Took my first long road trip in the SSR last week - from Alexandria down to Daytona Beach and back (about 1600 miles). The drive itself was rather uneventfull - the thing tracks like it's on rails, and Interstate 95 it just sorta long, straight, and boring. (but you can do 80-85 all the way - woo hoo!
)
The only problem I noticed was the cruise control indicator light didn't work, (cruise itself worked fine), and have a very slight bounce around 70 so I guess the wheels need balancing. Anybody else have trouble with the cruise indicator? (the light itself is ok, works fine during lamp test)
Other than that it was great! Wind noise was barely noticable, even at 80, and top down was noisy, but not all that bad. (no, I didn't have the windows up.
) I did manage to get a pretty good sunburn, but at least it was on the way back.
The seats - I can't decide. It took me 10 1/2 hours down and 11 hours back - not an insignificant amount of time to sit at one stretch - I was a little stiff, and a little "buzzed" at the end, but that's about it. Not great, but ok. I make this trip a lot, usually in my wife's Escalade (which is kinda like being a test pilot for bark-a-lounger), so I'm a little spoiled. So when I say I was a little stiff, most people would probably say it was wonderfull.
Mechanically, it ran fine. Got 18.4 MPG. Not bad for 80+ and no other problems at all - just ran down the road. Fantastic!
The cool factor - all I can say is "wow!". All the way down and back, people shouting and giving thumbs up, truckers blowin' their horns, etc. Several times I'd pass somebody, only to have them come screaming back up alongside just to - umm - show their approval. Very interesting experience. And everywhere I stopped - people would come up and want to talk, say how cool it was, etc. If you don't like people and lots of attention, don't buy an SSR!
But the one I remember the most;
I was at the grocery store, and when I came out there was a beautifull RAM 1500 parked next to me with 4 girls loading stuff into it. Well, one was actually loading, the other three were admiring my truck. So I popped the cover and of course they all spun around to see who owned it.
One was a little more - enthuastic than the others and immediatly started chatting - opening with "Dude, this is just TOOO cool!" (seemed like a pretty good opening line to me.
) So anyway I said thanks and started loading my groceries into the back. (I had the cargo net in place to see how it would work out - not great :-( ) Anyway, the girls were still circling around critiquing the truck, ("nice wheels", "Ooo, I like the grill", "how many watts is the radio?", etc.) When I closed the tailgate, the chatty one kinda squealed and ran over to the worker bee and said
"Did you see that?!"
And I'm thinking "gee, she REALLY likes my ride"...
the other turns around and says "no, what?"
...
(the anticipation is killing me...)
...
"He has a net to hold his groceries!"
remember that sound the Pacman used to make when a ghost got him and he kinda slowly wilted?
