2008 Chevrolet HHR

We choose the HHR since it was comfortable to ride in, it can haul items that will not fit in a trunk, it has decent gas mileage, and the price is right.

The high roof allows the seats to set up straight making it comfortable to ride in. My leg does tend to rest on the center console which can be annoying. It would have been better if the gear shift was on the steering column. The front seats have plenty of room. The rear seats do not have much room between the back and front seats. The center console has the gear shift and extends from the dash to behind the front seats. It has three cup rests. One is for the rear seats and two for the front seats. The cup rests for the front seats need to be further forward. They are hard to reach where they are located but they are usable. The controls for the windows are also too low but they can be reached by the front seat passenger.

We love how the rear seats fold down allowing large items to be loaded in the back. It is easy to fold the seats down and to restore them to their upright position. The back of the seats are plastic so you have a hard plastic floor to slide items in on when the seats are folded down. It has built in tie-downs to secure the load. The passenger seat can also be folded forward to allow long items to fit. There is two small storage areas under the floor. We had bungee cords to tie things down stored in one of them. There is a third larger compartment where you can put items to keep them out of sight such as a purse or laptop.

The HHR tracks its gas mileage. It can display the average or instantaneous value. We have been getting approximately 28 mpg with a mix of city and highway driving.

The HHR came with a free year of Onstar Safe and Sound plan. You can see http://www.onstar.com for more information on Onstar.