Rental car review

Rental car review Buick Allure

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 

Rental Car Review: Buick Allure
Buick Allure.jpg

The Buick Allure is similar to the Toyota Avalon in form and function, but isn’t quite up to the task. The Buick is a nominally acceptable American car, but Buick dashboards are (and always have been) these strange, broad flat things that don’t really appeal to me. The car is a reasonable four door sedan, neither particularly bad at anything nor particularly good.

  • Quiet – generally quiet, but got a bit noisy on the 401. The AC system is a bit too zealous – it’s hard to just get a vent function on a nice day and the windows open are noisy.
  • Comfortable – fairly comfortable.
  • Engine – a moderate engine, responsive but not astonishingly so.
  • Suspension – it works well enough but isn’t super agile.
  • Basic amenities – everything that could be reasonably powered is.
  • Stereo – it was good enough but the high frequency speakers point straight to the center and so it sound unbalanced (the driver’s side tweeter pointing at the passenger and being inaudible to the driver).
  • Security – the trunk is large and secure.
Posted at 12:33:57 GMT-0700

Category: photoRental carsReviews

Rental car review Toyota Avalon

Sunday, June 29, 2008 

Rental Car Review: Toyota Avalon

Toyota Avalon.jpg

The Toyota Avalon is a very nice car – comfortable and large. The engine is powerful and the car is spry for it’s size, quite capable of zipping past a string of cars to make an exit.

We took it up commonwealth avenue in Boston, a street with a far, far less than perfect surface and it the suspension never got upset, nor did it get noisy in the car. While the car is roomy it is easy to navigate though narrow streets filled with stochiometric Boston drivers and pedestrians.

We found the stereo plenty loud and very quite good. The car came with satellite radio, which is kind of entertaining – a punk channel even – but doesn’t work all that well under trees or on narrow urban streets; just blacking out is a bit more annoying than the fade out of standard radio and we find ourselves tuning into the very fine local radio. The radio cover door is a bit over the top: why would you want to cover a radio? It isn’t for security – it’s just aesthetic and makes the radio hard to control when closed by the door edge is ugly when open.

  • Quiet – very quiet, very silent.
  • Comfortable – extremely comfortable and easy egrees. Well designed controls.
  • Engine – fast, powerful and quiet.
  • Suspension – very agile and stable. Never got upset.
  • Basic amenities – everything that could be reasonably powered is.
  • Stereo – excellent sound quality though the low frequency isn’t hip hop friendly.
  • Security – a large, roomy, secure trunk.
Posted at 08:00:28 GMT-0700

Category: photoRental carsReviews