Mommy Likes: The Chevy Traverse
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 8:17AM 
If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that this week the nice PR people from Chevy have lent me a 2010 Traverse to drive around town for a week.
Now, I drive a little Audi A4. I love my Audi - I love the speed and the little sports car feel of it. And while it may have not made a lot of sense when I bought it after having a kid, at the time I was commuting daily and it was a good choice. And even though it's small, it's still our car of choice when going out with the family (Jason has a Nissan XTerra). But for the past year or so I've been wanting something bigger. The kids are getting bigger and we are going to need something able to haul around friends for carpools and soccer practice. And while I will admit to the occasional mini-van envy (ooohh, sliding doors...) I just can't bring myself to drive one.
Lucas, "just chillin' in the back, Mom"After a few days in the Traverse, I will say that I'm in love in a realistic way. It handles well and the room is amazing. We got the model with the captain seats in the 2nd row (see my rant about 3rd row seating here) and the space in this thing is amazing. Parked next to the Xterra it seems to be the same length, but HOT DAMN, the inside seems cavernous in comparison.
After a trip to the library yesterday, Lucas climbed in the back to just hang out and read. DO YOU SEE THAT SPACE? This is with the 3rd row seats down flat. If the seats are up, there is still cargo area, but I went to the store yesterday, so I put the seats down for max. cargo area.
The other feature that is super cool, is the reverse cam. This one is actually IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR.
Lucas immediately dubbed it the "Spy Mirror" and it's really cool - a "picture in picture" pops up when you are in reverse. The Traverse also has rear sensors, so if you get too close to something while reversing it beeps a warning at you. While cool, it's also really scary when you are slowly and carefully backing up in the parking lot at Target and some jerk comes speeding by and all of a sudden it's screaming its beeps at you at a rapid pace. But hey, thats why it's there, to let you know before you reverse into things like trashcans, jerks speeding by and children running in the street. I would much rather be beeped at than in an accident.
So far the poor car has only been driven to the park, Target, Trader Joe's, Islands and the library... but hopefully this weekend we can put it to the test on a mini road-trip to LA. I think a 2 hour car ride is where we are really going to love the built in DVD system...
Audi A4, Chevy, Traverse in LaLaLaLife 
Reader Comments (9)
It sounds like a cool car, and holy cow, all that space with Lucas in the back! I could be convinced!
Looks really nice! When I get rid of my mini-van, (someday!), I will definitely have to check out a Traverse.
My husband's aunt and uncle have this car and RAVE about it. It looks pretty awesome!
It's very sharp looking. DH drives an 10-year-old Subaru Forester and I've been after him to get something new -- we'll have to look into the Traverse.
WOW! Sounds awesome -- if I hadn't already gone over to the dark side and bought a mini-van, I would totally love to check it out!
I actually just got one of these as a rental while my honda odyssey was in the body shop. I LOVE LOVE LOVE double puffy heart loved it. (and that one was the stripped down rental version, not the cool one you had) Honestly, if I had driven it BEFORE we bought the Honda, the Honda would have had some serious competition!!!
I really loved my remote sliding doors on the mini when the twins were babies, but not so necessary now. Love the space in the Traverse. I'll be car shopping in a few months and certainly will look at this one!
The Traverse looks really nice. My DH has that reverse camera thing in his truck and it sure is handy in a parking lot. I didn't know smaller vehicles have it too!! I can't wait to hear how your mini road trip goes!! And do me a favor, and sit i the third row and let me/us know how much leg room, as we would use the third row!
Wow, that's a whole lot of cargo space! I, too, can't picture myself in a mini-van and got the Mazda CX-9. I love it, but it doesn't have that much cargo space. And I love that rear-view cam feature!