Family Vacation

[chainsaw2608]

I read Strongwind's report on his vacation and thought it would be good to report mine. I have a 2008 Limited AWD that I purchased in December of last year. It was replacing a CX-9.

 

We decided to head to the high country of Colorado from Oklahoma . We drove from an altitude of 1,000 feet to 8,000 feet. I had my son and my wife who has a clothing and shoe fetish. That results in enough luggage for 4 people.

 

I was pleased with the overall ride and performance. The CX-9 has more room, but I felt more comfortable in the seats of the Edge. Never got tired or had to move around. The ride was quiet and the response of the Edge was good when required to pass. I did notice that as we increased in altitude the Edge did downshift more than the CX-9, but to be fair the CX-9 had a bigger engine.

 

My mileage going to Colorado was about 21.3 overall with an average speed of 70. Coming back (downhill) I saw it increase to almost 24. Kept the tires inflated at 35 psi. Overall range was about 415 miles to the tank.

 

We did some exploring in the mountains on some rather steep gravel roads. The AWD did great. Never felt any tire spinning, it just seemed to grab and go. We didn't do any serious 4 wheeling (boulder climbing, river crossing, etc...). The once feature that I liked on the CX-9 was the ability to switch over to the manual trasmission and downshift when you were going down steep roads. With the Edge I would shift into Low and disengage the overdrive and it seemed to do well. Didn't have to ride the brakes as much as I thought I would. One thing that you gotta have in the mountains is the BAMR. We had that puppy open as much as possible.

 

Overall I was very pleased. :hyper: We plan on keeping this one for a coupld more years until we see how the new 2011 changes work out.

[StrongWind]

Cool - thanks for sharing. Good to see the mileage #'s were about the same.

 

I would like to get up to the mountains of Colorado someday...