Some right hand drive Korean POS in the Cayman Islands. I can't remember if it was a Kia or a Hyundai. It was a hatchback, and they didn't even wash or vacuum it out before they delivered it. I walked out to look at it with the dude that delivered it to the hotel, and I thought it was his car, and he was going to take me back to the lot to get the rental. I signed the papers, and he tossed me the keys. I was like WTF.
When I was just out of high school my car was in the shop for a few days and I needed a ride to get to work and back. My old man was out of town and no help whatsoever. He wanted me to quit my job and go to college anyway, so he basically decided not to help me get to work. So I figured I'd rent a car. Well, after calling every damn place in the Yellow Pages (this was pre-Al Gore's big invention) I realized none of the big companies will rent a car to an 18 year old, especially one without a credit card. Finally I found a used car dealer on I-35 right across the street from Muller airport that rented some of the cars on the lot. They stuck me in an '82 Mustang. This was in 1991. My own car was a Chevy Cavalier, so I was kind of excited to be getting a Mustang for a week. That thing was the biggest piece of ****! Hole in the muffler. Cassette player ate my Straight Outta Compton tape. All kinds of **** that I can't even remember didn't work. But the kicker was that it had some type of alternator problem. At low RPMs the headlights went out! It was no problem driving around at night until you had to slow down or take a turn. If it was dark enough I had to slow up for the turn and put it in neutral and rev it up to keep the lights on as I coasted through the turn.
Not the worst but during the summer I got five straight Chevy Cobalts from Hertz. Not a bad little car but three were in the subtle purple color and three had manual windows. Hertz must have convinced Chevy to build a cost cutter model with roll up windows and locks. The valet in San Francisco almost couldn't open the trunk since there was no remote. The absolute worst was a rental in Utah a long time ago. I drove through a blizzard to get skiing. The next am I was knocking the ice off while it was running and slammed the door. The car dies and had to be towed. Missed an entire day of snow.
Earlier this summer, I rented with Thrifty in San Juan, PR. I got a Mitsubishi Lancer that must've been at least three years old and had manual everything. It had several good-sized scratches in it and a couple of dings. It was far and away the crappiest rental I've ever had, but I'm not that picky. It got me around Puerto Rico for a week, and that's all I really asked.
Preface: We don't drive our own cars to football games, period. We rent them and take out the full coverage, because, you know, you never know the other team's fans. So 2 years ago we got to choose between a white Dodge Dakota and a blue minivan. Truck it is! However about 30 mins down the road, when the air freshener wore off, we started choking on the smoke stench. Literally choking. We stopped and bought air freshener and and drowned that mofo with orange smell AND drove both ways with the windows down. We took advantage of the situation and blasted the LHB CD the whole time.
I tend to think that if someone rents a car and rams it into the back of an obsolete tank, and complains that the air bags and front crush structure did their job correctly, that the problem may have had more to do with the driver than the car.
at 15mph a car should not fold up like a cheap suit and have to be totaled. crappy engineering. gas mileage sucked on it too.
2007 chevy malibu - it has no power, drives for ****, the interior is **** and plasticy, the mirrors suck and cant get them to where I want them, the right one might as well not even be there since it doesn't have its full range of motion. there's this noise i can't pin down in back and all of the climate control and radio knobs feel the same. all in all, i remember why i bought a japanese car and can't imagine why anyone would buy american.
The car is designed to protect the occupants in event of a crash, as mandated by federal safety laws. The Camry has been either first or second most popular car sold in the U.S. for about the last ten years. If a driver rams a car into the back of another, I don't think it was the fault of the car.
if the brakes don't stop the car in a reasonable distance and the car hits the other more stout car at low speed (I've had harder hits at the kiddie mortorway at six flags than this particular hit) and the defective brakes car crumples up like a cheap *** piece of tinfoil when the other car has not a scratch on it it's the fault of the car and it's defective design. A love tap velocity hit should not total a car. as far as it being popular, people love McDonalds too and McD is crap food.
2007 Toyota Camry The thing had about 80 miles on it when i got it. At anything over 60 mph, which took about 30 minutes to reach, there was extreme wind noise from driver window. The frame and door finish was so ****** it was not even lined up properly. The AC was about as effective as having a hamster breath lightly through the vents. The brakes sucked, engine sucked, radio didn't pick up stations, it stunk, trunk wouldn't close if you opened it. And this is the car people rave about as a quality leader. Whatever. My 1980 Olds Cutlass Diesel was a better car and it rarely even started.
My FIL came to visit several years ago and found a place that rented cars for $4.95 a day. This is what he got.
