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DogCars.com: Call this Suzuki the Fur-enza
By Gina Spadafori
June 2, 2007
Saturday morning, first weekend in a long time I didn’t have a book deadline crushing me. (It starts up again next weekend!) So … I ran errands. Started early, with it still cool, and with my 11-year-old retriever Heather riding shotgun.
I knew the Forenza (or Fur-enza, as I call it) was competitively priced (a tick over $16K with a good amount of basic safety and comfort options), and boasted decent fuel economy (21/30). I’d already played with the seats, and found them to drop flat easily, opening up a large cargo space for a small wagon. And the seats folded flat, always a must.) The Fur-enza’s even a nice-looking if not head-turning vehicle, its clean lines accented in the deep blue of the tester delivered a few days earlier.
As a small wagon, it’s wasn’t going to be hauling my side-by-side wire crates, but put up against the Subaru Forester and other small wagons, the Fur-enza was coming out very competitive, with all the basics covered and a truly remarkable price.
And then I started running my errands.
A couple hours later, I’d packed in: 150 pounds of pet food and litter, a week’s worth of groceries, six gallons of bottled water, two flats of bedding plants and a handful of one-gallon perennials, a couple of bags full of miscellaneous household junk from the hardware store, a bag of cat toys and … a large, carpeted cat tree, four feet tall and with a base 18 inches square.
Heather and I were not even feeling cramped, and there was still room for plenty more. (If I’d taken Drew (seen in the top pictures), I could have packed in twice the stuff.
Read the full review at DogCars.com.
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Could this hold a couple of a 45 lb and 80 lb dog, with any room left for groceries? How about a 6’2” husband? Does it have 4 wheel drive for the winter?
Will be fun to watch the reviews. Mine ride in our F350 crew cab with fold down seat in the back so it lays down like a cargo space, with 4wd, with lots of space in the bed for farm animal stuff.
But I would like a second vehicle someday, with more inside than outside space (to keep food more dry than garbage bags in a pickup bed:) and that can handle snowy winters as well. Plus the furkids & that tall guy in comfort, of course.
Comment by TC — June 2, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
Oops, I changed a sentence, but only part of it! Sorry.
Comment by TC — June 2, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
Tall guy might not be that comfortable in any of these small wagons! Everything else you could fit.
Doesn’t come in AWD/4WD, but the front-wheel drive feels pretty good. I don’t live in snow country, though!
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 2, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
Gina, not being in the market for a new car right now I don’t check out the dog-car reviews often - but I do have a question that you may have covered. Ever since they started having air bags in all the cars I haven’t let dogs ride in the front seat. Am I too fretful or is it really dangerous? It seems like my dogs are as vulnerable as a small child. And do you use dog harness/safety belt systems and if you do, can you describe what works best? I’ve had mixed results with them, dogs can get unbelievably tanged and wrapped in some of them that I’ve used. I hate to tell dogs no more rides, they do all love to go.
Comment by Nancy Nielsen — June 2, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
My car has a weight trigger in the front passenger seat - less than 40 lbs. and the air bag is not supposed to deploy. So with my 5 lb. dog (harness/seatbelt setup) we’re okay.
If your dog is over 40 lb, of course, that would then still be a concern.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — June 2, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
Thx Gina! Maybe I can fold Tall Guy up in the back with the pups:)
Good points re the air bags. I don’t let my dogs ride up front because we have neither a seat trigger nor a turn off switch for the airbags even in our 2005 truck. Some neighbor snot driving 60+ in a snowstorm with a Dodge crew cab as a battering ram failed to negotiate a corner & totaled our last truck. Tall Guy survived it, said the air bag sounded like a rifle, and gave him a bit of a whack in the process. Had he been with him like usual, his dog would have survived the impact cause of the Roadie, but been injured or killed due to the passenger air bag (cause Tall Guy used to sneak his pooch up front despite my wifely warnings not to. No more after that).
We use Ruff Rider Roadies . Only slight problem is with my girl dog when the Roadie is attached to the shoulder seatbelt as an anchor. In which case, she turns, pulls away from it with her body, and slips out of the roadie like pulling a t-shirt over your head. When we have parked and come back, we find her curled up in the front seat. Never does this while truck is in motion. When the Roadie is attached to a lap belt slot, there is too much length and slack, and she has nothing to pull against, so she can’t back out of it.
We love them - started with basic model, then due to weight gain, we upgraded to the LX. Mine are german shorthairs with excess energy even at 12, so I think the belt design is a good one, because they have never gotten tangled!
http://www.ruffrider.com/
Comment by TC — June 2, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
I should add - we give the lap belt more slack, so she can move around a bit while we are parked and shopping (still no tangles). When in motion, I have it at the proper length for safety!
Comment by TC — June 2, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
All the new cars turn the passenger air bag off automatically under a certain weight.
Still, probably best to have the dog ride in the back seat, with a secured-down crate or a harness. We’re trying out a bunch of the latter, and will post to DogCars.com when we have the reviewed done.
That said, there’s obvious no gov’t safety standards for dog restraints, so … there’s no way to know what’s really safest.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 2, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
I’m a little over 6 feet and this wagon is surprisingly spacious. The dead pedal allows my left foot to rest comfortably in place instead of leaning up against the door as in most compact cars. There is ample head room and overall the Forenza has a lot more interior room than much of the competition. Lastly, its a real “Wagon” with a good cargo area free of plastic protrusions, and not a hatchback like so many wagon pretenders these days.
Comment by Wrmason3 — June 12, 2007 @ 8:15 am
I have a google alert set to catch news
stories involving dogs that have been killed by a deployed air bag but I have never noticed any news story that has mentioned this type of doggy fatality in 5 years.
This webpage is one of the few times that alert has been triggered.
Bill Z
WRZ
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/.....onal-News/
Comment by Bill Zardus — June 13, 2007 @ 1:03 pm