I am currently in the Boston area on business. I've been here since the beginning of November and will be here until the beginning of February with a possible extension until the beginning of May. To get around, I had the option of bringing one of my cars or letting work get me a rental. I chose the latter for a number of reasons.
Now I am one who likes a lot of the features on cars. I know there are people who yearn for the days of crank windows. I am not one of them. I like the gadgets on my car. I got everything I could on my
When I arrived, I was given a Ford Focus hatchback. Since I like the looks of the car and have thought of one to replace my aging Stratus I was looking forward to the time I spent with the car For a rental car, this one was pretty nice. It had leather interior, the large touchscreen (though it lacked a navigation system), heated seats, automatic headlights, dual zone climate control and a rear view camera. It also featured keyless entry with push button start that allowed me to keep the key in my pocket.
Seating was comfortable and visibility was reasonable, though there was a sticker on the back window on the passenger side that I kept mistaking for a car in the lane next to me when I turned my head. I did like the two small mirrors set inside the side view mirrors. Although the car didn't have blind spot monitoring, this helped. The heated seats warmed quickly and I found myself lowering the heat nearly every time.
Pairing my phone with the car was simple and straight forward and took only a moment or two and I only had one instance where the phone wouldn't connect with the car. Since I've had that problem with my Charger on occasion, it didn't really surprise me. I generally call my mother on the way home from work to check in and see how she is doing. If I was talking, turning the car off did not shut down the connection with the car. I was able to gather my stuff and transfer the call to my headset easily.
I liked the screen between the gauges. It was simple to figure out and I liked the A/B trip computer that allowed me to see mileage/mpg for a particular tank and for the duration of time I had the car. The system seemed slow to respond to inputs which I found annoying.
The car featured two drive modes. D and S. In D, the car was a confused mess. Sometimes it would be very sporty and other times it would bog down and seemed confused as to what gear it wanted to be in or try to stay in too high a gear.
S-mode kept the revs up and made the car a lot of fun to drive. A lot more fun! The car was lively and responded to throttle input very nicely. It always seemed in the power band and was very eager and responsive. My only real complaint was initial acceleration. Sometimes, especially on a hill, it would chirp the front tires and there seemed very little input between off the gas and having that happen. Just driving the car was very enjoyable, though. In the end, I would drive in the S-mode around town and dump it into D on the highway.
My two big complaints on the car were the cruise control buttons which seem mashed into the space allotted. I just didn't like the layout and thought it was poorly designed. Six functions jammed in there made it clumsy to operate. Especially with the resume and cancel buttons inboard of the set/accelerate/decel buttons. I like this way the cruise works on my Charger. Tap once and it goes up/down by 1mph. Hold it and it jumps to the nearest 5 mph then by 5 mph until released. The Focus doesn't do that. It continues to go up/down by 1mph, which I suppose is okay, but it is easier to set the cruise at 70 or 75 in the Charger than the Focus. Still, not a deal breaker.
The other complaint I had was the stereo interface. I thought it was...dumb. There was a single center mounted control for volume with buttons at the 12,3,6 and 9 o'clock positions that did other things. These buttons were small and hard to read. More than once I reached to change the volume and ended up adjusting the temperature instead since that is right where the volume control on my Charger would be. The power button is located on the upper left of the stereo and is tiny. I'm not looking for Fischer Price type controls, but buttons on a car should be easily seen and operated.
The oil change light came on after about 4 weeks and I was given the option of turning it in or changing the oil myself and getting it reimbursed. Since work is paying for the car and I wanted the car rental to be as simple as possible, I chose to exchange the car.
Over the course of the 5 or so weeks I had it I put about 1300 miles on it and averaged, according to the trip computer, about 31 mpg. At home I calculate it by hand, but haven't been doing it with the rental cars.
I am really glad I had the experience to spend some extended time driving the car since I was able to really experience the car. Overall, I really enjoyed the car, and given the car I got next, I really wish I had kept it. I wouldn't buy one though. As much as I enjoyed the car, the radio and cruise control layout would prevent me from buying one. It is a small thing, but it detracts from my driving experience and I just hate it.
Now I am one who likes a lot of the features on cars. I know there are people who yearn for the days of crank windows. I am not one of them. I like the gadgets on my car. I got everything I could on my
When I arrived, I was given a Ford Focus hatchback. Since I like the looks of the car and have thought of one to replace my aging Stratus I was looking forward to the time I spent with the car For a rental car, this one was pretty nice. It had leather interior, the large touchscreen (though it lacked a navigation system), heated seats, automatic headlights, dual zone climate control and a rear view camera. It also featured keyless entry with push button start that allowed me to keep the key in my pocket.
Seating was comfortable and visibility was reasonable, though there was a sticker on the back window on the passenger side that I kept mistaking for a car in the lane next to me when I turned my head. I did like the two small mirrors set inside the side view mirrors. Although the car didn't have blind spot monitoring, this helped. The heated seats warmed quickly and I found myself lowering the heat nearly every time.
Pairing my phone with the car was simple and straight forward and took only a moment or two and I only had one instance where the phone wouldn't connect with the car. Since I've had that problem with my Charger on occasion, it didn't really surprise me. I generally call my mother on the way home from work to check in and see how she is doing. If I was talking, turning the car off did not shut down the connection with the car. I was able to gather my stuff and transfer the call to my headset easily.
I liked the screen between the gauges. It was simple to figure out and I liked the A/B trip computer that allowed me to see mileage/mpg for a particular tank and for the duration of time I had the car. The system seemed slow to respond to inputs which I found annoying.
The car featured two drive modes. D and S. In D, the car was a confused mess. Sometimes it would be very sporty and other times it would bog down and seemed confused as to what gear it wanted to be in or try to stay in too high a gear.
S-mode kept the revs up and made the car a lot of fun to drive. A lot more fun! The car was lively and responded to throttle input very nicely. It always seemed in the power band and was very eager and responsive. My only real complaint was initial acceleration. Sometimes, especially on a hill, it would chirp the front tires and there seemed very little input between off the gas and having that happen. Just driving the car was very enjoyable, though. In the end, I would drive in the S-mode around town and dump it into D on the highway.
My two big complaints on the car were the cruise control buttons which seem mashed into the space allotted. I just didn't like the layout and thought it was poorly designed. Six functions jammed in there made it clumsy to operate. Especially with the resume and cancel buttons inboard of the set/accelerate/decel buttons. I like this way the cruise works on my Charger. Tap once and it goes up/down by 1mph. Hold it and it jumps to the nearest 5 mph then by 5 mph until released. The Focus doesn't do that. It continues to go up/down by 1mph, which I suppose is okay, but it is easier to set the cruise at 70 or 75 in the Charger than the Focus. Still, not a deal breaker.
The other complaint I had was the stereo interface. I thought it was...dumb. There was a single center mounted control for volume with buttons at the 12,3,6 and 9 o'clock positions that did other things. These buttons were small and hard to read. More than once I reached to change the volume and ended up adjusting the temperature instead since that is right where the volume control on my Charger would be. The power button is located on the upper left of the stereo and is tiny. I'm not looking for Fischer Price type controls, but buttons on a car should be easily seen and operated.
The oil change light came on after about 4 weeks and I was given the option of turning it in or changing the oil myself and getting it reimbursed. Since work is paying for the car and I wanted the car rental to be as simple as possible, I chose to exchange the car.
Over the course of the 5 or so weeks I had it I put about 1300 miles on it and averaged, according to the trip computer, about 31 mpg. At home I calculate it by hand, but haven't been doing it with the rental cars.
I am really glad I had the experience to spend some extended time driving the car since I was able to really experience the car. Overall, I really enjoyed the car, and given the car I got next, I really wish I had kept it. I wouldn't buy one though. As much as I enjoyed the car, the radio and cruise control layout would prevent me from buying one. It is a small thing, but it detracts from my driving experience and I just hate it.