I am really interested in possibly purchasing a Terrain. I love the styling, am impressed with the vehicle itself, want to buy American, and am willing to be a first time adapter. My father, however, will most likely be totally against it and a simple test drive and sweet talking sales person won't be enough to sway him. We have a close relationship and I don't want my next vehicle purchase to be a point of contention between us. He has already made it clear that he wants me to buy a used foreign vehicle for the usual reasons; "new is a waste of money," "foreign manufactures have a history of dependable vehicles." This isn't about income or monthly payments, I could easily pay the thing off in just a year, should I choose, it's about the vehicle itself.
With that said I was hoping to enlist you guys to help me build my case. I have printed half a dozen or so articles from reputable sources talking about the Terrain, including US News, so general reviews are good. Right now, my biggest area of contention is a lack of reliability data. Further exasperating the issue is the fact that Consumer Reports, the ratings magazine he follows like the Bible, didn't rate it as good as say, a used Toyota 4Runner, my second choice. My second biggest problem is the idea of buying a new first generation vehicle.
So far I have found hardly anything on reliability data due to the Terrain's first gen status; everything thus far has been predicted. I was hoping to use the Equinox for that, but from what I have seen thus far, that won't help, so I am stuck.
My argument for new is simply the warranty, 3 year bumper to bumper, 5 years on the power train, 6 years on rust. Should I buy used I will only have a partial warranty, and may inherit someone else's problems. If the Terrain turns out to be a long term flop, I can just trade it in for something else at a slight trade-in loss; i figure worse case scenario I get $15k at trade-in in 5 years. I considered the "new GMC" angle, but that won't work.
Any ammunition you guys can help me with would be awesome.
With that said I was hoping to enlist you guys to help me build my case. I have printed half a dozen or so articles from reputable sources talking about the Terrain, including US News, so general reviews are good. Right now, my biggest area of contention is a lack of reliability data. Further exasperating the issue is the fact that Consumer Reports, the ratings magazine he follows like the Bible, didn't rate it as good as say, a used Toyota 4Runner, my second choice. My second biggest problem is the idea of buying a new first generation vehicle.
So far I have found hardly anything on reliability data due to the Terrain's first gen status; everything thus far has been predicted. I was hoping to use the Equinox for that, but from what I have seen thus far, that won't help, so I am stuck.
My argument for new is simply the warranty, 3 year bumper to bumper, 5 years on the power train, 6 years on rust. Should I buy used I will only have a partial warranty, and may inherit someone else's problems. If the Terrain turns out to be a long term flop, I can just trade it in for something else at a slight trade-in loss; i figure worse case scenario I get $15k at trade-in in 5 years. I considered the "new GMC" angle, but that won't work.
Any ammunition you guys can help me with would be awesome.