Vibe excellent for long road trip (Canada, long post)!

[ngilbert]

I just got back from a lengthy road trip (6740km total) and I must say, the Vibe makes a excellent choice if you're thinking of doing a bit of travelling. Me and the wife spent 2 weeks travelling in the eastern part of the country, ultimately spending the majority of the time in Montreal to catch the inagural (sp?) Molson Indy. (The race was excellent, but that's another story...)Some thoughts that I wanted to share:- loads of room. We crammed 2 large duffel bags, 2 sets of golf clubs, a AC/DC powered cooler, tent and various camping gear, a couple of backpacks for the race, laptop, and other misc. bags and stuff. And there was still lots of room left for the shopping trip in Minneapolis (cringe)... And I still had the cargo cover in place, so the rear mirror was totally unobstructed. I just folded down the right side (passenger) rear set and it all fit.- my baby is a GT, but it could stand to gain a few more ft/lb of torque, either with a V6 or larger displacement 4 banger. (Forced induction?) Some of the hills in Ontario necessitated a down**** or 2 to avoid being smucked by fast moving semis. Of course, with 6th being quite tall, I expected this, so no biggie. Just something I have to learn to live with. My previous car (97' Z24) wasn't affected this much.- excellent fuel economy. I ranged from 30 mpg to 39 mpg, avg about 35. That's at an average highway speed of about 115 km/h, air con on most of the time.- that damn headlight sensor is in the wrong spot. If you're heading west in the morning, the lights are on because of the shadow caused by the pillar in the morning sun. It really needs to be relocated, perhaps to the center of the dash- short list in the things gone wrong. The sunroof has a small leak in the rear corners and the cigarette lighter refuses to come out after I used the outlet to recharge the cell phone. Good thing for the 2nd outlet... Dealer visit coming up soon should take care of these things.- Only spotted a few other Vibes, a couple in Montreal, one GT in Winnipeg, none in the US. Still got plenty of looks though. In fact, the customs agent on the return to Canada seemed to dig it too! Maybe that's why it was quick and easy time going through.Conclusion: money well spent. Damn glad I got one.

[Sputnik]

I'm jealous! You went to the Molson Indy Montreal! I almost went - but not enough drivers in CART this year for my liking... I find my back gets sore sitting for too long in the drivers seat on the highway... but I wonder if I need to adjust the steering. Maybe I'll try that. Haven't yet had the need to stuff the Vibe full of stuff but I'm looking forward to it! My boyfriend took a bike in it Monday and it seemed to work great!

[Keely]

Thanks for the description of your road trip. I'm thinking of driving my GT down to Nebraska and parts thereabouts from Calgary instead of flying (you would not believe how expensive it is to fly from Calgary to Omaha!). It's a business trip that I must take - I'm not picking the spots for the scenic drive, that's for sure - but I figure a 2 week-old GT would be fun to drive just about anywhere.