Rental car review
 

Man, I used to have a great thread with this title in the 90s, and it's long gone. I actually went searching for it, and then remembered, oh that was the 90s, that version of Cellar is no longer available.

This week I am renting a modern Dodge Charger. To sum up:

It's a piece of shit Dodge, But, to be fair, it's a tribute to a piece of shit Dodge.

My apologies to the muscle car enthusiasts. I know there are those among us who like this sort of thing. It does go really fast, and that is fun, and makes you feel good for a while.

Just like in the 70s, the car is too long, the suspension is boat-like, the steering gives you no sense of the road, and the brake pedal is touchy.

The dash is all laid out in a blocky all-italics font which I find to be hilariously cheesy. I wouldn't buy a $30k car and then have to look at that font every time I was in it. What cartoonland are we in, FFS.

82 HP per liter.

LOL

A preemptive strike!

I dug into the settings, like you should not do on a rental. You actually can tune the steering through these settings:

"Normal", which is your standard big American car power steering;

"Sport", which means there is a bit more resistance in the wheel, mimicking what it might feel like if you were actually feeling the road;

"Comfort", which means there is a bit less resistance in the wheel, mimicking the American big boat power steering of the 70s.

You can change the steering setting while on the move. I don't understand why you should be able to do that. It's impressive that it works.

The key fobs are hilariously enormous.

h ah aha

How does she donut?

I didn't take the coverage, so don't know.

I can tell you that this thing burns out hard on wet surfaces. Oh you still wanted to go fast but it's raining? Sorry. Traction is overrated! I would not take this thing into any kind of snow.

I have rented only a few cars over the years, but recently I have to go to San Francisco (three hours away) several times and my 1992 Nissan Pathfinder with its five speed, no AC and not too good fuel economy, while a very satisfactory ride in the hinterland, is not at its best there.
So far I have gotten a Chevy Impala, a base model Hyundai, a Ford Focus Hybrid and a Toyota Camry.
Six hours in each of these in stop and go freeway traffic, gridlocked city hills and the hottest day in SF history actually turned out to make renting a good plan, especially with Enterprise foolishly picking up the fuel tab.
What it did not do was show me a car that I would want to own.
At times they were noisy, underpowered, uncomfortable, had poor visibility, vague handling and incredibly complex and confusing displays and geegaws.
For between $60 and $80 for 24 hours they seemed a fair deal and made for telling, but disappointing, test drives.
It felt good to get back in my Pathy each time.

Momdigr's last rental was a Ford Focus.

Traction, or the lack of, was not an issue.

It wouldn't have spun the tires on polished ice.



Popdigr once rented a no-mileage-fee Cadillac with the 300 hp Northstar from Alamo ($29 a day). They went on vacay and wound up putting a little over 6000 miles on it. When they returned it the guy at the counter almost shit when he saw the mileage.

That may be the engine that Italians designed to replace so many crappy Chrysler engines. Same improvements also appeared in Jeep engines.

But Sergio Marchionne died suddenly. The unanswered question is whether Chrysler will continue an over 20 year process of scrapping / redesigning virtually all crappy Chrysler/Jeep products.

BTW, one reason we know he was productive - he did not cut off blood to his brain by wearing his napkin (a tie) everywhere.

My biggest concern when renting a car is that they haven't connected two keyfobs together, or if they have, the loop is through a part that can detach from the fob.

As long as I don't have two keyfobs awkwardly connected with stiff cable in my pocket, I'm relatively happy.

It sounds like speed sensitive steering. Once going over 8 MPH, power steering really make driving more dangerous. For example, a driver cannot feel the road.

My 1986 Accord had it. I loved it. For example, if the road suddenly became icy, a driver immediately could feel it. And then safely slowed down. GMs "big bucket of bolts" claims that problem was fixed by expensive anti-lock brakes. Which did nothing to avert ice skidding. Did not matter. Most of us automatically believe sound byte propaganda - also called lies.

Those setting adjustments probably control a tiny valve in the power steering pump. "Big bucket of bolts" would leave the valve always fully open. "Sport" would be the valve fully or almost fully closed at higher speeds. And open only when under 8 MPH - the only time power steering is really needed.

Oh no, oh yeah they have, these two monster-size fobs are Enterprise'd together with a strong cable.

Enterprise always does this. I actually cut one of these cables once - they put the fobs together in such a way that they would hit each other's buttons. Eff that ess.

wait, here ya go --

http://cellar.org/img/fobs.jpg

I could have cropped that better. Anyway, the dang things are almost as wide as my hand. They're usually in my front pocket, and everyone thinks I'm excited to be there. Is it just me? or does it turn out fobs have been growing all this time and I didn't notice?

Can you make emergency phone calls on them? :D

If I owned these things I would mark a red "DON'T" on the sixth button, so that it would read "DON'T PANIC"

those things are the size of a flip phone

each

Maybe he just has tiny hands. No banana for scale

Sit down in a chair late one night to ass dial the panic button. To wake up everyone in the neighborhood.

I think most new(er) cars have electric steering assist instead of a power steering pump now-a-days don't they?

Although TW may be right about cars made way back in the olden days...:stickpoke

Are they really as big as she is?:p:

Or...AT THE DISCO!.

Co-worker notes that his new Kia fobs are also humongous

Nobody asked for this change

On a semi-regular basis Mr. Clod will sit at his desk in such a way that the fob in his pocket will roll down the window of his truck in the driveway outside. I have absolutely no idea why they thought it was a good idea to put this function on the fob.

If you hold the unlock button on a maxima remote, both front windows go all the way down. On a hot day, it's useful.

I got a look at the fob for my friend's wrangler. Jesus. Yuuuge. With a switch blade key. And it isn't even intelligent, like a Nissan key. You still have to fish it out and hit the unlock button.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4a6eb82592.jpg

When we bought our minivan I swear they told us the keyfob could roll down the windows and turn the air conditioner on, which in Texas is something you'd want before getting in a hot car. But we never figured it out or ever did it.

Ours does the window thing. You unlock three times and hold the button down as the windows roll down and sunroof opens. It's great on a hot summer day when you parked in the full sun.

Electric steering was why the Cobalt was killing people for fourteen years.

Speed sensitive steering was found in better cars in the 1980s. Never found it in any GM car. It was too innovative.

I think the Mustang went through some teething problems as well. The electric steering system couldn't keep up with the car on a track. I think they sussed it out, though.

I get used to this thing, and I think it does better around corners than I give it credit for. It did okay in some twisties.

The transmission is obviously better than previous years, except there is a weird lurch between its 3rd and 4th gears (I think)

Modern Bluetooth connection would be ok, although it requires three clicks to set up phone audio every time you turn on the car

Is this an 8 speed auto transmission?

yes 8 speed

Copy your dickhead neighbor's code and do it in heavy rain.

Here is the main display:

http://cellar.org/img/chargerdisplay.jpg

The middle section can scroll through a lot of different information, which is nice. It defaults to digital speedometer, so you can have a digital speedometer in the middle AND a dial speedometer on the right.

On the left is the tach. You can opt to tell this car when to shift, if you prefer. But you probably shouldn't. Again, I didn't take the coverage.

The car shown here has a half tank of gas. Look at the little teeny red needle to indicate that. Why do car manufacturers hate you so much?

I can't see the gas gauge in my truck unless I turn on the lights.

A few weeks ago I had a rental Ford Escape. That design wasn't my cup of tea; but, it was the first vehicle I drove with auto start/stop. I left it turned on for the two weeks I had it and I did get accustomed to it; but, for the kind of driving I do I'm not a fan.

Any other indication that it has an 8 speed transmission? These things now shift so smoothly that many cannot count (from feelings) how many gears a car has. Which, I gather, is why you are not sure which shift (ie 3rd gear to 4th) is not so smooth.

A great deal of information is now available on the Internet. I have a box on my desk that connects to the Internet and I have retrieved that information from it.

Tire pressure might be nice once a day when starting. Does that car have a spare?

The Internet box says no, not even a donut! Donut spare is available for it from Amazon!

Does the internet box say if there is a place to put the donut? Or you just let it eat up space in the trunk?

I gotta get me one of them internets...

We will supply them innertubes you buy the box

My granddaughter's older Toyota Avalon's tire light comes on when the spare is low.
It was really nice to discover that it was full size and on a matching rim, interchangeable by God.
Of course then you discover that the snazzy two-piece lug nuts sort of warp and deform to the point that the stock lug wrench no longer will fit any of them.
Toyota only wants $4+ each for a cool $100 if you want to be able to change a tire.
Now tire pressure alert system has failed totally, light on all the time, re-set function also kaput.
I gave her a tire gauge several years ago and she can check 'em faster that I.

So it will tell me what you saw. Since I already know what everyone else saw. None of them complain about the 3rd to 4th gear shift. And the internet does not tell me why only UT observed that.

Alexa, why does UT want the Cellar to become a hotbed of nastiness now?

Well, that's because the quirks of an individual vehicle are completely unheard of, of course.

Simple, really.

Are quirks an option that you pay more for? Can they be installed in a custom shop. Or is it like gambling? Try to win for fun and never do?

You post from an institution of some sort, don't ya?

Just trying to post like my idol Gravdigr.

Nobody needs a god when they already have one.

My time in the Charger is over. A few things I liked:

- I found that I do miss its ride, at times. Very smooth compared to the 2012 Rogue. There are a lot of bad roads around. I would like to be able to choose between feeling the road so I can drive on it, and not feeling the road so I can ignore it and focus on other things. Not feeling the road is what American cars have always done well.

- Of course I miss its acceleration. It's like, if the mileage is going to be similar, and the 2019 Charger's mileage is pretty much on par with the 2012 Rogue, might as well have the git up and go. The Rogue is boring (but that's kind of why I bought it).

- Better audio fidelity than my car, and that makes me sad.

Deal breaker:

- The dumb Uconnect system, the 7" touchscreen that manages the radio, entertainment, GPS, climate. I now remember, I wrote similarly about the Ford system a few years ago. This Uconnect is worse. Painful to connect the phone to it for music. Like requiring five clicks every single time the car is started.

I suspect we all should want Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in our cars. Because we know those user interfaces, we want to run real apps on that nice big display, and they are designed by top pros. Every other system is going to suck.

Deal breaker #2:

http://cellar.org/img/leftsteeringwheel.jpg

See the button circled in red? It starts the car's phone system. When you hit the button, the car starts talking to you, asking what you want to do. It interrupts whatever audio is going on, and you have to hit a "cancel" button on the 7" screen to make it stop.

I drove this car for 12 days. I hit that button accidentally 7 times.

I hate my car's touch screen. I prefer to watch the road.

V-6?

Yes 3.6 liter