FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2017 HOLDEN COLORADO

There are only two cup holders in the car, situated in front of a lidded storage box in the central console, between the front seats.

As you can see in the image, my drinks bottle is in the rear of the two and the coffee cup in the front. This is because the bottle would not fit in the front one as there are plastic ridges I presume to help grip a coffee cup. Although you can fit a bottle into the rear holder it is not ideal, the lid of the storage box protrudes over the holder space and forces the bottle to sit at a slight angle, having a domino effect of the bottle into the coffee cup, probably ending up with a hot coffee spilage (no sleep deprived mum wants to waste a drop of their coffee or has time and energy for clearing it up!! There are some days if I had spilt my tea I would have sucked it up out of the cup holder!!)

The clasp for opening the storage box is difficult to access when you’re using the cup holders as it is situated under the lip of the lid on the same side as your drinks sit. Had it been put on the side of the handbrake it would have been much easier to use.

This is one of my biggest gripes with the car and it may sound petty that the cup holders aren’t well positioned but without referring I asked my husband what he thought of the car and he had the exact same bugbear. That was just in a week so I think that cup holders are something that we all use every day and over time this would become a real annoyance.

The previous model had a cup holder below the vent near both doors which was great positioning from a safety point of view for the drivers hot coffee cup; keeping it away from the central console where little hands could access it and the vent could be used to cool it down to drinking temperature quickly too!! This can be added to this model but you have to pay $27 each as an optional extra.This would be a must for me.

There are two 12V power sockets in the front of the cab and one in the back.

There is not a huge amount of storage in the cab, the door pockets in the front and back are relatively small with room for a small drinks bottle, there is a single sunglasses holder in the ceiling and a standard glove box.

There isn’t a place to put your mobile phone, I presume the idea is it should be put away in the central console storage box where the USB plug is, however, I like to still be able to see my phone screen as I have it on silent most of the time when I have Tulsi with me so that if she is asleep it doesn’t wake her if it rings. There is a shelf and a small indented space in front of the gear lever and either would be perfect for a phone but the surface of both is shiny and smooth so your phone just slides off, especially when going around a corner, as I found out when my phone and the USB cable ended up tangled under my feet in the footwell!

There is ample leg room in the front and back of the cab. With a child seat in the rear facing position behind the passenger seat, there is ample leg room in the front for myself 162cm or my husband who’s 184cm and great storage space in the footwell behind it.

In the back there are two hidden storage compartments underneath the back seats, both a good size and easily accessible by lifting the seats. However, you can’t do this with child seats installed.

There are iPad size map pockets in the back of the front seats and the door pockets are the same as in the front, neither would hold a sippy cup and there are no cup holders for the back seats at all. I resorted to hanging handles of the sippy cup off the map pockets which would stretch them over time.

Overall I found the tray very usable, it would hold all sizes of pram along with 30 bags and if you take the cover off, any size dog as well. The tray cover clips over into a ridge around the rim without requiring much strength. The cover is great for covering your load and protecting it from the sun and rain and also for security so no one can see what you are carrying when you are parked up. If you wanted to carry a dog as well you would have to accommodate it in the cab if you were covering the tray but with only one child seat installed there was plenty of room for a dog in the back seats.

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres ia not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

I’m 162cm and found that I could easily reach to put the pram and shopping into the back of the tray (especially if parked next to a kerb!) and I secured the pram in place at one of the four anchor points with a bungee.

I could reach in to get things from over the sides of the tray as they are not too high and the sports bar does not come too far back to prevent it. To access the tray area nearest the cab I could reach over the sides but would need to climb up into the tray to fully access the centre.

You could also use it for a family picnic, snuggle up and watch a drive-in movie or as an open air emergency bum change station!!

The park assist and lane departure warning ‘beeeeeeeeeeeping’  are great safety features but they can wake or distress babies and annoy frazzled mums!! You can turn both these noises off with two very easy to locate buttons in the central dashboard below the media screen. This is one of my favourite features and I would not buy a new car without it.

If Tulsi is content or asleep in the car and I just want to change lanes or park somewhere but can’t even do that without sounding a ‘beeeeeeeeeeeeping’ alarm then the car is not for me. There have been times in the past in other cars that I have sat behind very slow vehicles and not gone around them so I did not sound any alarms! Crazy behaviour I know some of you are thinking?? Trust me there will come a time you do the same too!! Each time you use the car these automatically turn back on so you have to remember to turn them off.

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The sat nav voice was VERY loud, I found it too much for me let alone for a child. I could set the volume for the stereo but the sat nav voice always interrupted much, much louder. I didn’t find a way to turn the voice down, so I would love it if this was much simpler to find with a similarly easy to locate mute button as the park assist and lane departure warning buttons. I think this would be a great parenting feature as I find most often it is only the last five minutes of a journey I actually need the sat nav.

The indicator has quite a loud tick, which if Tulsi was a newborn and asleep I think it would be too loud and I probably wouldn’t change lane unless I had to!!

Apple Car Play connected really easily with my phone, I already had nursery rhymes playing on my phone and as soon as I plugged it into the USB port in the central console, the songs started playing out of the speakers of the car. Which is exactly what I needed to keep Tulsi content!

The screen is clear and simple to navigate and it is easy to mute the whole audio which I find is an important feature.

The doors of the Colorado are very heavy and don’t close properly the first time. Every time I shut the doors of the car when I went to drive off the beeper would sound very loudly to alert me to the fact one or more of the doors were not fully closed. A great safety feature, however, it felt more like a fault with the car door seals as it happened EVERY time.

To add to this, the window automatically comes down an inch when you open a door, which at first I thought was good for ventilation living in Queensland but soon discovered it is very loud and annoying!

If I had managed to transfer a sleeping Tulsi into the car without waking her, and the enormous slam or three I gave the doors to make sure they were closed, or the ‘beeeeeeeeeeeeping’ alarm letting me know that they were open didn’t manage to wake her, then the loud sound of the window going down and up automatically definitely would.

Becoming a parent I soon realised which noises and sounds are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

Having driven round and round the streets on many occasions in the last 16 months to get Tulsi to sleep, I know I would have been devastated if the windows noisily opened when I opened the door and woke her up!

The engine noise is quite loud and sounds a little bit like a tractor but I think this might actually help babies as it works like white noise and drowns out other sounds. However, this noise is very tiring for the driver, which might not be a good thing for an already tired parent!

There are five seats in the cab, two at the front and three in the back.

The three top tether points are situated on the back of the backrests of the rear seats and ISO Fix anchor points on the two outer rear seats.

You can comfortably fit two child seats using Isofix and top tether in the rear seats and fitting them is relatively simple.

To locate the top tether anchor points, you have to pull the tabs on the seat backs on both sides, which means walking around to the other side of the car to get the whole seat back to drop forward. Then you connect the top tethers behind the seat backs before clicking the Isofix into place and locking the seatback back into position before tightening the tethers and Isofix straps.

If you wanted to put a third seat in the middle you would use the middle top tether anchor point and the seatbelt instead of Isofix.

Although the door openings gave ample space for posting Tulsi through into her seat I thought because of the height of the vehicle I would have difficulty as I’m 162cm. It was actually very easy and I am now a convert to utes for this reason! You do not have to bend down and into the car at an awkward height or angle, everything is more or less at chest or shoulder height for me! I found when I parked next to a kerb it is even easier!!

Australia being a country of weather extremes blazing sun and torrential rain means you may find it easier to put bub into their seat from inside the car. If it’s hot you can get the aircon going, cool the car down and not stand out in the heat with the door open while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether bub can be easily installed from either direction.

The height of the ceiling in the cab means the posting space is ample to fit my enormous 13-month old through!

The standard seats have a grey triangular weave pattern which would not wipe down easily. You can have leather for an extra $1500, which includes heated front seats.

Front and rear seats are firm and upright but comfortable. They pivot in a good place and do not stick into your lower back as I am finding is the case with many seats in new cars at the moment.They are easily adjustable with electric controls on the side of the seat.

In the back, if you are not using the middle seat you can bring down an armrest in between the outside two. I could sit quite comfortably in the middle seat with enough knee and leg room and visibility was also good. My left arm was tight against the baby seat though and on a long journey I would need to drape my arm across the end of the seat which would be fine with a newborn but once baby got older they don’t want your arm draped over their feet!!

There are no aircon vents in the back of the cab but the front ones are effective enough to cool the whole cab quite quickly.

I also like the fact it automatically comes on full blast to quickly cool the cab when you start the engine after it has been sat in the full Queensland sun.

One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we get the big cars and utes as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, but the Colorado was really easy and enjoyable to drive and to park!

There are no fitted blinds on any of the windows.

We have the stretchy window shades with the suction cups on each corner and they fitted really well on the side windows in the back.

The rear windscreen is flat, so the sun comes straight onto the rear facing baby’s face. This was a major problem for me and I would need to either heavily tint that window as adding a blind there would make visibility quite difficult.

However, the reversing camera and park assist make reversing and parking very easy. The Colorado’s turning circle is really good, making tight car parks and parallel parking rather fun!

I couldn’t drive comfortably with a ponytail! My husband is taller and he could rest his high-pony on the top of the headrest, mine, however, sat right in the middle of the headrest and I had to take it out.

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get it just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

There is not a vanity mirror in the driver’s sunblind, which I would like as it’s quite often the place I get to put on my mascara when I am sitting in the supermarket car park as Tulsi has fallen asleep!

The steering wheel only moves up and down not in and out. Which I think is one of this cars biggest downsides. I am 162cm and so have to have the seat quite close in order to reach the pedals but need to slide the steering wheel away from me so I am not hugging it to my chest! So I never found I could find a comfortable driving position for the week I had it and this would bug me in the long term.

The elevated seating position makes visibility great for both the driver and passengers and I even noticed Tulsi in her rear facing seat, when we parked up and one of us nipped into a shop she was very entertained watching the people out of the window… amazing!!! She would normally be screaming!!

The ceiling handles in the back are well positioned to hang a toy from to help keep her amused too.

The Colorado has a 5 Star ANCAP Safety rating. All models have seven airbags as standard; dual frontal, side chest and side head-protecting curtain airbags and a driver knee airbag.

Advanced seat belt reminders are fitted to all fixed seats. Upper anchorages for child restraints are fitted to the outer rear seats of the Crew Cab model.

Some of the safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert on the LTZ and Z71 models, or the park assist beeping sound.

I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep which the Colorado allowed me to do!

The rear-view camera and rear parking sensors were fantastic for making parking really easy and the centrally located park assist button made it simple to mute the sound too.