Car Hire Lottery

[GG.]

It’s not a Continental GT.

It’s a Continental GT Speed.

Ha. Holy Moly - think you've won hire car top trumps here mate. What year?

[mik]

Ha. Holy Moly - think you've won hire car top trumps here mate. What year?

I think it was this year. Like right now.

[Mito Man]

I don’t think they’re big cars, especially nowadays

I was at *thing* a month back and a bloke had one there. It looked imposing but it also looked laaarge.

However - at 1.95m wide, it’s only 3cm wider than an F-Type. Surprising. 42cm longer though.

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compar ... 024-coupe/

I’m assuming gen 1 which is a bit smaller than those that followed. Think it has some of the more usable rear seats for a 2+2 as well so they’re not bad for the packaging.

[Simon]

Ha. Holy Moly - think you've won hire car top trumps here mate. What year?

I think it was this year. Like right now.

Badum-tish.

FWIW I drove a friend's F-Type and found that pretty wide and difficult to place, so another 3 cm wouldn't be ideal.

But I really like them after the Autotopnl vid.

[V8Granite]

I currently have a Hyundai Tucson hybrid.

The steering is hateful, tugging left and right, devoid of any feel.

A silly twist knob to put it into gear, like a Mercedes stalk but it doesn’t move up and down.

Stereo sounds nice and I like the heads up display but what a hateful thing to drive.

Dave!

[John]

I've returned the V60 today for some pre-arranged work and the courtesy car is a Volvo EX40 + Black Edition, my first experience of driving an electric car. Once the novelty of the instant performance wore off (pretty quickly) it drives almost like an automatic ICE car. The salesman warned me against turning on the regen thing so obviously I had to try it and it is vicious when you come off the power. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the car following me.

I do have to say though that the EX40 feels like a class below the V60 in terms of ride and general ambience, and the list price is £55k.

[jamcg]

Ride will be the fact the car is at least a tonne heavier than yours, surely?

[John]

Probably, plus the 20" wheels no doubt.

[IanF]

Hired a car for a day in Comporta.. gf wanted a convertible so ended up with a 500C.. Manuel too. It’s been a while since I had to change gear for hills! but was good fun tbh, zero racing machine vibes, but for slowly driving through gorgeous scenery in perfect weather -

It said hybrid on the back, didn’t see any driver modes so guessing it was a mild jobbie, but I ragged it hard. Good old, cheap, Italian fun!

[dinny_g]

VW Polo or equivalent ended up being a Mazda 2 with some form of petrol engine.

It wouldn’t pull skin of custard but it’s very well appointed. 6 Speed, Apple Car Play, Cruise Control etc.

Only gripe is it doesn’t really have a suitable sized space for a modern mobile but it’s not horrible, given it was £180 for 8 days

[Jobbo]

What a coincidence - I looked for this thread to report on my Mazda 2 courtesy car and Dinny had one in the very last post. It's a Homura hybrid. Basically a Yaris with Mazda badges but that's fine, it's a nice little car.

Not realising it was a hybrid I spent a minute pressing the start/stop button over and over again to try to get the engine to fire up. Eventually I realised it would probably set off on electricity which it did. Not very user friendly. Felt torquey though, and incredibly easy to drive. Carplay wouldn't connect all journey despite pairing it properly at the start.

Overall while I liked it, there's much more plastic inside than the CX30 I had last time which is less than £1000 more for the Homura specs of each (manual CX30, auto 2 - £2k more for auto CX30). The CX30 isn't hybrid but feels like a lot more car for the money.

[scotta]

In related mazda lottery news I currently have a Mazda 3 2.5 in mid spec.

I’m extremely impressed at how little power Mazda have managed to extract from 2.5 litres. 138bhp.

It’s an auto which is ok. Tech wise it’s got plenty kit. Mazda however inexplicably disable the touch screen interface on the car tech when the car’s being driven. CarPlay touch screen was disabled also until I found a setting to enable it. Bings and bongs turn off with a button but the horrendous lane assist is buried in menus and reactivates automagically.

This particular car is a 25 plate with 9k on the clock. I suspect it’s been in an accident at some point. The front near side has a mismatched ditchfinder that’s been balanced by a blind man. Results of which are a shudder at speed. The seatbelt has stretch marks on it. Randomly it come up on the dash a “performance limited “ error. Which seems to be related to the speed warning recognition system. I’m shrugging about that. It also stinks of weed and fags.

[Jobbo]

The 2.5 is a great engine which is particularly economical and gives excellent low-down torque. It's also way faster than the power suggests; whether it's wrong or understated deliberately or what, I don't know, but plenty of tests have shown the 2.5 is quicker than the higher power more expensive version.

Why do you have another courtesy car though? Not for the Alpine I hope.

[scotta]

The 2.5 is a great engine which is particularly economical and gives excellent low-down torque. It's also way faster than the power suggests; whether it's wrong or understated deliberately or what, I don't know, but plenty of tests have shown the 2.5 is quicker than the higher power more expensive version.

Why do you have another courtesy car though? Not for the Alpine I hope.

Alpine - but its just for a warranty recall on the fuel pump and some paintwork thats being fixed under warranty. I knew this needed done when i bought the car so was all booked to get done months ago. Made sense to get it in last week as we were out the country on holiday.