Rental Cars - Toyota Prius
Mar. 4th, 2010 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dagibbsI drive a lot of rental cars. It goes with my job. Usually it is some boring American car -- a Ford Fusion (with, OOO, mood lighting), or a Pontiac G4. They're generally ok. Occasionally I get a car I don't particularly like (Pontiac Vibe, Chrysler PT Cruiser). Occasionally I've gotten lucky, even -- best one was getting a candy-apply red convertible Ford Mustang.
Sometimes I'll get something interesting -- more often in Europe, where I might get a standard shift turbo-diesel vehicle of some sort.
This time, I got a Toyota Prius. And, unfortunately, I'm not at all impressed. Ok, it seems to be getting really awesome gas mileage -- but that's what it's supposed to do. And it has the (to me, European style) ignition button, instead of switch, so you unlock the car with the remote entry, stick the keys in your pocket, and leave them there.
The acceleration and braking feel a bit... odd. On the acceleration, it doesn't have the same feel of a gas engine -- which should probably be expected, and the pickup does seem pretty ok, though the lack of noticeably "winding up" engine noise as you accelerate hard from a stop is a bit different. The braking also feels a bit off, a bit jerky right at the point of coming to a stop. But neither of these is really a big problem. The "shift" is, also, odd. I find the push forward for reverse and backwards for drive to be a bit unintuitive, but I can kind of understand why they did it that way. But the beeper to tell you your backing up is just annoying.
But what I really dislike is the sight lines -- or to be more specific, the lack of them. Out the rear, the main back window is really short (narrow up/down), then has a wide divider, then another window -- so there's a big obstruction in the middle for looking backwards. And both the back left, and especially the back-right corners are badly obstructed. For the back left, you essentially have a big blind-spot in your shoulder-check just where the blind spot in your mirror coverage happens to be. Yuck.
And, in the minor annoyance -- no "headlight on" warning light when you turn the car off.
Also, car start up sequence seems to have the occasional oddity if you start it, then don't move for a bit, then try to put it into gear -- it seems to turn itself off, then complain that you should only start it with it in park. (And, btw, "park" is done by hitting a button near the gear control, not with the gear control itself.)
Really, most of these are little oddities, or things that could (and maybe should) have been done a bit better. But the blind spots -- they really make me uncomfortable driving the car.
Sometimes I'll get something interesting -- more often in Europe, where I might get a standard shift turbo-diesel vehicle of some sort.
This time, I got a Toyota Prius. And, unfortunately, I'm not at all impressed. Ok, it seems to be getting really awesome gas mileage -- but that's what it's supposed to do. And it has the (to me, European style) ignition button, instead of switch, so you unlock the car with the remote entry, stick the keys in your pocket, and leave them there.
The acceleration and braking feel a bit... odd. On the acceleration, it doesn't have the same feel of a gas engine -- which should probably be expected, and the pickup does seem pretty ok, though the lack of noticeably "winding up" engine noise as you accelerate hard from a stop is a bit different. The braking also feels a bit off, a bit jerky right at the point of coming to a stop. But neither of these is really a big problem. The "shift" is, also, odd. I find the push forward for reverse and backwards for drive to be a bit unintuitive, but I can kind of understand why they did it that way. But the beeper to tell you your backing up is just annoying.
But what I really dislike is the sight lines -- or to be more specific, the lack of them. Out the rear, the main back window is really short (narrow up/down), then has a wide divider, then another window -- so there's a big obstruction in the middle for looking backwards. And both the back left, and especially the back-right corners are badly obstructed. For the back left, you essentially have a big blind-spot in your shoulder-check just where the blind spot in your mirror coverage happens to be. Yuck.
And, in the minor annoyance -- no "headlight on" warning light when you turn the car off.
Also, car start up sequence seems to have the occasional oddity if you start it, then don't move for a bit, then try to put it into gear -- it seems to turn itself off, then complain that you should only start it with it in park. (And, btw, "park" is done by hitting a button near the gear control, not with the gear control itself.)
Really, most of these are little oddities, or things that could (and maybe should) have been done a bit better. But the blind spots -- they really make me uncomfortable driving the car.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 06:44 am (UTC)Why do you find the "headlight on" warning light necessary? The headlight gets turned off with the car.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 03:30 pm (UTC)And, it wasn't backing up that really bothered me -- it was lane-changing on the highway.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 02:32 pm (UTC)This is a bizarre American thing that I don't understand - and one that the last time I was driving in Dallas was extraordinarily dangerous.
Cars have daytime running lights nowadays - these are NOT a substitute for turning on the headlights!!!!!!
Most cars with daytime running lights only have the fron lights on. The rear lights (aka making it easier for other cars to see you) normally requrie that you turn lights on.
When I was driving to DFW for a dance conference, it was raining so heavily parts of the road were flash-flooded. Despite the fact that we drove past multi-car pileup after multi-car pileup, the travelling speed on the highway was still about 55-60 mph (or rather, about 95-100 kmh). Add to this that most drivers did not have their headlights on (because after all, they're on automatically when the car is on nowawadays!), this meant that with the literalll almost opaque sheets of rain one was not seeing the cars in front until one was practically tail-gaiting, which probably explained why we drove by so many multi-car pileups.
I became convinced that Americans, or at least Texans, were insane drivers with no understanding of how to deal with weather conditions that day.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 03:49 pm (UTC)There are state-by-state laws regarding driving, with some requiring that if you turn on your windshield wipers, you also must turn on your lights. Apparently, not so in Texas.
(Note: I think that at least some parts of my car-- like the nav system-- are the same in the US and Canada. That's the only explanation I have for why it is bilingual English/French, as if it were made for a US market, it would be English/Spanish.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 03:29 pm (UTC)For mine, I have turned the car off, started to walk away, and found the headlights were still turned on. Now, it may have a delayed turn-off that I just haven't waited for, and if that is the case -- I'm not so worried.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 06:14 pm (UTC)