Harp Mobile Shopping

Every harpist knows that the second most important decision about your harping is what to transport your harp in.  I had my Jeep for 6 years and loved it very much for it's high visibility, sporty look, and handling in the snow.  My biggest complaint however about my Jeep was the MPG, I would get about 16-21 which isn't all that great.  Every single time at the pump I would lament about purchasing an SUV to move my harp.  Only 6 years ago harpists really only had 3 options, a mini van, a wagon, or an SUV; but now we have the fantastic world of cross overs which give the SUV feel but drive like a car with decent MPG.  My priority list consisted of the following things:

1) Fit. The harp must fit, of course!
2) MPG
3) Miles on the car, my rule of thumb is no more than 12K/year
4) Price

I first made a list of 10 vehicles I thought would hold a harp comfortably and went to the dealership with my harp cover to test them in a preliminary round.  Here's the list of vehicles I decided to try (in no specific order):

1) Scion TC MPG 22-30
2) Honda Insight MPG 41-43
3) VW Jetta Sport wagon TDI MPG 30-42
4) Subaru Forester MPG 21-28
5) Jeep Liberty MPG 18-21
6) Jeep Patriot MPG 22-27
7) Nissan Rogue MPG 21-27
8) Mazda CX 7 MPG 22-28
9) VW Jetta Sportwagon MPG 22-30
10) Honda Element MPG 18-26

Once I tested the preliminary round I arranged to have the salesman pick me up with my harp and take me to the show room to try loading it, this is what I found:

Interestingly enough the harp did NOT fit into a Scion TC due to the fact I could not close the hatch, the harp fit in with a flat load but I could not close the hatch, perhaps a smaller harp would work fine but my harp would not fit.

The Honda Element only works with column loading for a concert grand unless you have a smaller pedal harp then you could probably flat load it.  I do not column load period so the Element was out of the question.

The Honda Insight believe it or not fit my harp.  It is too narrow to slide the harp in straight so you do have to pick up either the column end or the knee block end but once you're past the wheel wells you're fine.  It was a very snug fit but I closed the hatch with no problem.

The Jetta Sportwagon's fit beautifully with room to spare.

The Subaru Forester was an easy load with room to spare.

I decided against trying the Jeep's due to the poor MPG rating as they both got the same MPG as my Grand Cherokee.

The Nissan Rogue believe it or not fit my harp.  Looks can very well be deceiving and you should NEVER rule out a potential harp car just from "eyeballing" it as I would have said "no" to the rogue but ate my words once I loaded the harp into it.  Room to spare and the fit was very good easy to load as well.

The Mazda CX7 was another pleasant surprise as the harp fit easily with the most amount of room.

After figuring out what vehicles worked and what didn't I was very pleased to see that the majority of my picks actually hauled a harp.  As far as the test drives were concerned i was quite surprised by the results which are as follows:

Scion TC: did not try obviously because the harp did not fit.

Honda Element: did not try due to only Column loading the harp

Honda Insight: It is very different as it is a partial hybrid that "shuts off" at stop lights etc.  Wasn't very impressed with the power behind it only having a 1.8l engine 4 cylinder but my jeep was a 4.0 inline V6...of course anything less will feel like a snail. I enjoyed the digital display for the MPH etc was very nice.  I also enjoyed when the car told me if I was driving 'eco" friendly or not.  The average MPG at that time according to the vehicle was 46.7 btw.  

Subaru Forester: Everyone that I spoke with *raves* about their Sub. but I just did not care for the forester.  it was  a very easy load and had lots of room but I personally did not like sitting that low for that big of a vehicle and found the power not very satisfying plus the AWD increases the price of the vehicle by at least $2500 and the steering was *very* stiff. Not impressed at all sorry!

Nissan Rogue: I very much enjoyed driving this car.  I liked the height it provided me like my Jeep and it had maneuverability like a car.  I liked that the display on the inside of the vehicle was orange, my favorite color.  I really enjoyed driving this car.  It does have a CVT transmission which can be a bit odd to drive at first.

Mazda CX7:  This car was the smoothest out of all of them by far but was the biggest as well.  It was very wide and had the most power out of all of them minus the VW's.  I did not enjoy the instrument cluster as it was very confusing with quite a number of different controls.  I liked the handling of it however.

Jetta Sportwagon TDI:  Holy crap, what a dream!!!  This car has it all the immense power behind it combined with the fabulous gas savings of a diesel (TDI means diesel) engine.  This wagon was a complete blast to drive and made harp hauling lots of fun.

That's it so far in my quest for a new (used) harp mobile.  Here are the specifics of the harp and myself for those of you wondering.

Me: 5'8 28w 145lbs
Harp: Salvi Diana