I travel a lot on business and usually rent a car when I'm in the US. It's fair to say ALL American cars are hopeless.
But, a glimmer of hope. This week I have a Buick Lacrosse. It's a hatefully made, bad handling, nasty gear boxed piece of crap. But it goes like stink in a straight line (70 in second).
I normally hate rental cars and abuse them wherever and whenever possible. But this nasty little runt has made an impression on me and I kind of like it.
Having said that driving back to the hotel from work yesterday I was enjoying it rather too much and the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor now and makes a nasty squelching noise.
Does everyone abuse rental cars?
this is the spare wheel\tyre from the golf I had last week. Both the original and the spare went on a gravel road, 20 miles from the nearest town. had to limp it back on a flat, then after this point, just on the rim.
[url= http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6216/6233220987_9016142c97_b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/5lab/6233220987/ ]IMG_1964[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/5lab/ ]5lab[/url], on Flickr
i don't find american cars bad per se, if you get any american market car (ie a us-spec focus or passat or nissan) they're built with cheaper plastics etc. They go on forever, and are dead cheap (you can get a 300bhp v6 mustang for the equivilent of £13,000 ffs!). The yanks just have a different set of priorities than those we do, when it comes to cars
PJ O'Rourke wrote a classic article about rental cars.
[i]There's a lot of debate on this subject - about what kind of car handles best. Some say a a front-engined car, some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission into reverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than in any other kind.You can also park without looking, and can use the trunk as an ice chest. Another thing about a rented car is that it’s an all-terrain vehicle. Mud, snow, water, woods—you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can’t always get it back—but that’s not your problem, is it?”[/i]
LOL - that pretty much sums up some of the nonsense we've done in the past.
Had a mini van while over here a few weeks ago. Drove it in traffic for about 5 minutes using only 1st gear (got nowhere near the redline at any point) and it over heated.
We've also had - who can do the longest wheel spin contests in them in the past.
Childish I know. But fun all the same.
We've also had - who can do the longest wheel spin contests in them in the past
Not just me then!
Used to do something similar on icy roads to see how fast we could go without moving anywhere. Think I got up to around 50mph before the ice melted and we shot forward. This caused the ABS to stop working for some reason, then a whole other world of amusement was opened up on that deserted forest road in winter!
Fun times!
by the way, not all american rentals are crappy and slow
please note : this was definately not me, on a deserted stretch of freeway
Ah.. Brings back heady memories of drifting round Tasmania in a Britz Hiace campervan.. Boy can those things slide 🙂
You know when the hire company pick you up from the hotel or drop the car off for you? Well I was the guy who drove the car to you. And I can assure you that never once was the Opel hatchback you requested sideways round the corner before your hotel, and the 3.5l Mistubishi you wanted, that had never been taken round the unsealed road of New Zealands southern island whilst the driver pretended he was a rally driver. Never, not me, oh no.
3.6 litre v6 gmc acacia will average 8mpg on company time over 2 weeks !
tried and tested
i have also in the past had a ford crown victoria(like you see all the cops have in smokey and bandit !) - thought id stepped back in time - the car that will not die !
I don't get the "it's a rental car" bull - I drive them like a pansy - at least in my own car I know what it's going to cost when I kill it and I can do the work myself. In a rented car if there's any damage you're royally screwed, and sometimes even when there's no damage. £1300 deposit on the last one I rented in iceland! Jesus, I could buy a replacement car for that!
Rental cars are faster than any other car in reverse gear too.
We were once returning to Dallas airport and were late so obviously we just drove flat out to the airport, slid it into the Hertz carpark and just left it there, keys in the lock and legged it to the terminal. Once we were safely lodging in the bar my colleague looked at me thoughtfully and said 'we rented that car from Avis didn't we?'
the last one I rented
See, that's where you're going wrong. When your company is picking up the tab it becomes a whole new ball game...
See, that's where you're going wrong. When your company is picking up the tab it becomes a whole new ball game...
Hmm maybe, but the last one my company rented got a small ding on the corner, the charge for the repair of this came back to the company and I got it in the neck (until I pointed out that I was not driving it when the damage occured, it was parked). And even so it came off my budget which meant I had a nundred quid less to spend on nice bits.
A friend saw a rented Mercedes go over a cliff on Skye - the driver had forgotten to put the handbrake on. I expect that the call to the rental company was interesting...
I've never been charged for damage. I've taken a few back that are slightly worse for wear but tyres and knackered cooling systems are more difficult to blame on one driver.
A colleague left one burried in a snow drift outside a Swedish airport.
He dropped the keys off at the rental desk and told them that he had left it round the corner. There was no come back, so I guess that they just dragged it out.
I was a passenger in one driven by a customer that ploughed into a pillar in the underground car park of a Swiss casino. Long night out. Long story.
Me and my boss returned one in Canada with a dent in the roof, we'd hit a bird. Must've been a big bird said the rental guy. We just agreed with him (it was sparrow sized at a hundred and something stupid miles an hour)
I've died of boredom before getting any American rental car to become interesting.
So you guys deliberately try to destroy a car that cost x amount of money to make/, environmental impact, etc. I must have been brought up with a whole different set of values.
Whilst renting a car this summer I challenged our designated driver for the evening to a '2 geeeeeer chaleng' (spelt badly to reduce the possibility of the boss googling/reading this, as it is now notorious in my area). This involved 10km of motorway and some single carriageway type roads. Hilarious wheelspin pullaways in 2nd with the torquey 2litre diesel, and then bouncing off the rev limiter along the motorway (foreign I hasten to add, therefore it's alright :wink:). Funnily enough Ford positioned the rev limiter at an awkward position, where in second gear the ignition cuts happen to coincide with the longitudinal vibrational mode. In laymans terms, the car was driving at 55mph ish, bouncing off the limiter, whilst rocking viciously back and forth.
Stood next to the car afterwards you could feel the heat from the wheel arches 😆
^ with Gary on this one. Remind me never to rent a house / bike / holiday home / hotel room to any of you.
Someone I know attended a burning car on the A303 near Stonehenge. It was a manual-box, petrol, small hatchback. The driver, a yank, had hired it at Heathrow and driven it that far before an under-bonnet fire started. He didn't know gearboxes, so he'd driven it about a hundred miles in second.
As with most things, the yanks just have a different set of priorities than those [s]we[/s] the rest of the civilised world do, when it comes to cars
FTFY
I used to work for a hire car company, and even we (just about every staff member I knew) used to seriously abuse them. We had one guy who's pièce de résistance on FWD cars was to leave the handbrake on, then wheelspin through as many gears as he could whilst stationary (power and or wet weather helped of course), all whilst keeping a dead pan 'I'm really driving' expression.
Only good rental car I've had in the US was a Pontiac G6. For some reason I got a top of the range one. 3l v6 engine, full length sunroof. Handled nicely and went like stink.
Might have terminally broken a Holden commodore ss outside Melbourne casino, sorry Avis. Didn't like being put into d from n on the rev limiter 😯
I've driven every car I have rented as if it was made of glass... I'd just feel too guilty handing it back after abusing it. :s guess I was just brought up to treat other peoples stuff with respect... stupid parents! 🙂
Not a rental car but when my lorry was in for service I was given a hire one. Foot to the floor, fully loaded and dumped the clutch out in first gear. Snapped the prop shaft off at the engine end and had to explain that it "just fell off" to the Gaffer.
All the hire lorries and vans I had were heaps of shite because of a life time of abuse.
❓
I once co owned a 1956 Desoto Fireflite sedan, was like driving a small bus
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
found i could get a toyota camry auto to oversteer with the use of the kick-down button in NJ about 10 years ago.
I got bored and took it back. Lots of warning lights were flashing which bore no relation to the abuse the car was recieving.
All I'd done was rag it in a straight line and abuse the gear box.
However - ABS broken, ESP broken, Power Steering broken, Brake service warning lights on, Oil service lights on (ok that could've been me).
I go back to my original assertion. US cars are rubbish. They are far too brittle and fragile.
A friend has a great analogy for American cars.
He suggests that the driveshaft ends in a bucket of porridge and that bucket is attached to the wheels.
That's *exactly* what it is like driving an american car.
Me and a mate had a chevy metro (one of those anonymous small saloon cars) for a few weeks on the West Coast/desert.
We took turns ragging around the monument valley 'self drive' loop. Didn't have any problems until my mate dropped the off side wheel into a massive pot hole at about 30, steering was a bit vague for the rest of the trip.
when travelling in the US, I left my bag in a diner and didn't realise until I got back to the motel - in a panic I ragged our hire car across Hollywood to go and get it back.
it was a standard Mercury Grand Marquis, but I felt like Steve McQueen blatting the V8 across town.
[img] 
[/img]
...and even so it came off my budget which meant I had a nundred quid less to spend on nice bits.
Nah, your budget is mysteriously 100 quid over-spent at the end of the FY. Overheads are there for a reason!
[i]He suggests that the driveshaft ends in a bucket of porridge and that bucket is attached to the wheels.[/i]
tbh I use to reckon my company Xantia's were like that - never felt like the steering wheel was connected to the front wheels - it'd always get you round, but don't know why...
As for Yank hire cars, I could never get over how big the engines' were compared to how slow they went - nor how little room there was in the back of a NY taxi.
What to do when your insurance policy doesn't have an excess:
And when you're ready to progress, you can drive fixed:
Australian V8s are much the same, can break the speed limit in second, , my word did I make the commodore wag it's tail!
Nothing better than the words 'would you like an upgrade to the mustang, sir...'
They go on forever, and are dead cheap
Hmm, new cars are cheap in the US but for some reason used are not. The very cheapest used car you can get is likely to be $1000 and be an utter wreck - no MOTs in most states either so when I say wreck I mean it.
But even their new cars are poor. Nasty plastic insides and cheap knobs and switches absolutely like the 1980s cars I remember. Terrible.
"dont be gentle, it's a rental"
Don't piss about with rental cars, cos it makes everyone's rentals more expensive, including yours.
American cars have a crappier trim compared to European cars and they like big lazy engines. However, the Kias and other Eastern cars I have had there have all been fine. You have to understand the differences in American motoring and you only really get that after a few thousand miles of a road trip there. No corners, long open roads etc so you want more room in a car, cruise control and suspension doesn't need to be for a sports car.
Cherokee down the steps was glorious
