggage space behind the third row really means that the captain's chairs in the second row make it a 4-seater.
In reply to golfduke :
I would totally be willing to chance that if I knew that Nissan would recall it or goodwill it. I really like the Armada/QX80 and they've got a little more room than the GX.
wae said:In reply to golfduke :
I would totally be willing to chance that if I knew that Nissan would recall it or goodwill it. I really like the Armada/QX80 and they've got a little more room than the GX.
If you lived in NH, I could probably facilitate this... but I'm sure you don't, so... poop. Haha.
I've got a gx460 that we've put 100k on. Its sitting at 191,00 now. It's a 2013 with premium package I think. We do have the heated and ventilated front seats, but do not have crawl control.
Mine is strangely not quiet and has never been- I'm not sure why. Our only issues have been an oil filter housing replacement and a failing secondary air pump that is apparently a recall. We get poor gas mileage of around 17 total. I did also replace the rear rotors once.
we've had some transmission stutter in the past but it went away (!!). It's been a fairly bulletproof little guy- but I don't love it. It's paid off though so it's getting driven into the ground. It is comfy on long trips.
happy to chat on the phone about it if you'd like.
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