Cars I've rented: How would you like to drive today?
 My old car: Rest in peace |
Perhaps your car just died, or maybe you're ready to begin a career as
a travelling businessperson. At any rate, it's time for a rental car,
and you have a whole bunch of choices and options, but no
knowledge. Well, it just so happens that my hapless car died, and it's been a while before I could collect enough money to buy a new and improved model. So in the mean time, I have explored the world of rental cars. I figured I'd pass on my experience to others.
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General rental car caveats
At no rental car company did I get an adequate explanation of the total cost of rental. I don't think most of the people on the front lines in rental car companies know how much the taxes are, even though their computers certainly do. Neither do I, since I haven't had time to actually check my invoices.
[26 June 1998] I still have the Neon. It developed a flat tire, and the latest scoop is that rental cars don't quite deliver the "extra cost-free motoring" you might think they would. See the section on the Neon, below, for details.
All I know is that every time I return the car, I find that it costs a lot more than they tell you over the phone.
Buyer beware. Maybe you'll be a bit luckier than I.
Vehicular Strangeness
I find it interesting that it's quite difficult to get rental agents to give me a simple list of what cars they have available. The agents will try to guess what you want, usually the most conventional thing they have, but if you ask for a list, they are clueless. I wanted something different when I rented the Altima (below), but all they were willing to offer me was a Sable (which see), Lincoln (which see) or Mercury Marquis (new). I was frustrated with the choices, so I wandered out into the lot. My eyes fell onto the Altima, so that's what I got.
So, if you want something different, try wandering the lot in search of your "dream car".
Mercury Grand Marquis, Budget Rent-A-Car
May 1999
 "My" Mercury Grand Marquis |
 Logo and radiator |
 A universe in a single headlight |
A recent radio commercial for the Lexus LS400 had an elegant-voiced announcer compete with two kids in a Porsche - the idea, of course, being that the Lexus was actually faster than "an automatic Porsche boxer". The kids denounced the announcer's Lexus as a "pillow-barge", which was interesting since that phrase described the Mercury Grand Marquis to a T.
The ride does indeed feel like your're being pillowed. An interesting sensation, the comfort was not unpleasant, certainly not if your last rental was the Hombre (see below). Steering and handling, of course, were proportionately poor.
The radio got a mediocre grade in the Topanga Test (see below), at
about the same level as the Nissan Altima. This is a little
disappointing, since the cheaper Mercury Sable aced the test. And,
unlike the Altima, there was no CD player.
I found it intriguing that the Mercury copied the legendary Mercedes
power seat adjuster, perhaps the best seat adjustment mechanism the
world has ever seen. As a past (and future) Mercedes owner, I had
mixed feelings; I appreciated it from a practical standpoint, but
since I hate it when people copy each other instead of creating new
innovations of their own, I wasn't as pleased as you might think.
There was an annoying sample defect in the Mercury. Most of the time,
when I rent cars, I don't spend enough time with them to notice any
problems. Even though I only had this car for a day, the strange
light below the glove compartment was rather conspicuous. It came on
and off with the headlights. I have no idea what it was supposed to
do; perhaps someone could clue me in.
Despite good power and gas mileage in the high teens (about the same as the Sable), I'd take the Sable over this car. The Sable had far better handling and was a bit faster to boot. It was also about $ 12 a day less to rent.
However, it has to be said that the old "pillow barge" has come a long
way - it's not obnoxiously worse in handling than the Sable. I could
still make about 40 miles an hour through Topanga, while I can do 50
or more in the Jag. But it wasn't that bad, and the instrument panel
is no longer embarassingly ugly - it's now fairly attractive (if you
don't mind blatantly phony wood) and not badly made other than the
stray light. And, to finish on a positive note, the leather seats
were a delight - comfort, but not slippery, so I felt reasonably
secure around the bends of Topanga Canyon.
The Mercury Grand Marquis is somewhere between Ford and Lincoln in the rental car stakes. It cost me $ 54 a day at Budget, plus the usual taxes.
Izuzu Hombre (pick up truck), Budget Rent-A-Car
May 1999
(15 May 1999) I've actually been stuck with this thing twice, both from Budget, and both when there was absolutely no choice - Budget was out of everything else. It didn't take long for me to realize why I was only offered these when there was nothing else available; they are truly vile. I was so revolted by this thing that I couldn't sum up the energy required to get a picture of it - and as you can tell by now, that's quite an unusual experience.
The main problem with the Hombre is the ride - it jiggles and judders constantly. It has perhaps the worst suspension I've ever seen.
I decided to use the Hombre to take my Silicon Graphics Indigo2 workstation home for the weekend. I quickly realized that, thanks to the jiggly ride, the hard and rough pickup bed would be a terrible place to put any sort of valuable cargo, despite the neat-looking top and lock. The SGI system unit, keyboard and display were all bulky items, and it took a lot of strain and misery to squeeze them into the tiny cabin. If you ever need to do this, I finally figured out that the system unit would only fit sideways in the right front seat, while the 20" monitor fit in the back. Barely.
The radio suffered, with noticable hissing in the Topanga test (see the Sable entry for a description).
So, even as a cargo carrier (for stuff you care about, anyway), the Hombre flunks. Don't rent one unless you have absolutely no choice.
Nissan Altima, Budget Rent-A-Car
May 1999
 The incredibly bland exterior |
 The all-important CD player |
 Tail looks less bland, just odd - and, sadly, not the better for it. |
(15 May 1999). I rented the Altima for a couple of days, while my hapless Jag was being fixed. (It sprung yet another water leak, if anyone cares; I'm not sure if even I do anymore :-( ). Like the Sable, it was surprisingly fast. It also had a CD Player, a nice touch. Unfortunately, it was otherwise a rather bland transportation appliance; now that I haven't had it for a few days, I have almost completely forgotten the thing.
One major annoyance: Not being blessed with X-ray vision, I couldn't see through the steering wheel, and so I couldn't read the speedometer. Annoying. One major blessing: The Altima has a regular shift, not a column shift like most rentals.
The radio included a CD player, which was a nice touch, but it didn't do as well as the Sable in the all important Topanga Canyon test.
Pictures pending.
Mercury Sable, Budget Rent-A-Car
April 1999
(14 April 1999) Once again, my Jaguar decided it had more important things to do than ferry me around the city, so it was once again time to rent a car. This time, I decided on a Ford Taurus. What they actually gave me was the essentially similar Mercury Sable.
I was quite surprised at how nice this car was. Power windows, power door locks, partially powered seats, ABS brakes - it had all the goodies that were confined to luxury cars not too long ago. Performance with the six-cylinder engine was impressively lively.
The main things marring the experience were the usual sloppy column shift and an interior festooned with blatantly phony "wood". Gas mileage was a grim disappointment, especially in these times of high gas prices; I don't think I even broke 20mpg. Nonetheless, the sprightly performance makes this my favourite of recent rentals.
One thing that's always good about American cars is the radio controls. The Europeans made up a standard shape and size for their units; this is great in that there are millions of after-market choices, wretched since ever more complex radios are being crammed into spaces designed for the extremely simple units of yesteryear. The radio has nice controls, and in field testing on Topanga Canyon (a very tough place for radio reception), it wound up flawless.
Lincoln Town Car, Budget Rent-A-Car
(21 August 1998) I thought that after buying my 1988 1/2 Jaguar XJ6, I would be done with renting cars for a long time to come. However, a little more than a month after I got the car, I had to jump-start it. Apparently this is a big no-no for Jags, whose delicate electrical systems don't think much of jumps.
I thought it would be fixed very quickly, so I decided to splurge and rent a new Lincoln Town Car. After all, I'd always been curious about the fancier rentals. Are they worth the money? Should you consider getting one on your next trip?
Hyundai Accent, Budget Rent-A-Car
Surprisingly, the Accent is a much better car than you might think. The main drawback is its sheer blandness; it looks like just about every other small car on the road today. Because of this, after a couple of weeks with it, I was longing for a different car, any car.
Acceleration was pretty good, even up the Sepulveda Pass (LA's biggest challenge). The automatic transmission shifted smoothly and well.
Ride was the best of all the cars I drove, by a significant margin.
The heating and air conditioning controls were hard to reach and difficult to decipher, but in the end, I finally figured it out.
I got two, one was silver with 22,000 miles on it, and the other metalic green with 17,000 miles. The metallic green one actually looked quite classy -- but still bland.
The radio worked well.
Renting the Accent from Budget cost about $ 160 a week plus various taxes. Fortunately, Budget offers unlimited mileage on all cars driven within California.
Unfortunately, I got the idea to do this after I'd returned the Accent, so I don't have any pictures :-(.
If you want another perspective and a decent picture of the car (which certainly brings out its blandness), visit the Edmunds review
Ford Aspire, Enterprise Rent-A-Car
This car was a repellant purple, which certainly gave me a poor initial impression. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.
Exterior finish and build quality was terrible. You could bend the
metal used in this car with the poke of a finger. The area around the
door key had the abrasions from millions of previous renters not
getting the key in quite the right place.
The interior was a bit cramped, but oddly enough not unpleasant overall. It definitely didn't make the exceptionally poor impression the exterior did. Compared to the Accent, you lose most of the gauges (no tachometer on this beauty!), which definitely leaves a low-rent impression when stepping from one car to the other.
I showed the car to my mechanic, Alan, and he pointed out that, even
though the car was only a bit more than a year old, it was already
rusted in several crucial spots. To the right, you can see the ugly
damage already done to the plastic "alloy" wheels. He gave the car a
four-year maximum life. So if you're about to sign a five year lease
deal on it, I urge you to think twice.
Ride was worse than the Accent, but better than the Neon.
The radio was easily the worst I've seen in any car. Strong FM station KTWV 94.7 The Wave was sometimes impossible to get. AM station KFWB News 980 AM was obscured by noise virtually everywhere in the city. It's possible that this is because there was no radio antenna in the car; perhaps it's an optional extra.
Brakes pulled somewhat to the right in high speed stopping. When asked about this, Enterprise said that the cars are tested when returned, but only for a trip around the block, not on the freeway.
The rate was $ 138 a week plus the same taxes that plagued the Hyundai. Incidentally, at no rental car company did I get an adequate discussion of the taxes and the actual total cost of renting the car.
Enterprise has a 150 mile a day maximum, which in LA is extremely easy to exceed. When I rented with them before, I asked to have it raised, and they did so with only token argument. I recommend you do the same, since this little bit of absent-mindedness can be costly.
This car is also made by Kia as the Kia Aspire. It made me feel that Kia is a company best avoided.
All in all, I would recommend spending the extra money and renting a
better car than this. I found it to be an embarassment, although that
might have had as much to do with the repellant colour as anything
else.
After hearing my complaints, Enterprise was sufficiently embarassed that they rented me a better car (see below) at no extra charge. So that might be a good tactic to get a free upgrade, if you think even spending a day in a car like this is worth saving $ 13.95 a week. It probably isn't unless you're renting for a lot of weeks.
Plymouth Neon (Same as Dodge Neon)
The Neon coupe I rented was what Enterprise had available for me
after I complainted about the Aspire. This was certainly the most
frustrating car I rented, because it has moments of both sheer
brilliance and sheer awfulness.
The best thing about this car is the engine and drivetrain. It was by far the most responsive of the three cars in this comparison.
There are two horrible things about this car. The first one is the ride; the suspension is rock-hard, and you can feel every single bump on the road. The second is the flimsy build quality. Even the Aspire had a better feeling turn signal lever. The lever on the Neon was mushy and felt like it was about to fall off.
This car is a coupe. Coupes provide three things: Supposedly flashier looks, heavy doors, and terrifyingly bad visibility. Changing lanes was always an exercise in optimism, which the big mirrors barely made up for. I have to say that I can't recommend coupes, especially since there are more expensive than sedans. It's worth noting that coupes are supposedly more expensive than sedans, but I've gotten a couple when a sedan is all I request. So coupe fans may get lucky here.
American automakers, including Chrysler Corporation, should be
commended on their decision to use a non-standard radio size. The
standard radio size forces designers to put in all kinds of little
tiny buttons clustered together. The Chrysler radio was much easier
to tune and operate than the others, because its larger size provided
room for bigger controls. Best of all, this radio was the only one to
pull in KFWB News 980 even when the car was under bridges, a major
feat for a car radio. Sound quality, however, was pretty much a
three-way tie, with none of the radios threatening to best the Adcom
stereo system I have in the office.
All in all, the Neon is the most interesting car I've driven as a rental this time around.
[27 June 1998] The Neon developed a flat tire. I had thought that tires would be counted as routine consumable items like, say, engine oil, and thus provided as part of the rental. Unfortunately, this is not the case, at least not with Enterprise. Enterprise Rent-a-Car requires that you furnish replacement new tires (no, cheap used ones won't cut it). This cost a wrenching $ 56, on top of the circa $ 23 a day I've been paying for the car.
I thought this was pretty outrageous, so I asked around. My tire vendor thought they should have taken care of it. My hubcap vendor (the hubcap was damaged while I was driving the car with a flat to the nearest phone) said that they generally don't. However, he added that the issue is definitely not clear-cut and worth fighting.
Two friends of mine who looked at the car said that the other tires were "somewhat" worn. My tire vendor said they were good for roughly another 5,000 to 10,000 miles, and that they were in "reasonable" condition.
Sadly, in my rocky drive back to civilization (about two miles), the original tire was lost, so it's impossible to determine whether the tires on the car were properly maintained or not.
Considering this incident and the fact that the brakes on the Kia Aspire seemed poor, I feel that Enterprise has below-average maintenance. On the other hand, they were the cheapest company, so it's very possible that in the end, you get what you pay for.
Previously rented cars
As long as I'm giving my impressions of cars I've rented, I will go back a year and two months for a long-term trip.
Mitsubishi Eclipse Excellent controls, very good radio, lots of power (particularly low end), nice look and feel. It's a coupe, but much nicer than the Neon; I found visibility was just fine.
Mitsubishi Mirage. Gutless power, decent radio. Sadly, this car is significantly inferior to the Hyundai Accent. I turned this one in after a week for a ...
Mitsubishi Gallant. Excellent engine, almost luxurious look and feel, classy looking. My favourite rental car by far (including any of those mentioned above), especially in my first car's dark green metallic. Unfortunately, the brakes are barely adequate for the engine power, so be careful, especially in wet weather. I didn't crash mine, but I had some trouble reigning it in at traffic lights.
Technical notes on this page
All photos were taken using a Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder in Photo mode. Unfortunately, my moving capture program doesn't seem to be too compatible with Photo Mode, thus pictures that are much worse than the potential of the camera. Hopefully I'll do better next time.
My other car-related web pages: