colerc
Feb 10, 06, 11:09 am
I didn't want to like this car when I saw it in my slot--it looks like an uglier version of the PT Cruiser (and I never liked the look of the Cruiser to begin with). It's one of the many car models today with all-wrong proportions: its shape says it wants to be a big SUV, when in reality it's only barely bigger than the average passenger car.
However, climbing inside to grab the contract to bring back to the gold booth, I decided to give it a try based on a particularly nice interior--heated leather power seats, sunroof, fog lights, a sleek & cleanly-styled radio/heater unit, and a unique (if a bit tacky) gauge display.
The radio, which uses cell phone-like soft buttons to control the pre-set stations and some menu items, is one of the best features, and makes some of the first real strides toward improving the car radio that I've seen in a long time. There's a mini-RCA jack on the panel as well to plug in an iPod or whatever else. And the radio stays on after the key is removed up until the door is opened, a feature I always like but is surprisingly uncommon.
But several other interior features are poorly designed: the power window controls are below the heater controls rather than on the door, which is not only odd but completely out of the way* (on the PT Cruiser, at least the window controls are easily reachable above the heat & radio controls). Because of the car's odd proportions, the sun visor doesn't reach far enough when rotated against the driver's window to block the sun from the driver's face. The front map lights were inexplicably moved from their perfectly good location in every other car on Earth and put instead on the back of the rearview mirror, making them illuminate the dashboard when turned on--the only way to get them near your lap/general map-holding area is to move the rearview mirror completely out of place.
When leaving the Hertz facility I was initially unimpressed with the handling and feel of driving the HHR--it seemed kind of like the god-awful Saturn Vue--but it grew on me despite my better intentions. It's certainly no Mazda 6 or Outback (or better cars beyond the Hertz universe, for that matter) but it does handle better than the average passenger sedan. However, I constantly felt as though I could barely see the road around me as the car's odd design calls for windows that far smaller than any other vehicle I've ever driven--it's as if an SUV was shrunk down to car size, and all of the height lost was taken from the windows. That combined with extra-chunky borders (I don't what the correct term is) around the windows can make it feel like you can't really see the road around you.
The car doesn't have much power, either: acceleration is acceptable at low speeds, but above 45mph or so the car seems really to struggle, and getting it to go any faster than 60mph is an outright challenge--which wouldn't be surprising in, say, an early 90s or older light SUV, but it's been a long time since I've driven a car so weak at high speeds.
Still, overall, it's not an awful drive and having gotten used to it after a 5-day rental I'm starting to find driving it a bit enjoyable--the lack-of-power issues are manageable once you get a feel for the car and realize that you're just going to have to push the gas pedal farther down more often than you normally might. My model will be hanging out at the IAD Hertz as of about 5 pm tonight if you want to try to snag it (though given the efficiency of the Dulles location, that should mean it will be back in rotation around Wednesday).
*It took me a while to figure out just why it's so irritating to have the window controls in the "funky" places they put them on the PT Cruiser and the HHR, apparently for the cool/classic British car factor of doing it. The problem is that opening the window 90% of the time is a functional thing--you need to get a parking stub, pay a toll, pick up your drive-thru order, etc etc etc . . . and all of those things have your arms headed toward the window anyway. It's a major detour for one of your hands to have to head in the opposite direction to open the window first.
However, climbing inside to grab the contract to bring back to the gold booth, I decided to give it a try based on a particularly nice interior--heated leather power seats, sunroof, fog lights, a sleek & cleanly-styled radio/heater unit, and a unique (if a bit tacky) gauge display.
The radio, which uses cell phone-like soft buttons to control the pre-set stations and some menu items, is one of the best features, and makes some of the first real strides toward improving the car radio that I've seen in a long time. There's a mini-RCA jack on the panel as well to plug in an iPod or whatever else. And the radio stays on after the key is removed up until the door is opened, a feature I always like but is surprisingly uncommon.
But several other interior features are poorly designed: the power window controls are below the heater controls rather than on the door, which is not only odd but completely out of the way* (on the PT Cruiser, at least the window controls are easily reachable above the heat & radio controls). Because of the car's odd proportions, the sun visor doesn't reach far enough when rotated against the driver's window to block the sun from the driver's face. The front map lights were inexplicably moved from their perfectly good location in every other car on Earth and put instead on the back of the rearview mirror, making them illuminate the dashboard when turned on--the only way to get them near your lap/general map-holding area is to move the rearview mirror completely out of place.
When leaving the Hertz facility I was initially unimpressed with the handling and feel of driving the HHR--it seemed kind of like the god-awful Saturn Vue--but it grew on me despite my better intentions. It's certainly no Mazda 6 or Outback (or better cars beyond the Hertz universe, for that matter) but it does handle better than the average passenger sedan. However, I constantly felt as though I could barely see the road around me as the car's odd design calls for windows that far smaller than any other vehicle I've ever driven--it's as if an SUV was shrunk down to car size, and all of the height lost was taken from the windows. That combined with extra-chunky borders (I don't what the correct term is) around the windows can make it feel like you can't really see the road around you.
The car doesn't have much power, either: acceleration is acceptable at low speeds, but above 45mph or so the car seems really to struggle, and getting it to go any faster than 60mph is an outright challenge--which wouldn't be surprising in, say, an early 90s or older light SUV, but it's been a long time since I've driven a car so weak at high speeds.
Still, overall, it's not an awful drive and having gotten used to it after a 5-day rental I'm starting to find driving it a bit enjoyable--the lack-of-power issues are manageable once you get a feel for the car and realize that you're just going to have to push the gas pedal farther down more often than you normally might. My model will be hanging out at the IAD Hertz as of about 5 pm tonight if you want to try to snag it (though given the efficiency of the Dulles location, that should mean it will be back in rotation around Wednesday).
*It took me a while to figure out just why it's so irritating to have the window controls in the "funky" places they put them on the PT Cruiser and the HHR, apparently for the cool/classic British car factor of doing it. The problem is that opening the window 90% of the time is a functional thing--you need to get a parking stub, pay a toll, pick up your drive-thru order, etc etc etc . . . and all of those things have your arms headed toward the window anyway. It's a major detour for one of your hands to have to head in the opposite direction to open the window first.