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GMC Acadia nice except for backseat & defroster

I had a chance yesterday to take a ride in and drive GM’s newest and acclaimed Crossover SUV, the GMC Acadia. It was fun to drive, handled well and is part of GM’s bid to build attractive luxury SUVs downsized from its mainstay Yukon. I liked the Acdia. The 275 hp V-6 in the AWD model boasts 16/22 MPG and the 2007 I rode in was full from electronics, from rear seat DVD players to OnStar. The onboard computer says we were averaging 20.6 MPG on a secondary two-way highway in a blizzard and then a driving rain. We did get stuck in about 18 inches of plowed snow and had to dig out, but any vehicle with a mere 7.4 inches of ground clearance would have gotten hung up.

What seriously bugged me about the car was the windshield defroster and the back seat. The defroster only defogged the middle of the windshield unless you run it full tilt for 20 minutes, raising the cabin temparture to 95.  The vehicle’s owner and wife were upset enough about this as a safety issue and were planning to write the dealer. The car had no ports to clear the left-most fifth of the windshield. How could GM overlook this when this car was built for snow and foul weather!?

The backseat bench is scarely 14-inches deep, thus providing very little support for an adult passenger’s upper legs. Kids probably wouldn’t notice, but I was squirmy and uncomfortable for our three-hour trip home from a ski area in New Hampshire.My guess is they skimped on the back seat to provide more leg room in an otherwise cramped setting. A deeper bench would have eaten up leg room. 

Those two negatives aside, the Acadia is handsome, well-built, adept in snow and fun to drive. But after taking a lot of bumps from ice ruts in the road, riding in a car seemed like a magic carpet ride. Maybe my age is showing.