I traded my full size 1997 Ram 1500 pickup truck for a 2006 Durango because my wife wanted an SUV in the family. My son plays in a lot of soccer tournaments and we are always making a long drive somewhere on the weekend, sometimes overnight. This requires us to carry suitcases, an ice chest and of course soccer equipment. I call it "going on safari". With a pickup truck we always had room for our cargo, but what if it started raining? Or if we stopped somewhere to eat? Your cargo is exposed to the weather and to thieves. So, we decided to go with an SUV.

I am a Dodge truck man going back to my first Dodge truck in 1987. I have never had any problems with any of my Dodge trucks. So, when I came across this Durango, we gave it a shot. My son and my wife loved it right away. My wife wanted me to buy it before we even finished the test drive.

Three rows of seating, and it holds up to seven people. I have used this feature a few times carrying my son and his friends to soccer practice, the movies or paintball. Everyone fits in comfortably, and there have never been any complaints. I would not suggest traveling cross country with all those bodies in there, but for a short trip across town, no problem. Most of the time, I have the third row folded down for the added cargo space. This makes it easy to haul home groceries, small pieces of furniture, boxes of documents for work, or whatever. On a few occasions I have folded down the second row for even MORE cargo capacity, which is nice.

The front seat is set up nicely with lots of cubby holes in the dash for cell phones, Ipods, etc, etc. Drink holders are in a good spot. There are two electrical outlets, one in the dash and one in the center console. I love the one in the console, it allows you to charge up your phone or Ipod while hidden inside the console. My stereo has a CD player, which provides nice sound, but what I really like is the auxillary jack for plugging in your Ipod. I use this on long drives to jam. Front and rear air conditioning and heating is nice too. I live in Florida and have had no problems cooling down the truck on hot days.

There is one major drawback for me, the gas mileage. The V8 provides a lot and I do mean A LOT of power. Do I need it? No. I only carry around kids and soccer equipment. But for someone with a boat or a camping trailer it would be handy. But the V8 also makes a giant sucking sound as it "chug a lugs" gas. Not a really big issue for me as I live just a few miles from work, but if I had to commute I would probably have to get something more economical to drive. The only other problem I have had is that I miss my truck bed on occasion. Once you have driven a truck (as I have all of my life) you get used to just chucking tools or whatever in the back and taking off. I miss that. For example, I went to take our Christmas tree to the recycling center and I had to strap it to the top of the Durango. With my truck I would have just thrown it in back and been gone. My only other complaint is that it looks like a mini-van.