Captiva

My experience is also not with the Captiva, but its predecessor the second generation Saturn Vue, which is what the North American Chevrolet Captiva is, for all intents and purposes. (I was a Saturn Associate when the second gen Vue was launched)

In my opinion, the Captiva/Vue's 4 cylinder models do feel overwhelmed by the mass they have to move. The 4's simply have to work too hard to get the vehicle up to speed. This results in less than optimal fuel economy. The way to go is with the V6 combo, which makes the Captiva a very good alternative to the other small/mid size cuv's out there. However, I believe the V6 that was available in the Captiva was the 3.0, not the 3.6 that was available in the Vue XR, or the 3.5 that was available in the Vue XE AWD. It's not as powerful as the 3.6 off the line, but in normal driving most wouldn't notice the difference. The vehicles are pretty comfortable, and I loved the seating position in the Vue. I don't believe the Captivas were available with some top options like Nav, but I could be wrong on that.

My stepmother is seriously considering purchasing a GM Certified Captiva in the next couple months after her lease is up on her Ford Edge, with which she's had so-so luck. She's also considering a Vue as well, if the miles aren't too high.

They do indeed only come with the 2.4/6a these days. We bought a '14 because we weren't having much luck finding a low miles Equinox, apparently folks like them a lot and don't trade. Quite a few Captivas to choose from ranging from bare LS to LTZ. Ours is what I would call an LT2. We like that it had the sunroof, and leather that my wife wanted without most of the stuff in the Equinox LT2 package. It fits our wants perfectly.

The Equinox would definitely handle our grandkids in rear facing car seats better, but they only are that way for a short time and we don't haul them all that often. Trailer hitch was cheap and easy to install, lighting kit less so, but very high quality.

We drove from St Louis to Charleston, SC last July and never felt underpowered. Yes it shifts a lot in the mountains, and any 4 cyl is pretty annoying sound wise, but it did what we expected for the speeds we drove (28 mpg for the entire trip) and had plenty of power the few times we needed to pass on two lane.

They are all fleet vehicles, ours came from a small corporate fleet in upstate NY. Probably a salesman's car, 16K miles in less than a year. We would buy it again.