neanderthal
October 5th, 2015, 01:50 PM
I rented a Vauxhall Astra Coupe for three days to run around in in England, namely get myself from London, to Birmingham to Peterborough and back. Public transport in the UK is great, as long as you're going to, from or within London. I needed to leave my cousins in Hertfordshire, go to Birmingham for the South Africa/ Samoa rugby game, then go to my other cousins in a little village just outside Peterborough. That basically meant two trips back and forth to London. Didn't make sense, so I thought i'd rent a car.
Nice little car, sporty, hatchback, zero rear visibility, it not less than that. As the three says drew to an end, I came to the realisation that a weeks rental wasn't much more than three days, so I called and inquired about extending it. Sure. Just have to drop in and sign new paperwork. As we're doing all the paperwork it slips out that i intend to go to the continent and the gentleman in that very British manner tells me I can't do that as their cars aren't insured for the continent. It's weird how they can tell you "no" but make it seem like they are doing you a favor.
Anyway, they send me along to Europcar where they don't have a small manual diesel at the time, so i settled for an "upgrade." He reckons it's just as efficient as the smaller one, but bigger and likely to be more comfortable on a long trip. Which i didn't refute.
Looks.
Subjective, but it's a handsome car. Not too overstyled not too underdone. A modern, typically aerodynamic liftback design. It's the RSi trim level in a diesel. 6 speed manual. Lovely dark grey interior. Materials are not luxury car class but far from Tonka toy. Not reprehensible. It's well laid out, bits and bobs in the right place, good visibility and nice greenhouse. Unfortunately, like all cars, the steeply raked windshield combined with the requirements for rollover safety mean that the A pillar is horrendously wide and can actually hide a car behind it. Certainly a motorcycle could. And i missed a car at a roundabout that was hidden.
Seat adjusts to the right position for me. Wheel adjusts up and down. Instruments are nice and clear and theres an LCD in the dash that I can customise slightly. I always reset the odometer and try to measure my fuel economy.
Performance.
It's a diesel, so it's a diesel. However, it's a turbo diesel, so when it builds puff it really goes. I mean really really goes and just doesn't seem to run out of urge. Clutch take up is decent, although at the end of the our days I had it I was sensing chatter on engagement. That probably had to do with tons of traffic I was stuck in. Steering wasn't numb, but wasn't chatty either, it just did the job. But competently. Suspension ended up being surprisingly good. It had decent grip, communicative grip althought I didn't approach the limits. I DID however, go on the autobahn and in transitions from lane to lane there were no surprises, it was sure and confident. Compliance was also great i the early part of suspension travel, firming up as you went up. Which is perfect for daily drivers. I don't know if the tire pressure was correct at 40psi but that's what it was and it imbued the car with a decent amount of grip, while not howling with noise. Good bump compliance too so all in all a great piece of suspension tuning.
Brakes were confident and strong, no drama at all, no squat or dive, no pulling, and I didn't use them enough to test them for brake fade. Absolutely hauled you down from speed with alacrity. They might be the absolute best brakes I have ever used from high speed.
Which brings me to; yes, it will motor. Got her up to 140, and she just wanted to pull and pull and pull. Once at 140, that seemed to be the limit and it was only doing 3000rpm, so I think it was a bit of an aerodynamic limit. To be fair, once I hit a slight incline it lost speed, so it may have been a deficit of power to get beyond that. Unless it was a limiter, in which case it was an excellently executed limiter because there was no drama whatsoever. The only other car who's limit I have reached with no drama like that is my car, a 1995 E320 which just stops accelerating but maintains ~130mph. No jerking, or losing power, just not more acceleration.
Amenities.
Bluetooth. Decent stereo, but nothing to write home about. Boomy and muddy at higher volumes. Not enough highs as you increase the volume. And, curiously, like a certain Buick I rented a few months ago, very little sound coming from the rear, so there must only be a woofer of sorts back there. The Buick had NO speakers at all in the back.
Bluetooth paired pretty easily, although not with the ease of Chryslers UConnect. Could use a rear view camera as it's rear view was also not as good. I guess I am used to my old car which is very nice and upright and has a great greenhouse.
All in all a pleasant surprise. Far from a penalty box. And it managed a good 49mpg for the entire trip. That's US gallons. It should be noted that there are variable speed limits in the UK and also on the autobahn where I had to basically go at 50mph for long periods. In sixth gear, that was barely idling; literally 1100rpm. The trip was something like 2500 miles. Heathrow to Paris, then to Stuttgart through Belgium and Luxembourg, then onto Munich, from which I went to Antwerp via Nurnberg, Cologne and Bonn. i did get lost a lot and did drive through some very picturesque countryside.
All in all a drivetrain I would love to have in any of my cars. Clatters a tiny bit, but it's a diesel and it is stupidly efficient.
Nice little car, sporty, hatchback, zero rear visibility, it not less than that. As the three says drew to an end, I came to the realisation that a weeks rental wasn't much more than three days, so I called and inquired about extending it. Sure. Just have to drop in and sign new paperwork. As we're doing all the paperwork it slips out that i intend to go to the continent and the gentleman in that very British manner tells me I can't do that as their cars aren't insured for the continent. It's weird how they can tell you "no" but make it seem like they are doing you a favor.
Anyway, they send me along to Europcar where they don't have a small manual diesel at the time, so i settled for an "upgrade." He reckons it's just as efficient as the smaller one, but bigger and likely to be more comfortable on a long trip. Which i didn't refute.
Looks.
Subjective, but it's a handsome car. Not too overstyled not too underdone. A modern, typically aerodynamic liftback design. It's the RSi trim level in a diesel. 6 speed manual. Lovely dark grey interior. Materials are not luxury car class but far from Tonka toy. Not reprehensible. It's well laid out, bits and bobs in the right place, good visibility and nice greenhouse. Unfortunately, like all cars, the steeply raked windshield combined with the requirements for rollover safety mean that the A pillar is horrendously wide and can actually hide a car behind it. Certainly a motorcycle could. And i missed a car at a roundabout that was hidden.
Seat adjusts to the right position for me. Wheel adjusts up and down. Instruments are nice and clear and theres an LCD in the dash that I can customise slightly. I always reset the odometer and try to measure my fuel economy.
Performance.
It's a diesel, so it's a diesel. However, it's a turbo diesel, so when it builds puff it really goes. I mean really really goes and just doesn't seem to run out of urge. Clutch take up is decent, although at the end of the our days I had it I was sensing chatter on engagement. That probably had to do with tons of traffic I was stuck in. Steering wasn't numb, but wasn't chatty either, it just did the job. But competently. Suspension ended up being surprisingly good. It had decent grip, communicative grip althought I didn't approach the limits. I DID however, go on the autobahn and in transitions from lane to lane there were no surprises, it was sure and confident. Compliance was also great i the early part of suspension travel, firming up as you went up. Which is perfect for daily drivers. I don't know if the tire pressure was correct at 40psi but that's what it was and it imbued the car with a decent amount of grip, while not howling with noise. Good bump compliance too so all in all a great piece of suspension tuning.
Brakes were confident and strong, no drama at all, no squat or dive, no pulling, and I didn't use them enough to test them for brake fade. Absolutely hauled you down from speed with alacrity. They might be the absolute best brakes I have ever used from high speed.
Which brings me to; yes, it will motor. Got her up to 140, and she just wanted to pull and pull and pull. Once at 140, that seemed to be the limit and it was only doing 3000rpm, so I think it was a bit of an aerodynamic limit. To be fair, once I hit a slight incline it lost speed, so it may have been a deficit of power to get beyond that. Unless it was a limiter, in which case it was an excellently executed limiter because there was no drama whatsoever. The only other car who's limit I have reached with no drama like that is my car, a 1995 E320 which just stops accelerating but maintains ~130mph. No jerking, or losing power, just not more acceleration.
Amenities.
Bluetooth. Decent stereo, but nothing to write home about. Boomy and muddy at higher volumes. Not enough highs as you increase the volume. And, curiously, like a certain Buick I rented a few months ago, very little sound coming from the rear, so there must only be a woofer of sorts back there. The Buick had NO speakers at all in the back.
Bluetooth paired pretty easily, although not with the ease of Chryslers UConnect. Could use a rear view camera as it's rear view was also not as good. I guess I am used to my old car which is very nice and upright and has a great greenhouse.
All in all a pleasant surprise. Far from a penalty box. And it managed a good 49mpg for the entire trip. That's US gallons. It should be noted that there are variable speed limits in the UK and also on the autobahn where I had to basically go at 50mph for long periods. In sixth gear, that was barely idling; literally 1100rpm. The trip was something like 2500 miles. Heathrow to Paris, then to Stuttgart through Belgium and Luxembourg, then onto Munich, from which I went to Antwerp via Nurnberg, Cologne and Bonn. i did get lost a lot and did drive through some very picturesque countryside.
All in all a drivetrain I would love to have in any of my cars. Clatters a tiny bit, but it's a diesel and it is stupidly efficient.