Rental Car Roulette

While my poor car is in the shop I lost the Rental Car Roulette. I ended up with a PT Cruiser. Instantly upon driving it out of the lot I remembered a quote that fit the occasion that I thought you guys might recognize.

"I'll guarantee that nothing exciting, vibrant, dynamic, new, creative, hopeful or beneficial in any way to humanity has ever been done, thought of or driven to in that drab, dreary, entirely beige, willfully awful pile of misery."

I'm sure there are some deserted country roads out there were you could have an impromptu shakedown.

BTW nice cars ;)
 
Last time we went to Florida we got A bog-standard Chrysler 300. It sucked. The brakes were terrible, the interior trim was hard and cheap, and there was so much engine thrash, even at ~20mph.

You try driving a 2.7L Dodge Magnum on a road trip. More bodywork so it's heavier, and that piece of shit engine still felt like a piece of shit even with only 53 miles on the clock. Granted, wasn't broken in, but still felt like shit. Shit shit shit. Did I mention it felt like shit? Rest of the car was almost ok, except for the Tupperware interior.
 
But it is ze perfeckt muskel kar! Silly Amerikans we Germans know what kind of kar you want.
 
You try driving a 2.7L Dodge Magnum on a road trip. More bodywork so it's heavier, and that piece of shit engine still felt like a piece of shit even with only 53 miles on the clock. Granted, wasn't broken in, but still felt like shit. Shit shit shit. Did I mention it felt like shit? Rest of the car was almost ok, except for the Tupperware interior.

Ah the 2.7L Magnum...how I won't miss how slow the bloody thing was. This is the only car I've driven that can only manage a 0-60 in just under 13 seconds. That said most base engined Chryslers are 10 second cars or slower. Right now Chrysler is the only one equipping their cars with inadequate engines to the degree that even the previous Prius can defeat some of them in a drag race.

If you had one with a malfunctioning electronic throttle control unit...you'll fail to even reach 45 mph. I had to limp a Caliber that had this problem which refused to go faster than 5 kph. The hateful things like to put me in danger.
 
Thought I'd give this thread a bump to mention the Juke I got properly. Me and MWF were discussing what we might get before reaching the desk - A Cee'd maybe, an i30? Please not a Peugeot or an Astra. Turns out they don't have Peugeots and the guy at the desk accepted our request for something that isn't an Astra, so we ended up with this. First impressions are what I have always said about the Joke - it's fucking ugly. However I could get photos without breaking the lens.

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Pure Drive apparently means low CO2 emissions
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I picked it up at night so the controls looked bright and easy to read, but in the daytime they were invisible.
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A few button presses and knob twiddles later and that was sorted. I wonder who turned it down or why the option is there in the first place.
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Anyway I don't have a whole lot to say other than that it drives nicely, has plenty of grunt above about 2500 revs, a nice 6-speed gearbox, good cruise control which can be adjusted on the fly to a specific speed shown on the display and great BT integration for my phone. :)

The looks still haven't grown on me though. Oh, and it has a silly false floor in the boot that we didn't spot and takes away half of the vertical space for no apparent reason...
 
The looks still haven't grown on me though. Oh, and it has a silly false floor in the boot that we didn't spot and takes away half of the vertical space for no apparent reason...

False floors allow automakers to claim a rear seat that "folds completely flat" with the cargo area.
 
Rental Car Roulette

And, in less illegal use, good for hiding objects out of sight of prying or avaricious eyes. Remember, in an SUV or hatch, everything is just one smashed glass panel away from access by a thief. (Which is part of why ecoboxen in 4 door sedan form - a trunk is more secure than a hatch - is more popular in the U.S.)
 
And, in less illegal use, good for hiding objects out of sight of prying or avaricious eyes. Remember, in an SUV or hatch, everything is just one smashed glass panel away from access by a thief. (Which is part of why ecoboxen in 4 door sedan form - a trunk is more secure than a hatch - is more popular in the U.S.)
The only cool part of the last gen Sentra was the flip up "divide and hide" trunk divider.

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Few of the shops I go to do loaners; the last time I got one was about ten years ago, and it was an early 80s Toyota Pickup. This time, though, after dropping off the Saab, I got this:

A MkIV Jetta GLI with the VR6. And it's a 6-speed. I'm loving it already, and even more so that I don't have to maintain it. Interior plastics are hilariously bad, and the grunt is sweet. If only the exhaust or intake were opened up.
 
Matt2000 said:
Oh, and it has a silly false floor in the boot that we didn't spot and takes away half of the vertical space for no apparent reason...

False floors allow automakers to claim a rear seat that "folds completely flat" with the cargo area.

I had a false floor in the last 3 cars I had, all Volvos. The Skoda doesn't, however. Just a carpet on top of the spare wheel. This means that there's nowhere to put the battery charger, jumper cables, spare bulbs, first aid kit, hi-vi vest and other assorted crap I like to keep in the car.
 
My last 3 rental cars from the dealer that been struggling to fix my Mustang.

2013 Fusion
2013 Fusion with a moonroof
2013 Fusion with a moonroof and touchscreen.

I wonder if I go in next time if I'll have some other upgrade. Though FoMoCo customer care said that if it has to go in again, they'll try to get me a 2016 GT (I'll try to talk my way into a GT350 :lol:).
 
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Whats up with your Mustang that's making it go back to the dealer so much?
 
So my ds3 was in its 80k km service on Monday and I asked "small automatic" for rental for the day.





I got Lexus ct200h and oh my god.





The car was about the size of the ds3, but interior felt cramp, I had wheel on highest it could go and the seat lowest and yet my feet rubbed to steering wheel.





The space for a driver felt tiny, and I tried passenger side which had much more room.





Since the battery in under the trunk, the height of the space was lower than my work samsonite toolbag, so I had to keep it in vertical position.


I also had some spare part boxes (not the usual 8-15) and the trunk was full.





The gear selector was easy to understand, but every time I "started" the car it would not let me select reverse or drive, I had to restart it 3 times to let it select a mode.


When on the move I could select the mode and it always set it (or displayed the warning about me trying to select reverse while driving forward).





The mode selector wheel had 3 modes: "sport" that changed the backlight to red and displayed a rpm gauge.


"normal" for the basic movement.


"eco" which in my mind didnt do anything else than displayed eco-light in the dash.


There was also a button next to the mode selector, that was labeled as "ev", and it requires the car to be completely stop to enable.


I tried it in parking garage,and it disabled itself after 10sec of driving.


I tried the ev in Helsinki traffic, it disables itself at the first traffic light movement because of"excessive throttle", and all I was doing was keeping up the traffic.





Since its nearly "winter" the car had studded tires, and combined with the suspension, the car was wobbly.


Every stop the car wobbled a while, and while crossing a bridge with slight wind the car was being pushed to the left.





Must say, the Chevrolet cruze I had last time was much much better and roomier, hell now thinking of it even the Citroen c1 with the robotic manual was better.





FinalGear.com top tip: Avoid





Edit. Also the hybrid system is bad for engine braking, it starts to charge the battery but doesn't actually slow the car that much (using the "b" goes around this little better), and if I apply small amount of braking it charges more but doesn't feel like ots slowing down.



And applying more brakes and the car start do slow down too much.

Edit 2. There was 1 good thing about it: The seat heaters in lowest position burned my buns.
 
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Posted by Galantti

I had wheel on highest it could go and the seat lowest and yet my feet rubbed to steering wheel.


Are you an orangutan, or just sitting in a weird way?




Or did you mean your knees? If not, I bow to our future primate hierarchy. :bow::tease:
 
Decided to ask nicely for something better than a Toyota Camry Hybrid when I went to the rental agency last week, and got a Holden Commodore SV6.

Nice car, nicely optioned for a rental:

- 6 speed automatic transmission (with manual mode with the shift lever the proper way around, - forward, + backward).
- Bluetooth with music streaming
- No nav (a coworker had the same car in Storm trim last month, and that included the Nav system, and it was actually working nicely).
- Park assist and rearview camera

More details and pictures to come...
 
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Rental Car Roulette

I thought built in nav was always disabled or not spec'd on rental cars so that they can up charge you for a GPS unit. The Ford Flex I had a couple weeks ago had nav built in but it was missing the SD card for maps.
 
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