Toyota

First RAV4 rental

Monday, June 11, 2012 

A fine little car.

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Posted at 18:48:06 GMT-0700

Category: GeopostRental carsTravel

Yellow Fiat Panda

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 
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We had some amusing rental cars in Italy.   First and last a Ford Focus that was quite competent, had enough room, and handled quite well.  Then we went to Portugal and rented a car to drive to Spain.  Perhaps because Spain and Portugal still have some hard feelings, it is absurdly expensive to rent a car in one country and return it in the neighboring company.  It would cost less to pay someone to push the car back.

So we were given a “Spanish car” in Lisbon, a Toyota Yaris with a really pronounced fuel delivery problem at anything above 1/2 throttle which had the car juddering and barely making it up hills.  Hertz sent out the mechanic who asked if we had the AC on (yes, it was 40 out) and then said it was normal. I told him it felt like it was running on 3 cylinders and he said that was right, it had 3 cylinders.  Now we’ve rented a couple of Yarii before, and they make it up the mountain in Italy fine with the AC on, and would easily have climbed the hills of Lisbon, but they wouldn’t take it back and besides even if they wanted to there simply wasn’t another car available in Iberia.  So we got a reservation from EuropeCar and called Hertz and were told we could drop the sick Yaris off at LIS.

But when we got there, that wasn’t the case – apparently Hertz Spain would charge Hertz Portugal €25,000 if they accepted it.  As we made it clear we wouldn’t be driving it away, there was suddenly another Spanish car at the Hertz downtown office.

We drove downtown where they were super nice and promptly produced another of the same competent Ford’s we had in Italy with one minor variation – the driver’s side mirror had been destroyed by the car wash just before we got there.  So they gave us a nice Portuguese Renault Laguna III with the key card ignition system.  It worked great and was a fine car to drive with a useful 6 speed manual transmission.

It got us to SVQ without any problems and we could even keep up with our friends in their Mercedes C230 with the strange transmission that switched into “limp home mode” immediately.  Yes, the car rental adventure was not ours alone, their car, a high end rental Mercedes was flawed as well.  They asked “why does the car redline at 150?  Is that bad?”  It took a little work to be sure there wasn’t a button or feature being missed (like some manual shift override), but no… it was a “feature” not a bug, and was to remind the driver to get to a service station before the transmission fell out of the car.  It made it to Spain and back in 2nd.

When we got back to BLQ our Focus was touring around Florence, so we picked up the cheerful Yellow Fiat Panda.  Pandas are great little (little) cars.  They handle surprisingly well, have surprising pickup and, like the tardis, are bigger inside than outside.  Even so, a panda can’t really hold more than two people and their normal travel luggage, and three is a tight squeeze even if one is only 80% full size.  But we all packed in and zipped back home suddenly noticing that the yellow panda must be the year’s most popular car.

Finally we returned the Panda, got our Focus, and drove to Rome with three adults, one awfully tall 12 year old, and a lot of luggage in relative comfort and in good time.

Posted at 10:12:02 GMT-0700

Category: photoRental cars

Toyota Matrix

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 

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Posted at 22:19:16 GMT-0700

Category: Reviews

Toyota Land Cruiser

Thursday, October 16, 2008 

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I got a Toyota Land Cruiser as a rental car for the first time. It was kind of absurd as a rental. Oversized and a bit mushy, but otherwise it was a perfectly competent car. I still don’t get the “luxury 4WD” concept. I understand luxury cars – they are about comfort. But I don’t get a vehicle that’s premise is to be durable and tough yet coddles it’s occupants as if they’re eggs. You should be able to climb into a 4WD vehicle covered in mud and not think twice about the interior.

Posted at 08:00:15 GMT-0700

Category: NegativephotoRental carsReviews

Rental car review Buick Allure

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 

Rental Car Review: Buick Allure
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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

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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