Not too long ago, I celebrated my fifth anniversary with my beloved Defender — a truck which I absolutely adore because it’s slow, fun to look at, and could probably hold a medium-sized elephant in the back!
But after Stefan’s BMW was stolen at the end February, he replaced it with a Porsche Cayenne. Again, a really nice SUV. But the BMW was faster, had more space inside (750iL) and was pure luxury to drive and ride in. The BMW had all the bells and whistles while the Porsche is more or less just the basics. And don’t get me wrong, the basics are still more advanced than in my Defender — but it’s no 7-series.
So now Stefan is looking for another 7-series which can maybe live up to the one he had before…and it’s not going to be easy. But that leaves me thinking about whether or not we should actually sell the Defender (a thought which has often brought me to tears) or the Cayenne.
It would probably seem simple if one of these decisions nearly makes me cry — but at the same time, I have to wonder if maybe I’m ready to drive a car again that has air conditioning (which would be oh so nice right now since our summers are only getting hotter and longer each year) and which is insulated enough that you can still easily hear the radio when you drive down the road. And in the winter, I wouldn’t even know how to function if I could drive in a warm car within the first 15 minutes of going somewhere — which is generally not a possibility with the Defender right now. This review about older Defenders (which really aren’t all that different) certainly isn’t very flattering — although I have to say the price tag in America is pretty outrageous.
Either way, gas prices are not going down in the near future; although the Defender is a diesel and the Cayenne is not. But since I basically only drive about once a week, and it’s usually to other towns nearby, the gas issue probably won’t be so problematic. And because of the new business, I’ve been needing to travel far more often — which is more difficult with the Defender because I have to find open parking lots n Frankfurt since it won’t fit in most garages with the roof rack on.
I guess it’s a question of growing up and also being concerned about getting around with Mackenzie. It was not such a big deal when it was just me getting all sweaty if I decided to go out during the day — but now I have to worry about her health as well. Plus my Defender doesn’t have any airbags which is an issue I generally wouldn’t be too concerned about…except for when I think about how airbags saved our lives just over a year ago.
Whatdya think? I mean I guess we could go in an entirely different direction altogether and get something we haven’t even had yet. But I seriously don’t know what. And the fact of the matter is that when you live on a farm, even without animals, you need an SUV to haul things around. Not to mention the usefulness of having a 4WD vehicle during the increasingly snowy and icy winters.
What would you do?
Hey there,
I enjoy reading your blog. And this topic is familiar with our family, too. I don’t like how many of our friends give us a “green”-guilt-trip about us having a GMC Yukon (that’s old, long paid for & used by me & teens for daily things which often includes lots of heavy loads, like several 50lb bags of feed, several violins & a full-size keyboard to fiddlin’ rehearsals, & up to 9 dogs, 5 of which are big & over 100lbs & it can bumper-pull our smaller livestock trailer & other small trailers that we have.
And we have a Ford F250 diesel pick-up truck (there are 4 of these in our ext.family who all work together in various ways & there’s just not an option to having these hard-working & dependable trucks) that we need for hauling heavy trailers from the covered wagon for family vacations to a huge 5th-wheel type horse trailer, to a load of manure for compost, etc… Good luck on your decision making process.
Thanks for chiming in! Since we live on an old farm, few people give us grief about the “green” issue and they think my Defender is far older than it is (never sure if that’s a good thing or not lol). But it really is fairly fuel efficient since it’s diesel. In fact, it probably even gets better mileage than the Cayenne…
Um… Get the SUV with air and heat… and radio listening capabilities.. No brainer 🙂
Thanks dear 🙂 Of course I will miss the Defender camraderie and the other Defender owners waving when you see them. But the new owners don’t do that anyway…and they just keeping making the new trucks more and more sissified — so I guess I’ve pretty much got my answer already…
Mini-van. Better mileage, better haulage, more space. Cayenne- ehh.
I don’t doubt that they are practical and all that…but the stigma that still goes with them is just rough. Not sure I’m ready to go from rugged girl to soccer mom quite that rapidly. But there definitely are some nice vans out there with very cool feature. And to be honest, I think the Cayenne looks a lot like a mini-van, just a tad bit higher off the ground.