Ok I do a little traveling both for please and for work so I end up renting a few automobiles. This thread is intended to give your first hand experience on rental cars or cars you’ve driven lately. I’ll start:
Ford CMaxx Euro spec: 1.6L Turbo 4 cylinder 6 speed manual. Super fun little car!! The inside is nice, nothing exotic but the stereo sounds good and the layout is nice. It got 40+ mpg and ran really well. Has some body roll but the ride is nice and semi sporty. I enjoyed driving this car and with coil overs and a tune it would probably be super fun. Would definitely rent/drive again.
Interior: 8/10
Fun Factor: 8/10
Exterior:6/10
Functionality: 8/10
Ford Edge: 3.5L AWD The AWD and traction control systems were super crappy. I had to drive through 3-4" of mud and once the tires spun at all it cut 90% of the power to the engine even with the systems in “off” mode. On the street it drove well and the interior was nice. Everything seemed pretty average. Never put a smile on my face though.
Interior: 6/10
Fun Factor: 4/10
Exterior:6/10
Functionality: 7/10
Chevy Tahoe: 5.3L 6 speed auto 4x4. The inside of this truck was super nice. Leather with DVD player and nav with a super smooth ride. The exterior is classy and nice as usual. My only complaint is that the truck really really lacked power. The torque management sucks and the 6 speed auto doesn’t help. I did end up managing 21 mpg though which is nice in a full size. I wouldn’t buy one due to the ECU limiting power so badly.
Interior: 9/10
Fun Factor: 5/10
Exterior:9/10
Functionality: 9/10
Chevy Impala: 3.9L 6 speed auto. Leather power everything and sunroof. The inside was very nice and the car drove very smooth. Not very sporty but still nice. The V6 had plenty of power but once again GM limited it big time via the ECU. With all the nannies turned off in an attempt to power brake the front left tire would spin then switch to spinning the front right and back and forth. The stereo was good and the car overall was very nice. Wouldn’t buy new but wouldn’t mind owning a used one. Got 28mpg too!
Interior: 8/10
Fun Factor: 6/10
Exterior:7/10
Functionality: 7/10
Also most of my opinions develop around how a car preforms a burn out.
Meh. Most rental cars are so vanilla I don’t remember one from the next unless there was something particularly wrong with the design. I had to exchange an Impala with some goofy ass sport trim ZTE or something because I needed it for a cross country drive and GM designed it so the headrest was tilted forward into the plane of the seat so you couldn’t sit up straight. It pushed your head forward. I traded it for a lower trim level and was much more comfy.
I’m with Fry, though I do have one memorable rental car experience.
Buick Century: 3800 V6, typical GM slushbox auto. Surprisingly capable during what the news would later call “the worst thunderstorm flooding to hit what ever south florida town I was driving through in the last decade”. Did not stall even with water coming over the hood and lapping at the windshield. Capable of floating for a few seconds while making a uturn and finding a dip in the flooded street. Door seals definitely good be better since water was pouring in leaving 3-4" of water in the foot well area. Returned to Hertz with a service engine soon light illuminated.
GM should have kept making the 3800. The GP is my second one - I used to have a Buick LeSabre with the Series II and even at 135k it still ran awesome.
I’m sure it would still be on the road if the kid I sold it too hadn’t gotten it impounded. lol
the 3800 was a great engine I think it made too much power down low to get good fuel economy, reliable as hell though. Not like the 3.1, 3.3, 3.4 engines that eat intake gaskets all the time.
---------- Post added at 04:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:25 PM ----------
Ford Edge: 3.5L AWD The AWD and traction control systems were super crappy. I had to drive through 3-4" of mud and once the tires spun at all it cut 90% of the power to the engine even with the systems in “off” mode. On the street it drove well and the interior was nice. Everything seemed pretty average. Never put a smile on my face though.
Interior: 6/10
Fun Factor: 4/10
Exterior:6/10
Functionality: 7/10
If they fixed the traction control issue you had and put a 3.5 ecoboost (350hp instead of 260hp) in it do you think you would find it more enjoyable? or does it just scream bland all around?
It would definitely be more enjoyable. The inside was nice, nothing out of the ordinary but nice. The dash had some really cool features that I liked, example was the one screen that showed you were the power was going in the awd system and the fuel economy stats. Good interior layout. The exterior doesn’t do anything for me, I think it looks kind of like a cockroach with dubs on it. If it was fun to drive, powerful and had a good AWD system it would be a much cooler whip!
My 300 rental car made a great boat during hurricane Ike. It actually floated for about 20 seconds while running until it totally died and floated another 20 feet to its final resting spot lol.
While I was in Italy in August we rented a new Ford Fiesta 4 banger gasoline 5 speed. Thing was balls slow like to the point where on the thruway I’d keep it for a solid 1hr and a half floored with out letting off what’s so ever(maxed out at 180 k/m). Space is tight obviously if you are buying this car then it’s not for this reason. We still averaged around 30 mpgs give or take a little. She loved and took it like a champ up shifting and down shifting no lift (yes we didn’t care it was a rental). I personally would never buy one not even if I lived in Europe.
Interior: 5/10
Fun factor: 8/10 (more so because of the roads over seas and because we didn’t give a shit about it)
Exterior: 6/10
Functionality: 7/10 (again because of the circumstances that we were in Europe with tight small roads as to appose the opposite here)
Toyota Highlander,overall it was a enjoyable SUV which got outstanding gas mileage like 23+ ,decently powerful.Some nice features,comfy,good handling for what it was.
Interior: 7/10
Fun factor: 6.5/10
Exterior: 6.5/10
Functionality: 8/10
The other was a Mazda 3 which I thought was also pretty good and well balanced.It was fun to beat on,handled good and got good fuel economy.
Interior: 7/10
Fun factor: 7.5/10
Exterior: 7/10
Functionality: 7/10
Some old lady ran into the back of our volvo this weekend so we have a 2011 Chevy Malibu until we sort out our vehicle issues (her dime )
I was actually surprised at the general driving feel of the car. The steering felt tight and the ride was very smooth. It felt comfortable in traffic and had minimal blind spots. Of coarse handling and performance is a moot point on a chevy malibu but the fit and finish was better then chevys of yesteryear. I just wish the interior was made out of the same material the arm rest was…fawk gm come on. The other issues were mainly nit-picky interior flaws like how many buttons were on the steering wheel and that the pass and rear windows didn’t have an auto button etc.
Interior: 6/10
Fun factor: -5/10
Exterior: 5/10
Functionality: 8/10
I had a malibu rental car once. I think. Might have been a Ferrari. I’m pretty sure it was a crazy fast high end racing trim. It had paddle shifters. On a Malibu.
)