Buyers Remorse

In early 2005 I was driving a Dodge Dakota R/T.  I enjoyed driving this truck, except in the winter it was a bit squirrely in the snow (small, extended cab, rear wheel drive truck with a 360 V8 tends to do that).  But in the spring/summer/fall, it was a fun and fast truck that Maryann had found for me after I totaled my Mustang GT.  This truck did not replace my Mustang (really, what can beat a 5.0?), but it was still pretty fun...

That Memorial weekend I decided to take Maryann to the West Coast of Michigan for a day to explore the sand dunes.  She said she'd never been, so I started looking in to where to go, what to do, etc.  I remembered as a kid that climbing those dunes was a helluva lot of work, and thought it'd be much more fun to just drive on them.  I started looking, and discovered Silver Lake.  What a glorious discovery!  This town is great for outdoor adventures...you can rent everything you need from boats to ATVs to mopeds to Jeeps.  They have a huge area of dunes (nearly 2000 acres) set aside for off-roading.  I decided we'd rent a Jeep and have a good time for a day at the dunes.  A good time was an understatement.

I found a place to rent, called Parrot's Landing.  The place was fantastic.  They gave me a run-down on how to drive, helped us take the top off, and gave an overview of what to expect on the dunes.  Then, they let us go on our own.  We got to the dunes and headed in.  As you head into the main scramble area, you drive through the woods very slowly due to large bumps in the sand that roll like waves.  The drive through the woods opens up before you, and the scramble area of massive dunes and expansive sands embrace you to explore.  The Jeep was a simple base-platform Wrangler, with no off-road modifications.  Essentially, a straight-off-the-lot vehicle.  The off-road performance of this completely stock vehicle was better than anything I'd driven to this point, and had me very excited about wanting one.  I wanted to come to Silver Lake again, camp here and explore more here, and have many more days out on the dunes.

We went home that day excited about the Jeep (yes, both of us enjoyed it) and the time we had at the dunes.  I immediately began searching for a Wrangler of my own, and put my Dakota up for sale.  Garnering no hits for the truck after a few weeks, I decided to just trade in and lease the Wrangler.  At the end of June, I drove my leased 2005 Jeep Wrangler Rocky Mountain Edition off the lot.  It had California half-doors and a soft top, was a manual transmission with no cruise, and had no a/c.  I loved it!   


Jeep, camping...even Gimli loved it!

 Maryann and I quickly put together a trip to the dunes, securing a camp site at the State Park in Muskegon.  When we got there, the Jeep had a total of 700 miles on it.  All weekend long, it performed up to all my expectations and beyond.  We had a great time, and a new "standard" camping place to head to.  We took several trips over the next 2 years to Silver Lake and the sand dunes.  Beyond off-road, I thoroughly enjoyed driving in this vehicle every day.  It was just fun to drive.  On a hot day, it was great to strip the Jeep down to topless in the parking lot after work, and have a nice drive home.  All summer long, I had the top down as often as possible.  In the winter, it was much warmer inside than many people thought it should be with the soft top, and very capable in the snow and slush.

The ol' Wrangler out on the dunes

 Come August 2007, I had an unexpected opportunity laid before me in the form of a job offer from a small architecture firm in Petoskey (JLA, check us out!).  Maryann at the time was pregnant with our first son, Seth, and it was not going well.  She was in the hospital indefinitely on monitored bed rest, and I was unbelievably unhappy working for the soul-sucking Pulte (although I still miss all my friends there, they made the place worth my time).  I had wanted to work for JLA since I'd interned there while still in college back in 2001, and maintained contact with them hoping for an opportunity like this.  With Maryann in the hospital, I knew I'd have to be driving back and forth every weekend from Petoskey to Royal Oak Beaumont, and would need something that had better gas mileage than the 15 I barely managed in the Wrangler (why does a 6cyl lightweight vehicle only get 15mpg?).  I loved my Jeep, and wanted to stay in the Jeep family.  Knowing Petoskey and their winters, I'd be needing 4 wheel drive, too.

Luckily for me, in 2007 Jeep debuted the Compass and the Patriot, 2 purportedly fuel efficient 4 wheel drive options.  I test drove a Compass, and liked how it rode.  Since I was going to be driving a crap-ton of miles for the foreseeable future, I decided to turn in my lease and purchase a 2007 Compass.  All the previous stories were just fodder to finally pull you to this - the Compass is my buyers remorse.

At first I enjoyed driving it.  It had a lot more creature-comforts than my Wrangler - automatic, a/c, cruise, more space, etc....but I came to find it to simply be "OK" at everything it did.  While it was roomier than the Wrangler, the storage space is just OK.  It has a small 2.3l 4cyl engine, which is really not even OK in pep and acceleration.  In fact, I find it quite sluggish.  Having said small 4cyl engine, the gas mileage (22 tops on the hwy, 16 city - reported to be 24/18) was just OK.  The 4 wheel drive got me stuck on more than one occasion in the snow the first winter (I finally learned to turn off the stability control).  Everything about this new Jeep was simply mediocre, and I quickly grew to despise it.  Now, I'm stuck with the sucker for at least another 2 years.  At least I paid extra for the 60 month, 60,000 mile warranty which has come in handy more than once already.


The lame Compass



I wish I had simply bought the lease out on the Wrangler.  I've put about 45,000 miles on the Compass, and when I turned in the Wrangler it only had about 32,000 miles.  77,000 miles isn't that bad for a 2005, and it'd have been paid off by now.  I thought I was being responsible by getting a more "family oriented" car, better gas mileage, etc.  I guess that's why they say hind sight is always 20/20, as looking back I had more options than I thought at the time.

I plan on getting a Wrangler again when I'm done with this stupid car, probably a used one that's an older model and modified so I can have fun again at Silver Lake as well as all the trails we have around here.  My only carry-over until then is an older quad ('97 4x4 Polaris Xplorer) I bought late last summer...that ought to get me around the dunes!  Here's looking forward to summer 2011 - camping and playing at the dunes again, something we haven't done since 2007.