I guess the Captiva is only available in fleet sales? Anyway, it's kind of like the little brother of the Traverse.
We took a trip from San Diego to San Francisco to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. The plan was to drive her 2001 Saab 9-5, but when we got to Van Nuys, the radiator let go in a big way, and we had to leave it there for repairs. I managed to rent a Chevy Captiva, which Hertz said was a full-size car.
Over the next week, I drove the Captiva about 1000 miles, so I think I got a pretty good impression of what it's like.
To start with, full-size or not, the cockpit is a little cramped. I use the cruise control whenever I can, and when I pulled my feet back from the pedals, both of my legs were resting on hard plastic, transmission tunnel/console on the right, and door parts on the left. Not all that comfy.
The 3.0 liter v-6 has plenty of power. I think it's rated at 264 hp, and when you step on the accelerator, it goes. We had it loaded with some luggage, and two adults, and there was never a lack of power, whether on mountain roads, or San Francisco hills. The downside is less-than-stellar gas mileage. I averaged 17.75 mpg in combined city and highway driving. The Captiva comes with a 6-speed automatic transmission. The transmission worked fine most of the time, but at low speeds was sometimes jerky and/or balky, seemingly unsure which gear to use.
When I got the Captiva, it had about 10,500 miles on it, so I considered it basically a new car. What surprised me most was the amount of road and wind noise that were present at road speeds. I expected a $27,000 car to be a little quieter, but maybe I'm living in the past.
A real bright spot, for me, was the cruise control. There's a little thumbwheel on the steering wheel that allows you to adjust your speed up and down in 1-mph increments. Very useful on California freeways where there is seemingly always some traffic. I think I'd wear the little thumbwheel out in short order.
The stereo was unimpressive. We got the "free upgrade" to XM radio, which was OK, although I'm probably not going to be an XM person. The bass response from the woofers was boomy, loose, and flabby, and I found myself turning the bass down just to get some definition into the music, and I'm a guy who likes bass.
Handling was certainly adequate, and I found no real vices there. This isn't a sports car, but it did fine on some really tight switchbacks we got into when we found that Highway 1 was closed in Monterey. The road was closed, and there was no detour, but one gentleman told me that we could take Nacimiento-Ferguson road over to the 101. To make a long story short, we did, but a large part of it is a steep ascent up a mountainside featuring numerous tight 180 deg. turns. I probably averaged about 10 mph through this section.
All in all, I would put this car on the good side of adequate. If I were going to buy a car in the $27000 + price range, I'd do a lot of shopping, and hopefully find something a little quieter and more comfortable than the Captiva.
We took a trip from San Diego to San Francisco to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. The plan was to drive her 2001 Saab 9-5, but when we got to Van Nuys, the radiator let go in a big way, and we had to leave it there for repairs. I managed to rent a Chevy Captiva, which Hertz said was a full-size car.
Over the next week, I drove the Captiva about 1000 miles, so I think I got a pretty good impression of what it's like.
To start with, full-size or not, the cockpit is a little cramped. I use the cruise control whenever I can, and when I pulled my feet back from the pedals, both of my legs were resting on hard plastic, transmission tunnel/console on the right, and door parts on the left. Not all that comfy.
The 3.0 liter v-6 has plenty of power. I think it's rated at 264 hp, and when you step on the accelerator, it goes. We had it loaded with some luggage, and two adults, and there was never a lack of power, whether on mountain roads, or San Francisco hills. The downside is less-than-stellar gas mileage. I averaged 17.75 mpg in combined city and highway driving. The Captiva comes with a 6-speed automatic transmission. The transmission worked fine most of the time, but at low speeds was sometimes jerky and/or balky, seemingly unsure which gear to use.
When I got the Captiva, it had about 10,500 miles on it, so I considered it basically a new car. What surprised me most was the amount of road and wind noise that were present at road speeds. I expected a $27,000 car to be a little quieter, but maybe I'm living in the past.
A real bright spot, for me, was the cruise control. There's a little thumbwheel on the steering wheel that allows you to adjust your speed up and down in 1-mph increments. Very useful on California freeways where there is seemingly always some traffic. I think I'd wear the little thumbwheel out in short order.
The stereo was unimpressive. We got the "free upgrade" to XM radio, which was OK, although I'm probably not going to be an XM person. The bass response from the woofers was boomy, loose, and flabby, and I found myself turning the bass down just to get some definition into the music, and I'm a guy who likes bass.
Handling was certainly adequate, and I found no real vices there. This isn't a sports car, but it did fine on some really tight switchbacks we got into when we found that Highway 1 was closed in Monterey. The road was closed, and there was no detour, but one gentleman told me that we could take Nacimiento-Ferguson road over to the 101. To make a long story short, we did, but a large part of it is a steep ascent up a mountainside featuring numerous tight 180 deg. turns. I probably averaged about 10 mph through this section.
All in all, I would put this car on the good side of adequate. If I were going to buy a car in the $27000 + price range, I'd do a lot of shopping, and hopefully find something a little quieter and more comfortable than the Captiva.
