Rental cars I have driven
With almost all of the domestic travel I’ve done for work and a little for personal trips, I’ve had quite a few rental cars. The nice thing is I get to go on extended test drives and see what these cars are all about. Unfortunately, I have to drive these cars for a day or more. Thinking about getting a rental or actually buying one of these cars? Here are my incredibly biased views.
Remember, this is about the specific cars I drove. I know you love your whatever that I shortly will trash talk, but I don’t really give a shit. Car reviews are supposed to be subjective.
Vehicle: Chevrolet HHR
Jumping on the small wagon bandwagon a decade or so after Chrysler’s PT Cruiser is Chevy’s HHR. Funky looks, terrible execution. For starters, the car looks pretty sweet from the outside. From the inside, it’s an ergonomic nightmare. The window switches are at the bottom of the center console so you have to stretch to reach them unless your knuckles drag the ground all the time. The dash looks like GM engineers tried to copy the Scion xB and Mini Cooper layout with terrible results. Being able to switch the speedometer to km/h was quite nice since I drove into Canadia, but only displaying 120 km/h seems stupid low and the awkward sequence of keys to press to switch into metric units took an hour of buttonmashing. Front seat room is adequate and I didn’t dare try to sit in the rear seat. Cargo space is good, but the roundedness cuts into interior space. Hint to GM: if you’re gonna make a boxy car, let the damn thing be boxy. Poor visibility, tiny windows, door lock stalks what stab you in the arm if you try to rest your elbow on the sill and uncomfortable seats truly nail home this car’s design by committee.
Performance-wise, the car can actually go so long as you can hold the accelerator to the floor for long enough. My Dad described this tiny smattering of available power as “not having enough power to pull a greased string out of a cat’s ass”. I blame most of it on the slushbox, which had to be violently provoked into downshifting. No way to pull it out of overdrive without going into “Low”, as far as I could tell. Steering was completely numb with absolutely no road feel whatsoever. Brakes were mushy and numb as well. Perhaps the factory filled the brake and power steering fluid reservoirs with applesauce. Cornering is a joke. Please don’t try quick turns lest the car flip and do bad things to your head. Fuel economy was quite lame. I averaged approximately 24 mpg, according to the on-board computer, which I don’t trust at all. I’d say low 30s for my trip which was 60% highway, 40% city. I’d say 22 mpg is much closer to the truth.
It wasn’t all bad, though. The one nice touch – a single white LED casting a soft glow on the center console from the headliner – was far overshadowed by the many shortcomings. GM’s patented We’re Smarter Than You headlights and instrument backlighting was inflicted on this car and are nothing but a big stupid hassle. If I want the lights on, I’ll turn them on (and I leave them on all the time, DRLs or no). I hate cars trying to think for me. A peek under the hood showed a relatively cramped engine compartment made even worse by crossbars to the body panels. Don’t try to work on it unless you’ve got an extra elbow on each arm.
On one hand, this car will probably get you from A to B with few problems, but goddamn if that ain’t one uncomfortable-assed ride you have to fight to get it to go somewhere. As my buddy Josh put it after I made him drive, “I feel like I’m losing coolness by driving this piece of shit.” Grade: F+
Vehicle: Ford Focus
I’ve had at least 3 of these cars to drive in the past 2 years and I can say unequivocally that it’s the second nicest rental car I’ve ever driven. I even considered buying one myself after driving a few rentals. Having driven both the sedan and five door hatchback versions, you can fit plenty of stuff in the trunk and much more in the hatch. Front seat room is good and rear seat room is adequate. Remember, this is a small car. Don’t expect it to be a Mini on the outside but a stretch Hummer on the inside.
Performance was suprisingly decent. The four cylinder engine is peppy and the typical rental-car slushbox actually responds quickly to changes in go-pedal mashing. It won’t win any drag races but it’ll get you around quickly. Steering, brakes and suspension all have just enough road feel to give you feedback but not so much to make the ride loud or scary. Cornering is good. Fuel economy is in the upper 20s/low 30s. Not bad, could be much better.
Ergonomics are fair to middlin’ – the Blue Oval seems to have done their homework. All the controls are conventionally laid out and very easy to operate. Nothing fancy in the driver’s seat, but Ford did you a favor by going with the less-is-more layout. Everything’s right where you need it and there’s nothing extranneous to clutter the car up. If you’ve driven a car in the past 10 years, you’ll find everything on the first try. The seats are comfortable and supportive and even my 6’3″ frame can get in and out easily.
Under the hood, everything looked relatively well laid-out. Fairly cramped, but nothing that can’t be worked around. All in all, the Ford Focus is sort of a sleeper – you just drive. The car goes. You don’t have to fight it. Word of caution: the shifter is on the floor, where God hisself intended it to be. A coworker often gets these cars as rentals when traveling and he has almost broken off the washer stalk several times trying to get it into drive. Grade: A-
Vehicle: Dodge Magnum
This is honestly the best rental car I’ve ever driven. Seriously. There’s no way in hell I would ever buy one myself but as a rental, it was quite nice.
The smallest engine available, a 2.7 liter V6, does a fantastic job getting this car around. There’s no need for the bigger V6 or the stupid gas-guzzling Hemi V8 unless you’re towing something. Seriously. The base V6 is the best engine for 99% of folks’ usage. The slushbox did fine on its own and didn’t require any prodding or manually selecting gears to get it to do what I wanted. Steering, brakes and cornering were all above average. Not fantastic, but pretty good. Rear wheel drive is a rarity on most cars these days and quite nice. Skip this car if you’ve got to deal with very slick roads.
Switches and dials-wise, the cockpit was relatively uncluttered and straightforward to operate. The beltline of the car is relatively high, so the window ledge is up a few inches higher than most cars but I could still hang my arm out the window (my preferred position when driving). I honestly can’t remember anything remarkable about the ergonomics which means they must’ve been pretty damn good. The ride was excellent, but having a wheelbase longer than a city block will do that for you. Parking this car was a pain, since it doubles as an impromptu aircraft carrier, but nothing major. Visibility was quite good.
All in all, a very nice car. Good smooth ride, power band and road feel, cornering and visibility both above average. Huge amount of passenger and cargo space. Longer than a dump truck which makes city driving a bit sketchy at times but an awesome ride on highways. Grade: A-
Vehicle: Ford Taurus
There’s not much I can say about this car, except that it set a new baseline for mediocrity in automobiles. Everything about it is simply adequate. Nothing is good. Nothing is that bad, either. Grade: C
Vehicle: Dodge Stratus SXT
This vehicle seemed like Dodge tried to make a Taurus killer. Too bad they fucked parts of it up.
Most of this car is completely unremarkable – they did a great job of copying the Taurus in that respect – but there are quite a few major issues I had with this car.
The first is their “cab forward” design means you’ve got less headroom in this car. No big deal, usually. In this particular car, you’ve got much less headroom on entry & exit. I bashed my head on the roof frame every single time I got in and out of it. Every. Single. Time. I realize 6’3″ is taller than some, but it’s not freakishly tall. I had to resort to crouching over and backing my ass into the driver’s seat and pivoting into the car before straightening up to keep from giving myself a daily concussion.
The second is that the accelerator response was hugely non-linear. The first 1/8″ of travel would cause the car to leap forward and accelerate with SOUND and FURY (most of which gets chewed up in the slushbox instead of being turned into forward motion). At first, I thought “hey cool, this car can really haul ass”. Turns out, that’s all its got. The next several inches of pedal travel yielded no further power or noise. It was like having a throttle that was either completely off (idling) or on (WOT). That really made driving this car a nauseating chore.
Overall, I can’t recommend this car to anyone, unless that person is under 5’5″ and can only his/her/its leg a maximum of 1/16″. Grade: D-
Vehicle: Saturn Ion
Not dissimilar to the Stratus above, this seemed like GM’s attempt to make a Taurus killer. Too bad they fucked everything up.
Go read all the things I had to say about the HHR. GM obviously designed this car by committee as well. Same horrible problems in a different pile of shit.
Pile all that on top of the Taurus’ C grade and you get the Saturn Ion. On top of all that junk, fit & finished seemed crude at best. In its favor was it was a sedan, not some new design their committee can go hog wild on. Against its favor is that it is a Saturn, which is somehow worse than being a Chevrolet. Grade: D-
Vehicle: Toyota Corolla & Nissan Sentra
Easily tie with the Ford Focus as the second nicest rental cars I’ve ever driven and for many of the same reasons – handles well, easy to drive, good visibility, plenty of power, good fuel economy, nice seats, all controls right where you’d expect them. Grade: A-
Vehicles I won’t even bother writing reviews for:
Chevrolet Cobalt – Grade: D-
Chevrolet Classic – Grade: D
Chevrolet Malibu – Grade: B-