CADILLAC ESCALADE 6.2 V8 VVT Elegance 5dr Auto (2007)

Cadillac Escalade - Thirsty! Bit noisy too, but lots of power

This was an import vehicle, left hand drive and everything! That felt weird to begin with, but it passes eventually. My husband is American and I think this was a mix of nostalgia and some sort of mid life crisis. Anyway let's not get into that! The Cadillac Escalade is quite a car, I mean it's enormous first of all. The seven seats are great for family outings with kids' friends, and there's plenty of space in the back for their lunches and things. We got a roof rack on ours so it's easy to fit bikes up there. Well, easy if you can reach. I tend to use a step ladder...

You'd think it hard to manoeuvre being so big, but it's not that bad. Parking is hardly a doddle but they've done a lot to make it easier than it could be. Don't let me suggest that it's a small car though, there's no getting away from the sheer size of the Cadillac Escalade. And the wheels are huge too, which can make it spray quite a lot of mud up the side of the car when you venture off the road (which it otherwise handles very well, I should hope so considering the size of the engine!).

The only real problem we've had has been an electrical thing about a year ago when all the electrics sort of... threatened to give out. That was thankfully fixed quite easily by a very competent local dealer, so no major drama there, but something to watch out for perhaps. Replacement parts are pricey though, be warned!

The other major expense of course is fuel. When we got ours it was returning a pretty pitiful rate of well under 20 miles a gallon. In the end we went for an LPG conversion, because it was otherwise really good. That's been fine, and LPG is generally widely available now. The only thing I'd say is that you can't go on the Eurotunnel with LPG, which was a bit of a problem for us once.