American cars

[Davey538]

Hi all, i'm just back from two amazing weeks with the family in Houston, Texas. I just wanted to tell you about my hire car! a 242 BHP 2006 Chevy 3.9 V6 Impala LTZ.. What a difference to my 123 BHP vec c. It was a great car (not the best handling) loads of room inside the boot was nearly twice the size of the vec, lovely smooth auto box. i managed about 20 mpg (it was too tempting to floor it on a quiet bit of road) and at $3 a gallon who cares what mpg you get. Just wondering what sort of cars any of you guys ever hired abroad. p.s. this was the standard car the gave me, sales girl at hertz wanted me to upgrade to a 300c for $25 a day, i thought bol**x spend the money on the kids.

[Drinky]

Not me personally but a good m8 of mine went to florida for his honeymoon a few years back and was going to up grade the standard HONDA JAZZ for a grand cherokee as you do on your honeymoon did the deal and later that night looked at the paper work and realised they were charging him $1300 dollars to upgrade for the fortnight so first thing in the morning and straight back "Give us the JAZZ back" please thank you !!!!!!!!

[Robbieben]

I had a Chrysler Pacifica Limited when I was in florida, it's an SUV and list price for the one I had was around $27500, about £17000, makes our cars look very expensive

[simonali]

Last time I hired a car in Florida, the poxy thing started playing up and they told me to bring it back. This would've been OK had the nearest rental desk not been about 40 miles away and I'd not had to drive a kangarooing, stalling piece of Yank cr@p there!! Was a Pontiac Grand Am, iIrc and the Buick replacement wasn't much better.

Will only rent Japanese cars in the US from now on. Nice Nissan Altima for me, thank you!

[Duncan]

Went on holiday some years back to Florida. Had a fairly basic rental car pre-booked.

Due to a bit of a pallaver at the luggage carousel - basically somebody had a similar case to mine and went off with mine!! (long story) - we ended up being one of the last to the car rental desk. They told me that they didn't have any Group whatever cars left (great, I thought) but they'd do a free upgrade to another car. Turned out the only car they had available was a good number of groups up the scale - seriously nice car!! Can't for the life of me remember what it was now, but it was great cruising around Florida in it!!

[Breezy boy]

Once ordered a Focus or similar for a fortnight in Menorca over t'internet and ended up with a Hyundai Accent. It was brand new but one of the most appalling cars I have ever driven. Had a bit of an altercation with a BMW-driving local while driving it - he was probably p***ed off that it was so slow.

Also in Menorca, I managed to break the gearbox of a Citroen Xsara. If you've ever been in Mahon, you'll probably have seen the fairly steep windy road down to the port. I was reverse parking on this and the gearbox gave. A guy from the car hire co came and declared (in a voice borrowed from Manuel off Fawlty Towers) ' ees broken!' - they gave me a new one no trouble.

Years back, I once hired a Fiesta from a local company in Alcudia - big mistake. Have stuck to Europcar, Hertz, etc since that particular experience!

[Duncan]

I was reverse parking on this and the gearbox gave. A guy from the car hire co came and declared (in a voice borrowed from Manuel off Fawlty Towers) ' ees broken!'

[SCOTTEX]

We go regularly to the States and have always gone for a Chrysler Voyager, last October, I tried a Ford Taurus 3.2V6 car and it wasn't much cop, I'm afraid, very lazy car and the engine felt like a bag of bolts.

One thing I did notice was that when you are in a car over there, every other vehicle is a large SUV or Minivan and it makes you feel small and vunerable. I thought to myself, I'm not getting a car again in the States. Next time its a minivan or SUV.

Always gone with Dollar for our hire cars and haven't had any bother with them, yet !!

[simonali]

I hired a 1 litre Hyundai Getz in Australia and was trying to keep up with 3 litre Jag X-Type along this road, when my wife said "If you don't slow down I'm gonna throw up"!

It was the twistiest road I've ever been on and probably why I could stay in touch with a car with probably 4 times the power!!

[VauxVeteran]

I hired a 1 litre Hyundai Getz in Australia and was trying to keep up with 3 litre Jag X-Type along this road, when my wife said "If you don't slow down I'm gonna throw up"!

It was the twistiest road I've ever been on and probably why I could stay in touch with a car with probably 4 times the power!!

Probably wasn't the road, more like driving in a max'd out 1 litre plastic Hyundai, hope it had aircon