Plenty of what you want, but uses plenty of gasoline too

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Performance

The V-8 engine performs well and the automatic transmission performs flawlessly, with no hunting on long uphill climbs. The engine pulls strongly from just above idle all the way to redline, with plenty of torque for passing. Engine noise is muffled at cruising speed, but under acceleration the V-8 produces a nice growl.

Most of the time the Armada can be operated in Drive, but for those times when you need better acceleration, putting the shifter in 3 (third) will deliver more grunt. In stop-and-go freeway traffic, fourth gear got the big truck going a little more quickly than Drive and the increased engine-braking meant not doing the gas-brake-gas-brake dance as much. In Drive, the transmission shifts smoothly and doesn’t hunt for the right gear.

Of course, the most significant downfall of driving a large, heavy vehicle is that gas mileage is low. While the 2008 Armada carries an EPA rating of 12 mpg in the city and 17 on the highway, we observed 12.4 mpg on the trip computer. But when we calculated mileage for a tank of gasoline the old fashioned way, the figure dropped to 11.4 mpg.