When Heather and I decided that we where going to stay at a bed and breakfast to get out of the city we also decided to rent a car. I booked a Toyota Yaris from Avis car Rental, I choose the Yaris because this is a car that Heather should look when she finally replaced her Ford Focus.
When I went to pick up the car I was told they had no Yaris’s left this is despite my confirmed booking, did not really impress me. I booked Yaris and I wanted a Yaris for the above reasons, but there was not much we could do. So instead of the Toyota Yaris we got a Chevrolet Cobalt LS which is basically the replacement for Chevrolet Cavalier.
I am not a big fan of domestic cars or GM products in general, but this car was a piece of garbage. I did not know they still made cars that had manual locks and windows, this car had power nothing. The only exception was it had a trip computer and automatic lights, not power windows but automatic head lights that makes…
Heather and I both drove the car and we both commented on how the car had no guts at all. You could just hammer the gas and it had no acceleration, zero to sixty in still waiting. I drive a Mazda 3 GT which has a lot of guts and Heather drives a Ford Focus which is an underpowered car. But this Chevrolet Cobalt that Heather and I rented made her Focus seem like a sports car.
Also for a car that had no gut it also go horrible gas mileage, on the entire trip we averaged about 12 liters / 100 KM, mostly highway driving.
The Cobalt is an entry level car, but the interior makes the car feel cheap which it is. But if they used a nicer plastic or a nicer fabric it would go a long way towards making this an more enjoyable car.
To be far this was a rental car so it is probably driven pretty hard, but then again it had less then ten thousand kilometers on the car.
Just a couple of notes on my experience with Avis rental car, overall it was positive experience. The rates seemed to be reasonable and the Garmin GPS unit for $10.00 was reasonable and a must have for a tourist in a new city. Especially in city like Vancouver with lots of one way streets and streets that just end for no apparent reason.
However, I do have two complaints about Avis. The first being again I reserved a Toyota Yaris and I was disappointed that I got stuck with this piece of garbage Chevrolet Cobalt LS. If you are going to let people reserve specific cars then they should receive the car they reserved period or get a major free upgrade.
My other complaint is that is that they gouge you on gas; if you return the car a car and the tank is not full they charge your credit card $2.99 per litre to fill the car. There is a gas station right outside the airport and gas was $1.13 a litre. So $2.99 per liter is more then a little ridiculous to charge.
One observation that I have that is rather interesting is that when I was given the keys to the car I was told it was a grey Chevrolet Cobalt, the tag on the keys say it is a grey also. But the car is clearly beige or gold, you would think they would think Avis would know what color their cars are…
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