We bought our Matrix in July of 2003; it's a 2004 regular with no extras. We bought it as a workhorse and boy does it take it.
We've hauled home a console television (one of the biggies), of course packed it full several times when moving into our new house, brought home 7 bales of hay, 3 sheets of 10' x 3' corrugated steel (with my son in his car seat), we brought home 3 window unit air conditioners (one extra large and 2 regular), one half of a full size china cabinet, (at the same time - a dining room table w/ 6 chairs, a recliner and a side table), and most recently it hauled 4 people w/luggage and a 3 1/2 ft neon sign to Southern Illinois and then Friday I picked up four steel art deco chairs (with my son in his car seat).
We've found it's like a fifth dimension in the back of the car. We truly feel that there isn't much we can't haul around in that thing. It's traveled all over, Florida once, Boston once, Chicago twice, Toronto twice and we spent 10 days driving down Rt 66 from Michigan all the way to Tucumcari NM. It's one of the best travel cars too!! We're currently over 100,000 miles and planning our next trip. We lost two hubcaps to Rt 66 and we're leaving it that way for the moment.
So tell me, anybody else treat theirs like a pick up? I love the looks that people give us when we've loaded it up (usually after they've told us it's not going to work) It's AWESOME!!