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Borrowed 2008 Volvo S80 3.2: It's an older, decked out luxury car that has been driven by teenagers. That said, it's a nice car (for 2008). Definitely a highway cruiser and good at that. Smooth, quiet acceleration, quick to shift above around 2,500 RPM and acceptable fuel economy for the time and it's rather substantial weight. 225 miles out of half of it's 18.5 gallon tank (I forgot to reset the overall MPG function before leaving). A soft but controlled ride with one year old shocks, it stays flat in the corners and has no problem diving into the twisty bits. Braking is smooth, only "stacking up" close to stopping; nothing that couldn't be fixed if I drove the thing a bit more. It is a fairly large car and Volvo took advantage of that to provide more than enough interior space to spread out. I'm fairly average, at 6 foot and 185lb, and the only problem was a lack of raised dead pedal for my left leg, which matters a little bit because my knees (and lower back, and ankles, and feet) are getting bad. Still, relatively firm eight-way adjustable seats meant I could get comfortable quickly and stay that way for 225 miles, round-trip. This car occupies a weird place in time where it has all of creature comforts of earlier cars, but lacks a lot of stuff you'd expect from a slightly later vehicle. There is an aux 1/8 in. jack in the center console, and that worked only because I refuse to buy a phone without an audio out. 6 disk in-dash changer, a 20 preset FM and 10 preset AM radio, all there, working, and seperate from the kind of bizarre and very thin A/C controls. To their credit, the displays remind me of Paperwhite ones. Very bright and clear, with no glare, and equally readable in any light. Very basic and "8-bit" looking, but they do the job perfectly well. I wish the in-built carphone could still work, as it occupies a substantial part of the lower console, but all of the buttons do double-duty for radio controls. Super easy to get to exactly which station you want through presets or direct-dialing. Not that important, but who listens to the radio in anything but a car anymore? Controls for everything else are placed to be easily useable, if not exactly where you'd expect them to be. The trip computer, for example, is on the left stalk, with a ribbed dial inboard and "OK" button on the end. Takes a second to get used to, but very easy to use on the highway without taking eyes off the road for longer than it does to check speed. The stalks, and their mounted control switches, feel wonderful to use. Solid and positive without being truck-like, if that makes any sense. There's a feeling by doing that the designers put some thought into how you would drive the thing. Kind of odd in places, but it all makes sense. While it has a lot of plastic over everything in the engine bay, there's enough of the Old Volvo left to make checking fluid levels easy once you know where things are hidden. There are a few things that are going to need to be replaced soon, but that's a problem for later me and later Volvo thread. Overall, not a bad vehicle. It'll probably never be a "classic", even among Volvo aficionados, but a solid executive car nonetheless. If you ever need to borrow a 2008 Volvo S80 3.2, I'd say go for it. madeintaipei fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 3, 2023 |
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Oct 3, 2023 01:51
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Which rental agency is renting out a 15 year old car?
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Oct 3, 2023 18:27
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Mandalay posted:Which rental agency is renting out a 15 year old car? In my experience, its the "my car is in the shop for a few days, can I borrow yours while mine is gone?" agency that most neighbors or family members inadvertently run
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Oct 3, 2023 18:47
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Mandalay posted:Which rental agency is renting out a 15 year old car? The other source of older cars you get to drive for a few days is the shop's loaner. In my experience, some independent shops will have something special as their loaner, and you might only get it if you have some connection to the owner of the shop. Many years ago, circa 2006, my girlfriend at the time had some early-90's Hyundai hatchback. It needed major transmission work so she took it to the shop recommended by her father - the owner and her father knew each other from some other thing long prior. For the week they had her Hyundai, her car was a 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V - white exterior, red velvet interior. She was afraid to drive the beast that was more than twice the size of her usual car, so I drove it that week. It was fantastic, but the malaise-era V8 hauling around 2 tons of Detroit steel was thirsty.
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Oct 4, 2023 00:31
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Mandalay posted:Which rental agency is renting out a 15 year old car? I once rented a 20 year-old Camry in Taiwan because all real agencies were way overpriced at the time for some reason. It had like 500k km and a weak battery but had no issues driving me around the whole island. Would recommend. 
mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Oct 4, 2023 |
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Oct 4, 2023 10:16
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That's a Corolla. There is a load of difference between a 20 year old Toyota and a 20 year old Volvo
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Oct 4, 2023 22:55
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Rented a CX-5 on a recent trip to Seattle. Overall was totally fine, even in rental spec: easy to get comfortable, nice interior. Even could handle alright; nothing special but better than I was expecting. Two complaints were that the CarPlay system basically only works well with voice commands because it’s rough to navigate using the wheel, and the base powertrain needs either 15-20% more power or a much faster transmission response when you actually gas it, particularly on the really short on-ramps with traffic lights that Seattle has.
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Oct 14, 2023 09:57
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dissss posted:That's a Corolla.  yeah you're right it's been years. I suppose either would do in a rent-a-wreck situation but yeah would make more sense to use a reasonably reliable and cheap to maintain model.
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Oct 14, 2023 10:23
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Rented a BMW 2 series in Seattle a month ago and got upgraded to an x3 or x4. Took the x4, really enjoyed the straight 6, had more than enough power when needed and very economical when not. Figured out the transmission was garbage in Eco mode but great in normal or sport, so we would mash sport mode to get up to speed and around town and change to eco on the highway. Averaged about 27, which is as good as the Jag so good enough. Lane keeper sucked as usual, but the seats were comfy, and carplay or Android Auto meant we didn't have to deal with the lovely infotainment. Wife didn't have a lot of experience with modern BMWs so the gear shift and mouse wheel kept confusing her. Overall a nice car that I'll never buy.
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Oct 14, 2023 13:44
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Back in June, I rented a VW T-Roc from Avis, and promptly got stranded 30 miles from the airport when the clutch completely and inexplicably failed. Now they're trying to charge me $1k for it. Is it even possible to destroy a clutch that fast? I'm great with a stick, and there wasn't any indication that the clutch was giving out; it some point, it just refused to shift into any gears when I was going up a hill. Moral of the story: gently caress avis.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:41
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Head Bee Guy posted:Back in June, I rented a VW T-Roc from Avis, and promptly got stranded 30 miles from the airport when the clutch completely and inexplicably failed. Now they're trying to charge me $1k for it. Is it even possible to destroy a clutch that fast? I'm great with a stick, and there wasn't any indication that the clutch was giving out; it some point, it just refused to shift into any gears when I was going up a hill. Nah, clutches can go from OK to zero with very little warning.
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Oct 15, 2023 23:45
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Borrowing an EV Vauxhall Mokka and it's everything wrong with modern cars. Visibility is piss poor, the A pillars are huge, B pillars huge and right in the way of you looking over your shoulder for blindspot, passenger seat blocks the view over your other shoulder, the C pillars are thicc but not in a sexy manner and the rear windscreen is laughably small. I have my seat as low as possible and the bonnet is still a huge chunk of my forward vision and it's also so square as to make it even harder to see. I'm not exaggerating here but people buy these to drive around and you can see so loving little of the outside world that imo they're dangerous. The interior is also incredibly dark due to the pitiful amount of glass, it's just not a pleasant place to be. It's also not very big inside despite it being a big fuckin' car. And the dead pedal is placed in a way that your leg naturally rests on a part of the centre console that sticks out into you. It also rides like poo poo. It rolls small road bumps quite well because huge wheels but any undulations in the road freak the suspension out. It feels under-damped and over-sprung. The steering is laughably vague. I'm doing a 130 mile round trip in it tomorrow, the car said it has a range of 180 miles but the battery has already dropped 10% getting me 12 miles home and I was babying the poo poo out of the go pedal. Not exactly brimming with confidence that I make it home without visiting a charger. 3/10 in that it's a car that will get you places but it's a perfect example of how lovely modern stuff is when an EV lie this should be the simplest thing in the world to drive. The start button is hiding behind the steering wheel and the park mode isn't selectable on the little flappy gear lever but instead is a separate button to the side despite that button not looking like a button because it's in line with the lettering of the other gears. It all seems obtuse but not in a fun way.
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Oct 16, 2023 20:30
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All eCMP cars have incredibly soft steering unless you force the system into sport mode. My Avenger is like using a cheap videogame steering wheel in normal.
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Oct 16, 2023 21:33
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Putting the seat low won't help your forward vision problem in modern CUVs. You gotta get up high. It sucks.
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Oct 16, 2023 21:38
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Rented a car through SIXT at JFK about a week ago. THE RENTAL COMPANY Reserved a 3 series (or similar) because the difference in price between that and a regular car was only a couple dollars a day so why not. When I showed up at just about midnight, they said hey sorry we have to upgrade you to a 7 series. Great, I'm fine with it, I'll have an even better time lets go. They then dropped the bombshell that I need to give them a $2500 deposit. I was told a $500 deposit which I was prepared for. They were comping the upgrade, so no additional cost on the final bill, but would not adjust the deposit to pre-upgraded fee. I don't have $2500 of room on my CC since it is full of the flights/hotels/other crap for the trip, they won't allow debit, and they won't use wife's CC because res is under my name, even though she is listed as a driver. Complete Bullshit. Lady behind the counter kept saying "yeah but you realize this is a BMW right" in a very condescending hushed tone. Are BMWs not as popular or common on the east coast? Why are you being so precious about it, its just a normal car, albeit a nice one. After some time, they are able to produce a Toyota Sienna Hybrid. Whatever sucks compared to nicer cars but how bad can it be? THE RENTAL 2024 Toyota Sienna Hybrid XLE FWD. Even after the initial drive from the airport processing the disappointment, my opinion of the van never improved. Infotainment was garbage, figured out after a while that some features wouldn't work when driving. Bluetooth finally got working after we parked, apparently its too dangerous to have a passenger connecting a phone while driving. Stereo was kind of boomy and unclear when listened to loud, but was just fine for low volume background noise. Pressed the NAV button, but nope this trim doesn't have nav so it gives a message saying "Return to the Dealer to purchase this feature" which is some very unpolished garbage, IMO. I get it from a cost reduction perspective, but come on just don't give me the button if it doesn't have the feature. Lane keep was actually perfect on the nicer stretch of 95 after we got north of the city, was complete poo poo in cities. I get it, I was also having a hard time navigating, I'm used to wider easier West Coast roads. THE POWERTRAIN was some kind of eldritch nightmare. In eco and normal, it was nearly impossible to accelerate smoothly. If driven like an old timid person, it was fine, but then when requesting >35% throttle, you risked kicking the engine on , which would sometimes result in an extra jolt of acceleration. In response to this, your natural reaction is to let off a bit, when would then turn the engine back off and activate regen, then repeating the cycle. Very hard to be smooth unless you are sub 30% throttle or over 70%. In "sport" mode, it drives completely normal and only reduced the MPG by 1, so either I was driving completely wrong or the programming was garbage. My sister purchased a Prius new in like 2006 that she still has and that thing is far more smooth, you can barely tell what the gas and electric motors are up to. Maybe this powertrain just isn't up to the task of motivating this van around. The cloth interior left very low quality. Van only had 8k miles on it and had the feel and smell of the cloth was already similar to a 5 year old uber's back seat. Like the cloth was completely untreated. I understand this is more condition of the individual verses indication of the whole, but I really got the impression the materials would not withstand the test of time. 5/10 would not bang again intheflesh fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Oct 18, 2023 |
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Oct 18, 2023 18:26
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Rented through Thrifty/Hertz (which share a cubicle at the airport) in Quebec City for a long weekend. I had reserved a "Dodge Charger or similar" for the luxury category or whatever it was. When I arrive they tell me I can have a Chrysler 300 or "a Volvo". Chose the Volvo and it ended up being a year old XC60 B6. You know what? It was fine. It's easily the most modern car I've ever driven, so most the gripes I have may not be unique to it but mostly my elder millenial brain hating things like touch screens for everything, a weird gearshift with a separate P button for some reason and a rotary start knob, and the fact that it's an SUV. It was quiet and comfortable and no complaints about the ride quality. The storage space in the rear wasn't as good as I thought it would be but it was fine. The controls were not great, especially having to go through the infotainment system for basics like fan speed, but that is probably just a function of learning its quirks. And much of the infotainment system was fine, especially the built-in Google Maps, though the screen was often wonky when trying to pinch-zoom. The visibility was decent. The steering was numb and floaty. I disliked the powertrain a lot, especially some weirdness when taking my foot off the brake and getting going. I thought it's some wheezy 180hp with DCT and was stunned to learn now that it's apparently 295 and an 8 speed auto. The mind reels. It's entirely possible I'm spoiled by 5 years of Dodge Challenger driving, but it definitely didn't feel remotely that strong. Would I buy it? Good lord no. But it's a decent rental that didn't make me hate life. 7.2/10 would pay $10 for the upgrade again.
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Oct 20, 2023 01:10
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:Rented through Thrifty/Hertz (which share a cubicle at the airport) in Quebec City for a long weekend. I had reserved a "Dodge Charger or similar" for the luxury category or whatever it was. When I arrive they tell me I can have a Chrysler 300 or "a Volvo". Chose the Volvo and it ended up being a year old XC60 B6. You know what? It was fine. It's easily the most modern car I've ever driven, so most the gripes I have may not be unique to it but mostly my elder millenial brain hating things like touch screens for everything, a weird gearshift with a separate P button for some reason and a rotary start knob, and the fact that it's an SUV. It was quiet and comfortable and no complaints about the ride quality. The storage space in the rear wasn't as good as I thought it would be but it was fine. The controls were not great, especially having to go through the infotainment system for basics like fan speed, but that is probably just a function of learning its quirks. And much of the infotainment system was fine, especially the built-in Google Maps, though the screen was often wonky when trying to pinch-zoom. The visibility was decent. The steering was numb and floaty. I disliked the powertrain a lot, especially some weirdness when taking my foot off the brake and getting going. I thought it's some wheezy 180hp with DCT and was stunned to learn now that it's apparently 295 and an 8 speed auto. The mind reels. It's entirely possible I'm spoiled by 5 years of Dodge Challenger driving, but it definitely didn't feel remotely that strong. You think it’s the straight six for a power plant?
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Oct 20, 2023 01:14
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Rented a Tesla Model 3 from Hertz in Reno for a few days in Tahoe, and then a drive to San Francisco, and then a few more days hanging around the Bay Area. The good: Electric motors are great! I love the immediate torque. The car itself was solidly okay to drive, nothing special, but I've driven worse. Charging in the Tahoe area was painless. There's a charger in Tahoe City and a faster charger in Truckee, so I never had any battery worries. Driving to SF was also fine. I dropped my wife off at the Sacramento airport with 50something% state of charge, and charged in downtown Sac. Charging took exactly long enough for me to walk to a coffee shop, eat breakfast, and walk back. My Airbnb had a charger. One day I intentionally ran down the battery to <20% by driving to San Jose and back. It was neat being able to plug my car in at night and have it be fully charged eight hours later. The bad: The navigation is okay in and of itself, but the onboard state of charge estimation is hilariously wrong. gently caress whoever buried the wiper controls in the touchscreen menu (I did eventually find a button on the turn signal stalk that does One Wipe). gently caress the automatic high beams forever. gently caress the gigantic touchscreen that controls everything.The car wants to be too clever for its own good, when it could be a perfectly fine car. The verdict: I wouldn't buy a model 3, but I'm excited to make my next new car an EV. I'm not worried about charging on road trips, but I accept that I'll have to do a little planning up front. I didn't total up how much I spent charging it, but my rough estimation is that I spent about half as much at superchargers as I would have buying gasoline. Probably less: gas was like $6/gallon. Safety Dance fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 02:40
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Dr. Lunchables posted:You think it’s the straight six for a power plant? I honestly don't know. I was absolutely convinced it was a CVT (I called it a DCT in my post wtf) because it sounded and acted exactly like one I had as a rental years ago. Maybe it's a gearing issue? Maybe Hertz hosed with it? Maybe the hybrid nature? I put like a quarter million km on an Infiniti G35 so I'm used to a 300hp 6er and this just didn't feel right.
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Oct 20, 2023 11:58
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:I honestly don't know. I was absolutely convinced it was a CVT (I called it a DCT in my post wtf) because it sounded and acted exactly like one I had as a rental years ago. Maybe it's a gearing issue? Maybe Hertz hosed with it? Maybe the hybrid nature? I put like a quarter million km on an Infiniti G35 so I'm used to a 300hp 6er and this just didn't feel right. B6 is a four cylinders running on an aisin 8SPD auto, tech specs are the following https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/models/xc60/2022/specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWF8F35
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Oct 20, 2023 13:06
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Ford e-transit. For being such a flagship model I thought there was weirdly little attention paid to the usability of this van. The large touchscreen faced directly backwards and was almost vertical meaning that the driver sees it at a substantial angle, the base in the cargo area has these little divots which make it a pain to brush clean, power delivery from a standstill is not smooth and sometimes there'd be an extra jolt when moving to park and releasing the brake. Good mirrors though and at speed it drove well for a van that size. e: forgot to mention the most annoying part - the rental place despite otherwise being good value charged 15eur if you returned it 90-100% charged, 100eur less than 10% and scaled linearly in-between. It's a gigantic pain to get one of these vans to 100% if you only need it for a short journey as the charging is so slow at the end. distortion park fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 14:04
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Also half their charging points were broken.
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Oct 21, 2023 14:13
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Just returned a Hyundai Ionic 5 from a wedding weekend in Austin. If you have the capability to charge at home or live somewhere like Austin where every whole foods has chargers it’d basically be the ideal car as appliance. Super comfortable, quiet, liked the instant pull for horribly short highway on-ramps. My first time with an EV and I get it. Would I buy one? Probably not. Whole car could do with being six inches more narrow and maybe a foot shorter, be a proper hatch; it felt real hard to know where the corners actually were, particularly with giant pillars at each one. Also, steering was absolutely numb, and lane keeping was way too intrusive. Like there’s a reason I was hugging the left line, it’s the drunk guy in a pickup in the lane to my right, I don’t want to have to fight the car.
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Dec 10, 2023 20:31
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Had a Peuget e-Traveller for nearly a week. Seats up to 8 people with still a good sized trunk. A client of mine got it through some deal, and the rental company left out a few key bits. Pros - big and roomy, with pretty comfy seats - way better to drive than an ICE van - automatic sliding doors that the driver and the passengers could operate - good visibility all around because hey, it's a van - everything was in good shape even after 70 000 km Cons - infotainment seemed really lacking - the interior in general seemed very sparse and plasticy for a van that was being sold for around 50 000€ The biggest issue was the charging. This was the first time I drove an EV, and because the client's office didn't have a place to charge overnight, I ran into a lot of problems. Trying to find free spots, trying to navigate the 5980123098 different apps, trying to hustle with the different charging cables, etc. Didn't help that the rental company only included a single normal AC cable for charging (and also forgot to include a scraper and a snow brush in December with temperatures around -10C). I also could've used a short brief on how to charge the van, but as always, everyone (including me) was too busy. The actual driving was good, and as mentioned, way better than most ICE vans. The client's office building has an underground garage but there's no charging yet, and until this changes, an ICE van will just be more practical for our use case. Range was generally a bit less than half than the official ratings, but it was somewhat cold the entire week, and I'm sure trying to heat up the cabin, winter tires, etc. didn't help.
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Dec 10, 2023 23:38
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My car is in the shop, and they needed me to work, so I made a reservation over the phone with a rental agency. I get there the next day and they said they didn't have a record of my reservation. The only car they had available for rent was a Dodge Challenger. Our cars are a Forester and an Impreza hatchback just for reference. It's big, not overly fast. It is bigger than the Forester in every dimension except for height. It doesn't have much in the way of visibility. The radio works. I'm not much one for infotainment, so I can't speak to that side of the car. The fuel economy is not great. It doesn't handle particularly well. It does get noticed and attention. It is comfortable enough, but some of the UI is different (only one stalk for wipers and turn signals, E brake is on the floor and heavy. Overall, I'm happy to have had the experience, but I miss my Subaru.
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Dec 11, 2023 00:16
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I needed to take a couple of bulky things to the landfill so I rented AIs perfect trucklet l   Petrol, 6 speed auto, 2WD, decent sized tray, ladder rack, manual AC with the classic three dials layout The driving experience was exactly like you'd expect from such a vehicle - very lazy engine and gearbox with rock hard suspension. Kinda jarring having adaptive cruise and overly aggressive lanekeep in such an otherwise primitive feel vehicle.
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Dec 30, 2023 03:55
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My dad had a 2003 Hilux and it was a pain to drive with no load, the rock hard rear suspension which felt like it was going to snap out from under you on rough roads. It was a bit scary in the wet. That said, load the thing up and it was great to drive, even with the petrol 4 and manual box.
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Dec 31, 2023 01:38
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intheflesh posted:they won't allow debit, and they won't use wife's CC because res is under my name, even though she is listed as a driver.
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Jan 7, 2024 02:21
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I rented a Subaru/Toyota solterra after being rear ended, the reservation wasn't meant for an EV but that was all they had or some gas guzzler suv (avis), took the solterra with 0% battery running on reserve. When I got it, I thought it was a hybrid as I had never picked ev to begin with, so just went home not caring about the empty battery, it went into crawl mode when I got home and ended up in a REI parking garage charging as conveniently the building chargers were all busy. That car was a whale and jsucked, it guzzled electricity like it had an addiction due to its size and weight but it kind of made me want an EV as I got used to spending $0 on fuel, had that car for about a month and half then a 2023 bolt as my e-golf delivery got delayed. It was tolerable but way too big. The bolt was more comfortable, but it had 0 sound insulation, it was like going around with windows rolled down and the mirrors only the center one had dimming so whatever position I was being blinded at night unless I aimed them up which made them unusable too, the windows had zero anti-glare treatment too which didn't help. It was far more efficient than the solterra, but the glare was a nightmare, wtf chevrolet.
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Jan 12, 2024 03:58
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I had a Toyota Crown rental car and it's sad that the Avalon died for this. I generally like big soft sedans (Avalon, Buick LaCrosse, Chrysler 300, etc) and can appreciate them for what they are. The Crown is the replacement for the Avalon in the lineup. Exterior: Despite having a strange sedan like body style, it wears a lot of black plastic cladding. The car is huge without having any benefit to its size. The rear trunk is deep front-to-back as you expect on a full size sedan, but the floor of the trunk is quite high and the opening is small. There is good rear seat legroom but the swoopy roofline eats in to headroom. The hood is long and tall for unknown reasons - it has a 2.5L 4 and a hybrid drivetrain so it's not like it needs a ton of room under there. Interior: The seats are a cool cloth that is a nod to the Actual Toyota Crown, and there's neat brass colored trim everywhere. Otherwise, it's all Toyota for good and for ill. The center console has some weird dark gray plastic that is shiny and feels cheap and out of place. The quality of the two-screen display is quite good and CarPlay is seamless out of the box. Interior space feels worse than the Camry despite the fact that the car is bigger. Drive: The powertrain feels just like the new Prius, which is pretty good, except they managed to gently caress up the regenerative braking. It's very non-linear and is shocking on a Toyota - the new Prius has a much better implementation. The ride is fairly well composed considering it rides on dubs. It does not handle well, although part of this is the fault of its crappy Bridgestone Ectopias that grip like hockey pucks. The steering is isolated and uncommunicative, but that's not inappropriate for a sedan of this class. All the safety nannies work pretty well and the ACC is a good implementation. The exception is its pedestrian detection system - it detected a pedestrian in the opposite lane who was waiting for me to pass, and slammed on the brakes, which created an unsafe situation for both of us. Granted, there should not have been a man standing in a 45 mph four lane road not at a crosswalk, but this is America. Bottom line is that I don't understand the purpose of this car at all, and the best part of it (drivetrain) exists in plenty of other Toyota offerings, which are the cars you should buy. edit: it also only managed to return about 37mpg in mostly highway driving which is not great!
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Apr 5, 2024 15:59
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Borrowed 2024 Toyota Highlander Platinum. 2.4 turbo motor, non-hybrid. All of the options. Boring. Good boring sometimes, bad boring others. Driving-wise, it is a very good appliance. Great seating positions, working well for our 5ft-nothing and 100lb gal, to 6ft 180ln me, to 5ft 9in 280lb great granddad. You can adjust everything to accomodate everyone. Sightlines are as good as you'd expect for a long, tall vehicle with thick pillars, but the blindspot and lane keeping aids pick up the slack seemlessly. All of the driving aids feel seemless, in fact. The most it does is beep at you like you're an rear end in a top hat for not signalling and grab you by the lapels when the auto emergency braking kicks in. Just pay attention to what you're doing and it's like that poo poo isn't even there until someone else does something wiggy. Even in sport mode, you feel the weight of the thing. Acceleration is blah unless you really tip in the throttle, in which case the transmission fights you every step of the way. The engine is also very buzzy. No turbo lag, though. Steering is lifeless but precise. Cornering is pretty flat for such a heavy thing. Parking aids are to Toyota's usual standards, with a nicely positioned rear camera. I'd like to try it with a trailer. Braking is pleasantly progressive in normal driving and face-through-the-windshield when needed. The one time I had to "ohshitstopstopstop" during a tighter turn the thing went exactly where I needed it to go with no drama. Ride quality is very nice The interior is spacious. Both rows of back seats fold down to make a very nice flat floor at a height that works well for someone my height. The seats are great, even in the third row. A minimum of road noise. All you'll heard is the little motor whining about it's lot in life. All driving and comfort controls are well laid out. The infotainment system is... not needed for much so I really haven't hosed with it. Pairing devices is easy, and the wireless charging area is a nice touch. Banging stereo. Mileage is pretty lovely, but that is probably because we've only driven it in town on short trips. 23mpg average, over 6000 miles. With careful driving, better route planning, and more use of eco mode, I'm sure that would improve. Driving it feels like a teleportation device. Look, point, squirt, we're there now. Boring. Booorrr-ing. Dull, comfy, gentle, souless. Like a very professional hospice nurse. Toyota sells the Highlander. You could buy one. It's very nice. I'm house-sitting for family right now. They offered either the Highlander or the Nissan Juke (which I have reviewed here) to commute with. The Juke is growing on me.
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Apr 8, 2024 02:01
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2023 Nissan Rogue with around 26k miles rented at the Albuquerque Sunport. Pretty comfy seats that had 3 levels of heat ranging from boiling to barely noticeable. heated steering wheel too which was nice. Ok radio but i didnt use any of the carplay or android auto stuff just tuned it to 95.1 old school jams and sent it. pretty quiet interior too. the lane departure warning vibrated the steering wheel which is so genius i cant believe its the first time ive cone across that. lots of other beeps and bongs telling me nothing other than how crap a driver i am i guess. the suspension was "sporty" which just means too stiff for a dang suv. the rear end would step sideways every time you hit a bump with only one of the rear tires. The turbo engine had good power but the rubber band effect you got from the CVT tuning and the turbo spooling was god awful. totally whiplash inducing. the leds for the "auto" and "sync" functions of the HVAC were permanently on and the back seat sensors were always giving a warning that the rear seat belts werent buckled despite there being nobody back there. the battery seemed like it was almost dead since it could barely crank the engine and for some reason the auto start/stop function stopped working on day 2. it was better than walking but i didnt enjoy that car. C-
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Apr 9, 2024 01:34
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2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon PHEV, to drive to the eclipse and back. We had reserved a Prius Hybrid… “but we do have another hybrid available” Haahaa, thought it might be cute, who knows, I have not driven a Jeep since my days with a gas leaking/guzzling J20. So, I guess, in retrospect, I really should have known better, and it’s not really that shocking that an earth crawler is not good on the interstate , but this thing was bad bad. The Good: It’s very handsome It felt quick, if disconnected/loosey goosey, the 2 liter was quick to rev, but the PHEV randomly turning off the engine while driving or not turning it on when I pushed the start button was not a confidence builder. Also it took a while to learn to push a button to stop and start the car (Polestar, I get in car, drive. Get out of car and walk away, it’ll lock itself). The Jeep I found running a couple of times when I went back outside. ( I dunno, seems like car in park + nobody in seats + no key nearby, maybe it should at least shut off by itself?) It can ford 33” of water (we drove through a flooded lane 12” that mere not-Jeeps had to avoid, that was cool, that one time, in 1800 miles of driving) Hard switches for a/c, seat heater, steering wheel heat It fit in pretty well, in Texas hill country, not a truck, but a truck-like object Fancy suspension/traction gear sticks and differential buttons etc (*not useful on highway) The Bad: The incredible noise. Conversation was not possible. Everything got said twice to be understood. Forget music or podcast. The incredibly bad mileage (17.6mpg) which gave us ~290 miles on a tank, which is not great, but you really need a break by then actually. I thought it would be sort of fancy, right? Looks fancy from the outside anyway! Well… -basic cruise control only so you really have to pay attention -no lane keeping, so no help from that either -no power seats -no overhead camera view (seems like that would be handy off road, in the rocks, what do I know?) -no blind spot car detection -mirrors seemingly good sized but actually pretty limited in their view and travel -common to many modern vehicles, it takes up a lot of space and doesn’t hold that much stuff -it came with several bulky nylon cushioned bags taking up space in the back, for the doors/windows in case you are driving in a rainforest or Jurassic park and feel the need to disassemble the vehicle -since it can be disassembled, many things have bulky latches or dangling lanyards -vertical windshield (and everything else really) found all the insects, and was really distracting at night. -rear door/window combination is a doozy. Jeep-sized spare mounted on the swinging gate makes it very heavy, and it takes up a lot of room. Rear glass that swings up, of course can only be swung up when the gate is open, has lots of hanging attached cables to snag things on, and additional feature of funneling water into the rear luggage compartment. (Guess thats fine? I assume the vehicle is water proof even if our luggage and stuff isn’t.) -macho plastic fenders serve dual purpose of setting my water bottle on whilst simultaneously trapping 1/8” gravel against the painted body -no auto up on the window switches (which are on the dash…) -“graphics design is my passion” levels of work on the UI and infotainment, it looks like successive teams of interns abandoned it at graduation and then just farmed it out to someone remotely w/o any QA at all. Ugly colors (puke green for coolant and fuel level anyone?), lots of different fonts, not nice to look at. -infotainment system - I struggled to get information or entertainment out of it. Eg, select a zipcode to navigate to, and YOU have to select the numeric keyboard… that only has the numbers 7 & 8 available, the rest are greyed out, lol, lmao. Ok, I’ll,navigate to a city instead, but it will only find cities in Texas… Ok, also, it will only let you enter navigation information if you are stopped… Ok, also, nag screen every time you start driving… Just messy design, illogical menu choices, difficult to get through. Other weirdness - a button, on the steering wheel, so I can change to KPH vs MPH. Haaha wtf. That will never, ever, ever, happen by accident. (Why are all these people tailgating me again?) Add to the fact the first 800 miles was 30mph headwinds/crosswinds and 400 miles on way back home was driving rain + 30 mph crosswinds, and this thing is tall and short wheelbase, it was just a real workout, constant steering correction. So yeah, don’t rent this thing to really drive anywhere unless it’s a rain forest or Jurassic Park or maybe just 5-10 miles around the airport. I get that it is not the ideal vehicle for a road trip, but I can’t imagine actually paying for this level of not-quite-finished.
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Apr 12, 2024 16:17
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some_admin posted:I can’t imagine actually paying for this level of not-quite-finished. The Jeep Experience distilled into one sentence (I love those stupid trucks)
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Apr 12, 2024 17:33
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I didn’t want to hate on it, it’s so attractive, but man.
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Apr 12, 2024 21:39
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some_admin posted:The incredibly bad mileage (17.6mpg) which gave us ~290 miles on a tank, which is not great, but you really need a break by then actually. I feel like the rental place owes you a bunch of money back.
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Apr 15, 2024 08:57
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Rented a 2021, I think, Cupra Formentor in Croatia. We had requested an intermediate SUV since there were 4 of us with a ton of bags and we got this little guy. Through some Tetris and uncomfortable passengers we got 4 adults, 4 full size suitcases, and 6 or so carry-ons packed in. As the driver I was the only comfy one, but boy was I ever comfortable. Being a rental I am pretty sure we had a base model which still had heated seats, heated steering wheel, and adaptive cruise. It drove really well and was a hoot to haul around. As an American I hadn't really heard of Cupra but I immediately started looking to see if they're coming to the US anytime soon. I would definitely buy one of these if I were in the market for a little UX/HR-V/CX-3 vehicle.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:31
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Sharparoni posted:As an American I hadn't really heard of Cupra but I immediately started looking to see if they're coming to the US anytime soon. Cupra is the sport variant of the now defunct Seat brand. Tech wise it's a MQB evo vehicle, so current tiguan might be an option for US buyers if you don't mind a more drab interior.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:07
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SlowBloke posted:Cupra is the sport variant of the now defunct Seat brand. Tech wise it's a MQB evo vehicle, so current tiguan might be an option for US buyers if you don't mind a more drab interior. This was my summary on the previous page after driving one in Ireland last year. morothar posted:Kind of a “best of VAG” in this segment: fully competent in a technical sense, comfortable, but with design the Germans couldn’t come up with and/or approve no matter how many drugs they’d take. So sadly, a Tiguan isn’t even close. A Golf GTI might be the closest product available in the US in terms of feel/package.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:55
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Arson Daily posted:2023 Nissan Rogue with around 26k miles rented at the Albuquerque Sunport. It was thoroughly mediocre. No complaints about power on the highway. It was good to have adaptive cruise control because the accelerator seemed sensitive and it was otherwise hard to hold a consistent speed. I also saw the back seat sensors nearly every time I powered on the car. Luckily they always shut off after a minute or so. The shifter felt cheap. There were occasional rattles and squeaks that seemed to come from around the front doors. If this were my new personal vehicle, I would have been disappointed about the materials and build quality. The only notable positive for me was that wired CarPlay was intuitive and responsive. It behaved as expected 100% of the time and the touch screen was nice. Not exactly a high bar, but I've had other rentals that wouldn't work consistently with CarPlay even when using a cable. Overall C+ for a rental, D+ for hypothetical ownership.
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Apr 17, 2024 05:33
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