My brother had to rent a car this week,
I told him "take ANYTHING but the Caliber"

he got a Caliber.
he despises this thing.
The steering sucks, the pedal is awkward and for a car that is supposed to be "compact" its hideous, inefficient and incredibly hard to see out of.



I'd hate renting this thing, I cant imagine anyone leaving the dealership with one.


Whats the worst Rental you've ever had to endure?

Posted by Joecat Whats the worst Rental you've ever had to endure?

A '10 Chevy Aveo.

*shudder*

A chevrolet Epica.

http://media.wheel...c949ed5980c45.jpeg

There's nothing "Epic" about this car. I think they should have named it the Chevrolet Ipecac since this car will make you throw up.

Worst car I ever had to deal with (and I used to own a Smart).

The thing has no acceleration at all (to the point where getting on the highway is dangerous), guzzle gas like if it was free and it looks like the WHOLE thing is made of plastic.

"I've seen model cars with less plastic in the interior"


Edit: I forgot to add that the car had FAKE WOOD (plastic) trims inside !

The only rental I've ever had was a 2010 Mazda 3. Hideous little fuck, but it was a decent car. Most uncomfortable seats I've ever sat in, though.

Posted by HarvestmanMan A '10 Chevy Aveo. *shudder*

I had to drive an '11 Aveo as a delivery vehicle.
That thing SUCKED.
it barely passed as an appliance car. Nothing about it was beneficial to your driving experience. I couldnt even sit in it without my knees hitting the console.

Posted by Joecat I had to drive an '11 Aveo as a delivery vehicle. That thing SUCKED. it barely passed as an appliance car. Nothing about it was beneficial to your driving experience. I couldnt even sit in it without my knees hitting the console.

If it has windows operated by a crank and is from the past decade, you shouldn't own it.

Period.

my worst experience by far was with a dodge avenger. Such an ugly, slow, inefficient POS. Plastic everything. uncomfortable. appallingly poor fit & finish (you could stick like half an arm under the roof liner), and generally embarrassing to drive. I wasn't too fond of the chargers I had to rent a few times, but they looked, felt & handled like mercedes compared to their dirty little brother.

Posted by Joecat Whats the worst Rental you've ever had to endure?

Definitely the Caliber! What a truly hateful automobile. It's bad when I was begging for the Ford Focus back that I had before it. I'm 5'6" and found it seriously uncomfortable to drive, I couldn't even fit in the back when I wasn't driving, the CVT felt like it was gonna explode, and well, it was just a genuinely terrible car. I see they're starting to rust out now, and that makes me happy.

It's nice to see this thread has mentioned my three least favorite cars though! (The Caliber, the Aveo and the Ipecac.)

I also had a new generation Jeep liberty in Alberta 2 years ago, and they've sure ruined a good SUV. I like the old ones, but this thing was a piece of crap. The 4x4 system was brutal, the thing babysat you in soooo many ways, you couldn't turn traction control all the way off (which kept causing me to get stuck), and it looks funny.

...Bandi, you press the button on top of the steering column to disable traction control.

Thanks tips

Like I said, I couldn't turn it ALL the way off. It'd say traction control was off, and as soon as it detected more than a bit of slippage, back on it came. Fucking frustrating. And the 4x4 system was about as aggressive as an AWD Caravan. I wasn't doing anything extreme at all with this truck, just trying to drive down a muddy road to a rally service area.

Posted by bandi Thanks tips Like I said, I couldn't turn it ALL the way off. It'd say traction control was off, and as soon as it detected more than a bit of slippage, back on it came. Fucking frustrating. And the 4x4 system was about as aggressive as an AWD Caravan. I wasn't doing anything extreme at all with this truck, just trying to drive down a muddy road to a rally service area.

Oh, thats not the traction control, thats the "stability control" and its always on to a certain degree...you can pull the ABS fuse to totally disable it, but I think the computer flips out. You can also put it in 4LO that reduces its involvement to totally nothing.

It was traction control, dude. Maybe it was some programming thing for rental cars to prevent you from having any fun. Whenever it got into trouble, the dash display would say "TRACTION CONTROL ACTIVE".

And low range didn't disable it, either. (Amazingy, I DO know how to drive a 4x4 and what the different modes are.). It was just a generally bad vehicle, and the "Trail Rated" badge made me sad. Everyone on the crew kept calling it Fail Rated...

I hate automatic transfer cases. I like to hear shit engaging with a nice clunk and slight grind.

Hey Skelly, I found a pic of the POS! (And also your comment you posted on the photo... hehe)



"The Liberty in general is awful...its the result of Ford engineers trying to design a Jeep. Everyone knows you need people of AMC heritage designing a Jeep" - Skelly, May 30 2010.

Posted by Agent Skelly ...Bandi, you press the button on top of the steering column to disable traction control.

That's nice.

Back when I had my Smart fortow, disabling the traction control/ESP included a "Short ECU pin #24 to ground" (or something like that) step...

Posted by bandi Hey Skelly, I found a pic of the POS! (And also your comment you posted on the photo... hehe) http://i104.photob...hots/failrated.jpg "The Liberty in general is awful...its the result of Ford engineers trying to design a Jeep. Everyone knows you need people of AMC heritage designing a Jeep" - Skelly, May 30 2010.

Yes, I remember that and I still stand by my comment too. But regardless of the vehicle you have to be smarter than it to get it do what you want to do! if the switch still didn't work, you could of still pulled the ABS Fuse/Relay because the one thing they got right in the KK Liberty was having a separate ABS controller which is there the ESP/Traction Control/Stability Control functions are.

And BTW, the Traction Control light also turns on for the stability control functions too.

worst rental I ever had was a 2003 Mazda Protege... the car was seriously pisspounded. It had 23,000 miles on the odometer: the brakes were gone, transmission slippy (it eventually failed on me), steering iffy... i ended up getting my money back from Enterprise.

I boiled the brake fluid on a 300C in Newfoundland at an auto slalom...

Years and years ago my parents went on vacation and rented a Crapalier, 'cause it was cheap. The wheel bearings were shot and we asked for another car. They set us up with a loaded, almost new Town Car. The thing was sweet. Leather everywhere, power everything. Moral of the story is to rent a piece of crap and hope someone has already beat the shit out of it.

Since we only have one regularly available car in my family, we've taken to the habit of renting a car from Enterprise every weekend. It's a real crapshoot as to what we'll get. So far, among other things, we've had a Chevy HHR, a Fiat 500, a Toyota Yaris, a Chevy Aveo, a Chevy Impala, and a couple others.

The "check engine light" on the Yaris wouldn't turn off, so my dad returned it to the rental place and came back in a Volvo S80. Much, much better.

The worst rental I had was a 2009 Kia Sedona. I actually liked the CVT transmission and engine because it was smooth and keeping up just fine at 70 MPH, but the dealbreaker for me was the drivers seat! Ugh after 3 hours on a 6 hour drive from Portland to Medford, that seat got really annoying, especially the headrest which wasn't much of a rest at all. I ended up stopping at a Pilot Truck stop and bought like 2 travel pillows and a seat cushion wedge to make it more comfortable.