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If you find that it's unpleasant to handle or costs too much or kills you on gas or whatever, you can call the rental place and swap it for something smaller. I've done that a couple of times when I had to get a rental right then but they only had a monster truck too big for the parking garages I go to.
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Apr 21, 2021 03:15
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Agreed, renting a truck is one of those things where you think "huh, I get why people like this, but I could never live with it." The time I got a free upgrade to an F-150 (plus gas money because they didn't have the small, efficient car I'd booked) was amazing. No way in hell I'd live with one, but for a day or two it was pretty cool. Same with the Wrangler I rented once. Other rental vehicles, which I won't mention by name but you can have a good guess at which one I might be talking about, have been much less satisfactory.
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Apr 21, 2021 05:04
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Agreed on all points. Full-size trucks certainly have their place and they're ridiculously useful for some pretty important and common (for some people) tasks. My office mate in grad school is legitimately a farmer, his family works a few square miles of Saskatchewan prairie and he's a committed GMC Sierraa driver. For him, it absolutely makes sense. Likewise, full-size 4x4 trucks were what we needed doing fieldwork in peat bogs in Alberta - and we had a Ram 1500 until we broke it. Actually living with one as a city-dwelling computer-toucher (99% of the time) would be dumb, though. A long-range fuel tank combined with a thirsty V8 and a multi-tonne curb weight makes for painful trips to the pump. But they are very comfortable, too. The luxo-truck thing is an interesting symptom of our times. I like Mr. Regular's take on it, as expressed in the Regular Car Reviews video for a Ferrari, years ago: "If you own a luxury truck, you own a company and people call you, boss. If you own a Ferrari, you own several companies and people call you, sir." A luxo-truck is a symbol of having achieved some form of the American Dream, for a lot of people.
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Apr 21, 2021 07:19
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ExecuDork posted:"If you own a luxury truck, you own a company and people call you, boss. If you own a Ferrari, you own several companies and people call you, sir." A luxo-truck is a symbol of having achieved some form of the American Dream, for a lot of people. What so people think they'll be respected more if they drive around in a massive dumb truck? Rather than just liking trucks. Goddamn loving brainworms
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Apr 21, 2021 09:17
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I love a truck but my trucks are beat up dented workhorses and I still commute in a midsize honda or toyota. Driving a full size truck as your daily has gotta suck.
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Apr 21, 2021 09:38
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It totally makes sense if you think of the full size half ton as replacing the classic full size American sedan or wagon. It's really comfortable, there's a ton of space, lots of utility, big lazy power. The new Ram is super quiet and comfortable on the freeway but as a more normal smaller car driver it always feels like it's too wide for the lanes.wilfredmerriweathr posted:I love a truck but my trucks are beat up dented workhorses and I still commute in a midsize honda or toyota. Driving a full size truck as your daily has gotta suck. Most people who daily them are driving from their suburban or rural house, which has few parking challenges, to their (white collar) job, where there is a big parking lot, and then home again. They might pick up the kids at school, which is an environment designed for many cars. They might stop by the grocery or Target, which has a massive parking lot with huge wide spaces, or the hardware store (ditto!) or the Applebee's for a nice Friday night special occasion dinner with the family. (the parking lot at my grocery is such that if I park the E39 and align the drivers side properly with the line, you could fit a motorcycle in the parking space next to me on the passenger side, and that's not a narrow car by any means.) The constraints that make the truck difficult to live with are just not that present in most people's lives, and the things that make a truck unpleasant from a comfort and experience perspective largely disappear when you spend fifty grand on one. knox_harrington posted:What so people think they'll be respected more if they drive around in a massive dumb truck? Rather than just liking trucks. Goddamn loving brainworms It's the faux blue collar status vehicle. No different than most people who buy a X3 or Q5 or a Porsche (  ). You are signaling that you have made it.
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Apr 21, 2021 12:03
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:It's the faux blue collar status vehicle. No different than most people who buy a X3 or Q5 or a Porsche ( Lol. Butbutbut it's OK when I do it surely
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Apr 21, 2021 13:35
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Why don't National/Enterprise cars have floor mats? It drives me nuts.
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Apr 21, 2021 15:15
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because people will steal them
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Apr 21, 2021 15:33
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That gives me a thought - has anyone ever gotten a leather interior upgrade or something like that by renting a car and swapping? I vaguely recall a u-haul that got an engine swap.
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Apr 21, 2021 17:15
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In the mid 60's people would rent a Shelby GT350H and swap the engine for a regular one: "Hertz corporation ordered 1,001 of the G.T. 350s to offer as rentals. The side stripes read "G.T. 350H", but the cars became know as "Rent-a-Racers." Some cunning Mustang owners would rent the Shelbys, swap the motor with the motor in their Mustangs, and return them to Hertz. At $17 per day and 17 cents per mile, it was a good bargain for a Shelby engine." https://shnack.com/history/1966
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Apr 21, 2021 18:06
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It was popular to rent a Trans-Am and steal all the trim parts off of it too.
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Apr 22, 2021 00:49
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Luckily, we're still both working from home, so we don't actually have to do much driving during the day, but with her dad in the hospital and her mom staying with us right now, we're in a place where I'd prefer we have an extra vehicle if we need it, at least while hers is in the shop. My 3 year-old absolutely LOVED driving to preschool in the truck this morning. In fact, when he got home, he was already talking about the ride to school tomorrow morning. He's definitely a fan. The whole way to school he kept pointing out that every other car was smaller than us. So, it definitely speaks to that child-like love of gigantic trucks. I think Kyoon's dead-on with his comments about the width. The height's fine, and judging the back end isn't even too bad. It's the width. Driving on the two-lane roads around here - I know that I have space on each side of it, I can look in the side mirrors and see plenty of space between the lane markers and side of the road, but it does NOT feel that way.
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Apr 22, 2021 02:38
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knox_harrington posted:What so people think they'll be respected more if they drive around in a massive dumb truck? Rather than just liking trucks. Goddamn loving brainworms Car or truck people have got to be some of the most insecure and thin skinned people around. You are going to make a massive purchase based on what you think that some other equally insecure people think about your vehicle, and about you by extension? Brainworms indeed.
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Apr 23, 2021 18:44
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My wife and I went to a work-related workshop in Brisbane last week. We wanted to take our car - 1998 Saab 900 S convertible - but the university that is our employer only allows employees to take personal vehicles if the vehicle meets certain requirements, mainly that we have comprehensive insurance. Our car is worth about $4000 so no, we don't have comprehensive (that would cost around $500 / year with pretty crappy parameters). So we took one of the university-owned runabouts. I was expecting to get the same white i30 I took on several trips - including to Brisbane, once - in 2019. We got an i30, but it was blue! Non-white cars are rare in Australia, particularly among fleet vehicles. I don't know the year, probably 2020 or 2021, and carrying the 1.6L diesel mated to a 7-speed automatic transmission. Got the job done, not very exciting. Very fuel efficient, a full tank will take you more than 800 km and the tank's not enormous.  Yonder the i30 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Yonder the i30 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrSafely back in her stable after precisely 1200 km. We named her "Yonder", as in "The Great Blue Yonder" because this is a car of the open road, of wide open spaces, of the far horizon. The obstacle-sensors would sing the song of her people at every parking space, curb, potted plant, or underground parking area pillar. Forward, reverse, random beeps and pings and alarming lights on the dashboard. So, of course we took her into the expensive underground parking in central Brisbane, where she sang like a canary in a particularly well-ventilated mine.
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Jun 28, 2021 13:06
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Mazda CX-9 I actually walked up to it in the lot thinking it was a CX-5, but quickly figured out that it was the big boi. It basically is a big CX-5. Mine was a Grand Touring with the sunroof and radio package, stickers at about $47K. It seemed overall like pretty good value for the money. Pros: Nice quality interior, especially for the price. Good use of satin surface metal and black leather. Good controls and quite intuitive. Big wing mirrors help with visibility. Good tech - ACC works well, 360 degree camera, nice HUD. ACC would go down to stop and keep working, but the gap was a little big for ATL traffic. Decent sounding Bose stereo kept up with Daddy Yankee etc. Surprisingly agile. Hustled it over some tight North Georgia back roads. Good turn in, very compliant suspension, easy to tell what's going on with the car. Felt smaller the harder I pushed it. Styling overall pretty good, though the rear is awkward with the chrome bar. Cons: Interior packaging is weirdly tight. It's definitely not as practical as it could be. The folding seats and seat maneuvering seemed unsophisticated. Not real quick. The powertrain is OK, gearbox and transmission work well together, but it labors to get up to speed on the freeway. Blind spot monitoring is overly sensitive and would trigger on cars far back or in another lane. Sight lines only OK. Weak air conditioning. There's a lot of glass and even with a pretty dark factory tint the auto AC had a hard time keeping up (Georgia, humid and sunny but only about 80 or so). I had to keep it around 67, normally would do 70-72. Shift paddles feel cheap. Steering a little abrupt on the freeway. Somewhat difficult to keep in lane without paying a lot of attention. Bottom line: buy this if you have kids, but they're not too big and you don't want to cart that much stuff around, and the trip from your house to soccer practice resembles the tail of the dragon. I'd struggle to pick it over the Pilot (similarly equipped SE is $42K) for its intended purpose. You have to really like the interior quality and handling.
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Jul 9, 2021 01:29
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Perfect timing to find this thread! I haven't been renting as much as I used to, for some reason, not sure what that could be. Anyway rather than take the old commuter hack on a road trip, we rented a nice new full size. Had the choice between a base model sonata that was kinda poo poo tbh, and a Mazda 6 with perf leather* seats and interior, sunroof, stuff. It has android auto that works nicely. We drove from Toronto to Ottawa through torrential rain the whole way, and it was great. Really comfortable, no back pains, just really good. Normally I try to get a Fusion hybrid because they're so good on gas relative to most rentals, but the seats on the Mazda are definitely better. Auto wipers were pretty good, but sometimes got a bit excited (most of the time they had to be on full blast anyway). The jog dial though, that thing is awesome. Best way to control a screen in a car. Only down side is its kind of awkward to use if you have a tall bottle in the cup holder. I really like the newer Mazdas I've sat in, but this is the first in a long while I've driven. I'd love it if they came out with a plug in hybrid with this interior. *probably not actual leather, but feels soft and nice.
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Jul 9, 2021 01:45
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sadly it's dead but there will be a new one (eventually, maybe) that at least has a 48V mild hybrid setup
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Jul 9, 2021 01:48
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I've owned 6 Mazdas and weak air conditioning is the glue that binds all of them together. 2 NC miatas 2 proteges 1 Mazda 6 1 NA miata Drove from Destin, FL back to Houston, TX in my first protege and it was so humid that day that the evaporator core iced over on the 8 hour drive. That's my story, thanks for listening!
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Jul 9, 2021 18:23
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I have another Nissan versa while my car is in the the shop and the only extraordinary aspect is how goddamn expensive it is to rent a car right now, Jesus Christ
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Jul 10, 2021 03:05
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Hyundai Kona AWD rental spec. The good: Good visibility, decent seating position, seat seems decent after about 4 hours, android auto Just Works. The bad: Suspension is bargain basement entry level motorbike spec. Harsh, judders, rough as hell. Gas pedal has no weight so when you push it to resume speed after the cruise control shuts off or to pass, it just pushes straight down and the CVT wakes up and screams to high revs and the car lurches forward. CVT is bad. Engine is noisy but doesn't move the car like the noise it's making might suggest. Overall I'd give it a C. The suspension is a total failure and that really knocks what would otherwise be an acceptable car. The powertrain isn't good, but if I were looking at the EV one, that ends up being a non-factor. Also, and this is more a general criticism of rental cars, how many trim packages do you have to go up before you finally get a car that has a passenger seat that adjusts as much as the driver's seat? In the Kona (and most other rentals I've had - Mazda 6 too), I look over at my partner and it's like she's sitting in a well, with no height adjustment available. Sure would be nice to get a rental car one day that doesn't consider the passenger an afterthought.
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Sep 10, 2021 02:47
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rscott posted:I have another Nissan versa while my car is in the the shop and the only extraordinary aspect is how goddamn expensive it is to rent a car right now, Jesus Christ It's funny how it's now cheaper to rent a U-Haul truck or van as long as you aren't going many miles compared to a conventional rental. Speaking of I did recently rent a big ol' U-Haul Chevy van to move some stuff. It only had 6,000 miles on it and shifting from drive to reverse would make a huge metallic *GONG* noise and shake the whole van like it got hit by a runaway go kart. Dunno if that's just current GM build quality or if someone really hosed up this poor van so early in its service life.
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Sep 10, 2021 05:30
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Fabulousity posted:It's funny how it's now cheaper to rent a U-Haul truck or van as long as you aren't going many miles compared to a conventional rental. I just spent a week in a 15 passenger Chevy Express GSA van with 7000 miles on it and experienced similar - the interior was coming apart, plastics were garbage, radio had no bluetooth passthrough. No fault of its own that I had a blowout on the freeway, but it was the most gutless thing ever trying to merge back up a hill from the shoulder. First gear was way too tall, and it felt like it had 2.76 in the rear, foot to the floor felt no different from a barely cracked throttle.
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Sep 10, 2021 12:43
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20?? Dodge Grand Caravan, base rental spec. It’s a minivan so it fit our needs but man what a piece of poo poo. The side sliding doors were rickety at best. Currently have a CX-3 on the second leg and I’m pretty happy with it. Nice build quality and handles great despite the torque steer when you romp it. If I wanted a commuting appliance for my wife it would be a great choice; she likes it a lot.
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Oct 17, 2021 03:18
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2015 Ford E350 UHaul boxtruck. 20ft box, 6.8 V10, many, many gears. Way better than the last V10 rental I drove, this one was relatively fresh at 75,000 miles. It reminded my of why I like the Ford V10. Very, very quick for what it is. I had no problems merging into FL highway traffic fully loaded, no problems maintaining 80mph. The rental company set this truck up so Tow/Haul mode is engaged on startup. You'll want to turn that poo poo off. Extremely aggressive down shifting and boosted brakes almost sent me into the dash while braking moderately from 35mph. Stopped way short and pissed off the person behind me. Sorry, random dude. Mileage is far worse than the 5.4 V8 trucks, averaging 8.5mpg vs. the 12-13 I see from V8's. Great as a rental, but I'd stick with the 5.4 as an every day delivery vehicle. That era of interiors is kind of bizarre looking coming from earlier Fords, with far less stowage space. All the controls are where you expect them, so that's nice. Better seats, two buckets and a fold-down center. Pedals are far too close together compared to the older trucks I'm used to. Size 9's and I tapped the brakes while accelerating with gusto. Ford has the best mirrors on bigger vehicles, I never felt my view was inadequate in heavy traffic. A low load floor and a nice, long ramp made the work easy. Maybe 3,000 lbs. of furniture and books, up and down, didn't tax me using my own pneumatic tired handtruck. The handtruck provided (for free!) was way too short and had lovely solid tires, bring your own or suffer. It is a furniture moving truck, with wooden rails along the side, so tie-down options were a bit more limited than e-track and straps. I brought my own load bar and that seemed to work better than trying to weave straps around the rails. Overall, a very capable vehicle and easy to maneuver. I think I'll start renting U Hauls instead of the Penske trucks I usually get. Clean and in good repair, something I can't always say about Penske's commercial rentals in this area. The lack of e-track would be the only sticking point if I used it as a bread truck.
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Oct 17, 2021 17:01
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madeintaipei posted:I think I'll start renting U Hauls instead of This might be the most surprising and simultaneously unsurprising opinion yet expressed in this thread. I've rented a few U Hauls over the years, they got the job done and they have an effective monopoly on personal moves between provinces in Canada - nobody else would even consider a one-way truck rental when I moved from southern Ontario to Saskatchewan in 2008. If you can cram you stuff into a Dodge Caravan (agreed on all points, devmd01) you have options (Ontario -> Alberta 2018) but for bigger stuff it's U Haul or hire movers at 10 times the price and hassle. But everyone seems to bag on U Haul at the slightest opportunity. I dunno, they're fine and often quite a bit cheaper than any alternatives.
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Oct 19, 2021 00:25
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I feel like renting a Uhaul is like rolling a d20 where if you roll a 1 you end up with the shittiest truck they have and you never rent from Uhaul again. In my experience every truck I've rented from them has been in pretty good shape. One even had a V10 which was kind of cool but it was also in a 26' truck so it was still gutless lol.
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Oct 20, 2021 00:11
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I got upgraded to an Infiniti Q50. It was a nice car. I liked it a lot. Pros: -No idea which engine it had, but it just moved. Never stood on it, never had to. A marked difference from the usual rental having to downshift and roar to life to accelerate at all. -The adaptive cruise was great. Kept a comfortable gap. Very smooth on the highway. I even tested it in town and it would firmly apply brakes. It felt very weird hovering my foot above the brake pedal trying to guess if the car would stop, despite the car maintaining it's distance. I don't know how those Tesla FSD weirdos do it. -Buttons for HVAC controls and a volume knob -No annoying lane change warnings or assist Cons: -The steering was twitchy. I think it was a bad alignment. -When backing out of a space, the parking alert would trigger on objects in front of the car. -Popping the trunk didn't raise the trunk lid open. I have to lift the trunk open myself? In luxury car?? I have to do work like a peon??? -No lane change warnings or assist at all. I expected there would have been something. -The locks were stupidly quiet. I didn't hear it unlock itself when I approached the door. Pressing button on the handle locks the door, then tugging on the handle would unlock it which I wouldn't hear. I did this several times like a moron. 10/10 would get upgraded again.
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Oct 21, 2021 02:25
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SNiPER_Magnum posted:-When backing out of a space, the parking alert would trigger on objects in front of the car. If you want lots of entertaining explanation for why the obstacle sensors at the front of the car are fully turned on when reversing, binge-watch some episodes of Canada's Worst Driver on YouTube. It doesn't matter which season, which episodes, they never stop talking about and showing front end swing. I was hoping to find a compilation video but nothing that specific came up. Some people just cannot grasp the fact that the front wheels are not in front of the bumper. I can only imagine that major car rental companies have had to deal with this issue since forever. It's not just expensive cars that have it: ExecuDork posted:We named her "Yonder", as in "The Great Blue Yonder" because this is a car of the open road, of wide open spaces, of the far horizon. The obstacle-sensors would sing the song of her people at every parking space, curb, potted plant, or underground parking area pillar. Forward, reverse, random beeps and pings and alarming lights on the dashboard.
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Oct 21, 2021 04:38
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I understand front end swing. It wasn't front end swing. In one instance the car was alerting me to a pole directly in front of me when the car is in reverse and the steering was straight. The system knows reverse is engaged because the backup camera turns on, the system knows the wheels are straight because of how it shows the direction on the backup camera overlay, and the system knows the object is directly in front of me because it's showing me on the top down view. It didn't alert me to either car parked beside me, even at the corners when I turned out of the parking space. In another instance, it's alerting me to a hedge in front of me as I'm backing out of an empty parking lot. I'm being really nitpicky here. The rest of the car was so well sorted that it stood out to me. On any other shitbox rental, I'd have been so deep in alarm fatigue with the car beeping and booping at anything and everything that I wouldn't have noticed.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:31
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i reviewed the 228i xdrive Gran Coupe in the bmw thread spoiler alert: its not very good
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Nov 2, 2021 14:27
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I've been driving a Nissan Sentra around maui for a couple of days now, and it's... Surprisingly good? I always put Nissan in the cheap and a bit poo poo category, but this car is pretty decent to drive. The seats are comfortable and nicely bolstered, and the steering is excellently weighted. Going up all the switchbacks and twisties to the volcano summit, it felt almost sporty. The CVT "L" setting handled coming down really well, I barely needed to touch the brakes, except for the hairpins. Quality of life stuff is whatever, it's rental spec, but the driving dynamics are really pretty good. That said, it has some nice features like showing the speed limit on the center lcd between the speedo and tach. Not sure how it knows, but it's a nice feature to have when you're on unfamiliar roads.
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Nov 29, 2021 15:49
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Booked an alleged BMW 3 series from Sixt in LA. Anyone have experience with them? What are the other “or similar” cars I’m likely to end up in instead? Anyone have luck bargaining them up to a more fun car than the shitbox they tried to stick you with?
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Nov 29, 2021 16:29
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 My Ridiculous Rental Car by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThis came from Sixt in Tampa, November of 2013. (The car, not me and my inept wardrobe choices. Still have that shirt) I had originally booked something small and cheap but happily upgraded at the counter, letting myself get persuaded by the fast-talking mustachio'd guy at the counter. It ended up costing more than twice as much as the econobox but whatever. I'm pretty sure I reviewed this earlier in the thread, but it can be summarised by one word: Ridiculous. It's LA. If they offer a drop-top as an upgrade, I suggest you take it. Fun for a short time, when you don't have to worry about living with the thing.
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Nov 29, 2021 23:46
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Sixt is pretty good. I just had a Fiat 500c Hybrid in Italy from them. Weird car. It's a tiny mild hybrid with a manual transmission. 1L triple making about 70hp, which sounds very bike-like and kind of neat, plus a big alternator and a bigger 12v battery. The hybrid system provides a little boost and it'll coast in neutral with the engine off below about 20 mph. You miss the hybrid system while accelerating if the battery is depleted, it's not a very quick car. However, it has most of the 500 virtues - small, decent suspension and handling, etc. The Cabrio makes the hatch in to a weird little trunklet which makes it difficult to store bags, but the cabrio top is kind of fun. The shifter is vague and the clutch not much better. It's basically a way to claim that something is a hybrid without actually putting any effort in to it. Perfect for tuscan country roads and towns, though!
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Nov 30, 2021 12:43
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Currently have a 2021 Elantra. You know, the fish looking one. It's a perfectly cromulent 4 door sedan and mostly does all the 4 door sedan things well. My biggest gripe is that the rear view mirrors are tiny and terrible. You can barely see a thing in them. Push button transmission is dumb too and it does the thing were it kills the engine when you're at a stop. I'm sure you can turn that feature off but who cares I'm returning it tomorrow after driving it like 20 miles total.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:53
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On Monday night, I drove a Chrysler Voyager from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. It was definitely high up there on the list of absolutely loving dog poo poo cars I've driven. Every possible thing that could have been bad, well, was:
  
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Jan 21, 2022 09:48
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I too drive cars and i don't even what is this i dont understand
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Jan 21, 2022 21:31
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You're driving the base model, dude. That blank plate is filled on the good version. Probably with infotainment controls. The HID or LED headlights that come on the fancy models are probably a lot better. That steering wheel rim is absolutely horrific. The cheap material, the blobby size, yuck. When the transmission controls are fully electronic (no linkage) and can be located anywhere on the dash, why put them there? Wouldn't it make more sense to put them on the left side of the wheel? Most people are right-handed, so infrequently-used controls should go on the left to leave more room on the right. Even left-handed people usually have pretty good dexterity in their right hand. The passenger shouldn't be messing with the transmission controls. This isn't just a Chrysler question, this goes for every interior designer that hates the console- or column-mounted shifter handle.
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Jan 21, 2022 21:54
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the transmission selector may be infrequently used but it's important that it is used correctly and has visual indicators to clearly show what's happening. on the left hand side they would be potentially screened by the wheel, which you do not want. importance of controls in a car does not necessarily correlate to how often they are used
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Jan 21, 2022 23:14
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