Hi Guys I've ended up with a Vauxhall Astra (14 plate) as a hire car for a few days. It's a 1.6l petrol and it's bloody rubbish! The centre console is a horrible mash of too many buttons, the gears do that juddery thing when you come off the throttle regardless of what revs you're at or whether you're in a high or low gear and to top it off the thing is pretty darn slow. I'd really advise against anyone looking at buying one! However, all things considered I could have ended up with a lot worse I suppose. Anyone else had an awful car as a rental that they've had to put up with?
I've always been pretty lucky with hire cars, I think the worst was some Chevrolet thing I had whilst on Tenerife once. It didn't half make some odd noises so I had a look under the bonnet to find the intake was in tatters on the 'clean' side of the air filter. Given how dusty some of the roads are there god knows how much grit got sucked into that engine. New cars seem pretty dire at the moment, they've started serious weight loss programs in the last few years so hopefully the podge era is coming to an end.
