My Week With The Acadia

When Connie Burke from General Motors reached out to me and offered me a car to test drive for a week, I was shocked and thrilled!  Connie and I were "Twitter introduced" through a mutual contact while I was online expounding upon the love I have for my current car, a Toyota Sequoia.  Connie challenged me on when the last time I had driven a GM vehicle (it had been at least a decade) and was confident that I would be surprised if I drove a comparable car from GM.  Thus, I was selected to participate in the "Cars to Consumers" program - a grassroots efforts that's been running for the last few years to place people in GM vehicles for a week, live with the cars in their every day life, and then blog about their experiences.  While GM feels that a 10-minute test drive is a great thing, nothing is more impactful than truly getting to know a product and how it fits in to your every day life.

So on a beautiful Thursday morning just over a week ago, a shiny 2012 Acadia Denali was dropped off in my driveway with a full tank of gas, a brief over-view on the cars features, and a smile and a wave!  After transferring all of the necessities from my car (iPass, phone charger, sunglasses, car seats and kid paraphernalia) I went about setting up the car the way I like it.  Once the mirrors, seats, steering wheel, radio stations, etc. were the way I like them, I took the car for a spin.  While it is as long as my vehicle, it sits lower to the ground than mine so that took a little getting used to.  I picked up my two little girls from school and we went for a cruise in the Acadia!  The first feature we tried out and became obsessed with was OnStar Calling.  How fantastic and SAFE!  Our friends and family enjoyed hearing from us while we drove around and the kids thought it was a great way to communicate hands free!  OnStar also has an amazing navigation feature - if you speak the address to it, OnStar will calculate the route and direct you there.  Very cool and definitely an upgrade from the typical GPS system that requires you to manually type in the address.

Some of the other features that I really loved were the air conditioned leather seats (very handy since the temp was in the 80s the entire week I had the car), the XM satellite radio (my kids and I both appreciated Radio Disney), and the "sky light" in the back seat was fun at night to star watch.  As I settled in to every day life with the Acadia, it was definitely an adjustment for me since I have been driving the same car for the last seven years.  I'm a creature of habit and used to certain things being a certain way, but by the second day I was completely adjusted to my "new" car.  I even got used to the windshield hologram that I turned off on the first day because I thought it was distracting.  It's actually a neat little feature that helps with keeping my eyes at road level!  The trunk switch on the remote was a nice touch - it made opening it with two hands full of groceries much easier than having to manually lift a tailgate.  The Acadia that I had was the version that had 2 captains' chairs in the back seat (as opposed to a 60/40 split bench that is also an option), which made getting in to the third row easier.  As a blended family with two adults, a teen, a tween and two toddlers, maximum seating is vital!  We made it work for the week, especially with family in from out of town!  My toddlers love a DVD player in the car, but I only use it on road trips that are over an hour so we didn't get a chance to try it out.  Given that we had the car for just a week (and that my car was in the garage in plain sight the whole time), the kids were very attached and sad to see the shiny red Acadia go back and return to the "old car" as they now call it.

There are some features that I would fine tune on the Acadia.  The cup-holders need to be a tad larger to accommodate reusable water bottles (like a Camelbak) that didn't fit all the way in the ones by the drivers seat.  And I would add a cup holder for the back seat on the console instead of the door - kids in booster can't reach the existing ones.  The "sky light" in the back is great, but it would have been even better if it had opened like the moon roof in the front seat.  The Latch System hooks should be a little more accessible on the captains chair's in the back - it works but it was a little bit of a struggle.  It would be nice to have more compartments for moms who need carry and have easily accessible a myriad of things (wipes, Kleenex, lotion, gum, snacks) - there were compartments but I found them to be a little small for my use.  And as with any car that has a third row, the trunk space is very limited once the third row is being utilized.  I'm not sure that any of the automakers have found a way to completely work around that yet.

Overall, I spent almost 14 hours driving the Acadia (there's a timer in the car), used 23 gallons of fuel, drove about 330 miles, and averaged about 14 miles to the gallon.  The price sheet that was included with the information on the car listed it at a little over $51,000, which is pretty competitive for a car in this class as fully loaded as the Acadia Denali was.  Compared to my Sequoia, there were a lot of features that were the same or better, which I was very surprised to find.  It was a great experience, and I am honored to have been selected to participate in such a great program.  In addition to the "Cars to Consumers" program, GM also has the "Our Town, Our Heroes" program that offers a similar experience to celebrate the local heroes who inspire you and drive positive change in your community.  GM features a new Illinois hometown every month on DrivingtheMidwest.com and will select finalists and showcase them on their site.  We (the consumers) choose the winner by voting for our favorite hero and helping them share their story.  It's a fabulous way that GM is helping to life people's spirits by focusing on the GOOD news that's happening on a daily basis, rather than all of the overwhelming economic / criminal / political stories that are so commonplace on our news channels now.  You can read more about the "Our Town, Our Heroes" and nominate a hero by visiting http://drivingthemidwest.com/our-town-our-heroes-about/.


Thank you to GM, Connie Burke, and to G. Schmitz and Associates for this amazing experience.  I will definitely keep GM in mind when I am ready for my next car purchase!


photo credit:  JustJen