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Traveling and renting unfamiliar cars

Kern Dog

Kern Dog

Life is full of turns. Build your car to handle.
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Location
Granite Bay CA
I don’t travel much, at least by plane. I’m out here in Pennsylvania for the big show and the wife reserved the reservation…,
Nissan Rogue. I won’t even bother to post a picture of this nondescript, generic compact SUV. They all seem to blend together for me.
First off, I don’t like key FOBs. I like a real key. This one unlocks the doors as you walk toward the car… annoying if you have any sense of security first yourself. The interior is way overcrowded with controls, switches, levers and lights. The shifter is a stalk but it wants to skip OVER reverse and since they take operators manuals out of rentals, there is no way to read how to operate the shifter… you have to figure it out.
The car sucks.
 
Yup! A dashboard that looks like a laptop hung up in front of me doesn’t appeal either but folks seem to think the lcd screen is great. You can watch tv while the other person drives. I like the mechanical feel and connection which is almost lost with curb appeal.
 
The iPad on the dashboard. Been looking at new cars for the wife. I hate that. And it’s all of them now.
 
modern cars are an abomination with all that crap....... I notice most car ads feature the "touch screen" over anything else
 
It sucks a$$.
The knobs to the air conditioning don’t work. I don’t need this crash warning or blind spot monitoring bullshit either.
 
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I rent 2 or 3 times a year and it's an ordeal trying to figure out how to drive the damn car. Takes 10-15 min just trying to turn the lights on sometimes, and god help you trying to play the radio. With lane departure warning, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control the damn things want to drive themselves which is annoying as hell.
 
I have found out 1 thing for sure is to take lots of pics of the car when you turn it in showing there is no damage and a picture of the fuel gauge showing full and the mileage. Just had a fight with A**s about a car I rented in Detroit. They said I still had the car 5 days after I returned it, but I had pics to show it on the lot.
 
I've had a few rental cars, the last one being a Dodge Charger. Don't ever buy used rental cars............. They get beat like a rented mule!!
 
Kern Dog said:
I don’t travel much, at least by plane. I’m out here in Pennsylvania for the big show and the wife reserved the reservation…,
Nissan Rogue. I won’t even bother to post a picture of this nondescript, generic compact SUV. They all seem to blend together for me.
First off, I don’t like key FOBs. I like a real key. This one unlocks the doors as you walk toward the car… annoying if you have any sense of security first yourself. The interior is way overcrowded with controls, switches, levers and lights. The shifter is a stalk but it wants to skip OVER reverse and since they take operators manuals out of rentals, there is no way to read how to operate the shifter… you have to figure it out.
The car sucks.
Click to expand...
The new cars are a departure from mechanical to electronic and I too don’t care for it. My girlfriend’s CR-V has the most annoying temperature controls, all of it is on the touchscreen except the fan which has actual buttons. It also has an automatic parking brake that you have to turn off (even though you didn’t actuate it) every time you start the car. The touchscreen is not intuitive…finding the radio controls is a PITA. By comparison my 2012 4Runner is all mechanical with buttons and knobs and they are only 6 years apart. Not trading it in on a new one.
 
Kern Dog said:
I don’t travel much, at least by plane. I’m out here in Pennsylvania for the big show and the wife reserved the reservation…,
Nissan Rogue. I won’t even bother to post a picture of this nondescript, generic compact SUV. They all seem to blend together for me.
First off, I don’t like key FOBs. I like a real key. This one unlocks the doors as you walk toward the car… annoying if you have any sense of security first yourself. The interior is way overcrowded with controls, switches, levers and lights. The shifter is a stalk but it wants to skip OVER reverse and since they take operators manuals out of rentals, there is no way to read how to operate the shifter… you have to figure it out.
The car sucks.
Click to expand...
Basic transportation. Never been a Datsun fan.
 
Last month we travelled to Maine to visit my sister. Rental car was a white Toyota Camry. When I got in to start it there was no start, but the car was on. Rolled forward, no engine. Rolled back and parked it. Damn electric vehicle.

Walked back in to the counter and said I would rather gave a gas vehicle as that is what I'm use to. The lady, who looked at me like I had a spider on my face, said "sir, that is hybrid. It runs on gas but uses electric when needed. When you touch the gas pedal to go the engine starts...."

I felt pretty dumb. It was actually a nice car.
 
The manufacturers went to the ipad dash because it is much less costly for them then making all the buttons and the wiring for the buttons. They sell it as a feature when it makes them more money.
Tell your sales guy you want a car without an ipad in the dash. If he doesn't have one, tell him better luck next time. That will go upstream.
I made a thread a long while back stating LED's are light polution. The screens and LED backlit LCD panels they use for them are part of that issue. Blue light destroys your eyes. Or in more familiar terms, ultraviolet light is bad, especially for your eyes.
 
The insurance companies have done a study and found the cars with the flat screens for everything are more apt to be in an accident than the old analog cars because you have to take your eyes off the road to change anything. But as Detective D said it makes the manufactures more money with the flat screens, so we're screwed.
 
I still don’t own a vehicle with the fob, though when renting one, I didn’t like them. Driving new vehicles makes me want to keep my old ones. The owner’s manuals look like a thick novel. My 42-year-old daughter bought a newer car a few months ago having the fob and says she still misses having a key. When looking at cars for her, one had the touch button trans and she wanted nothing to do with it, we found her a ride with a shift lever, lol. A lot different than the buttons on my old Plymouth.

And isn’t it convenient when renting a vehicle, the two-fobs are wired together so they barely fit in a pocket and inadvertently press buttons sliding them in a pocket? One time I unlocked the Challenger I rented so it was left that way overnight in the hotel lot. And if you lose them, both are lost. The last couple of rides I rented, I cut the wire to separate them having a wire cutter in my travel tool-kit giving the 2nd one to my wife.
 
Ohh, this is a pet peeve of mine. We travel out by air 3-4 times a year to see my now 100 year old Dad and get a rental car. Every car we get is a learning expience. The Nissan I couldn’t figure out how to get to reverse on. All of them have a cruise control that is always a complete mystery. The odometer reset - where the hell is it? The sound system - forget it. HVAC controls - pray for some air. The more electronics the bigger the mystery.
 
You think THAT'S bad ? Years ago I flew out to Chicago on business, so drove to Indianapolis for the Mopar Nats... in a ... in a ... Hyundai Accent !!! ( ... pardon me, I'm feeling nauseous at the thought once again
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threewood said:
Last month we travelled to Maine to visit my sister. Rental car was a white Toyota Camry. When I got in to start it there was no start, but the car was on. Rolled forward, no engine. Rolled back and parked it. Damn electric vehicle.

Walked back in to the counter and said I would rather gave a gas vehicle as that is what I'm use to. The lady, who looked at me like I had a spider on my face, said "sir, that is hybrid. It runs on gas but uses electric when needed. When you touch the gas pedal to go the engine starts...."

I felt pretty dumb. It was actually a nice car.
Click to expand...
Your post made me chuckle
 
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