Post by jhornbr225 on Nov 22, 2017 15:55:50 GMT -5
I saw that there was a review of the Ford Focus Hatch in the Driveline section. I thought I jot down a few points about a recent rental I had, but I'd put it in the "General" Section.
I had to go on a trip to Washington DC, (About a 6-7 Hour Drive), and since my Accord is still pretty far apart installing the stereo/computer, I thought I'd rent a car and drive there, instead of flying and then renting a car.
So between driving back and forth to DC twice, and about an hour a day between the hotel and job site, I bet I have over 40 hours of drive time in the car.
My local airport's National Rental Car counter had several Dodge products to choose from. I typically stay away from Dodge as a rule. That's a whole extra book of gripes. When the gal said "Camry", I jumped at it, as I've had them before and they are pretty good.
To start, it had the adaptive cruise control. My opinion is still out on whether I really like it or not, but it is a nice feature. If you just want to drive, and not worry about your speed, it's great. It has a selectable following distance. The problem is that even the closest distance is way too large and people are always cutting you off. I suppose the distance is safe, and it gives the car time to hit the brakes, which it will if it needs to. The major problem is that the radar sensors on the front were under a plastic cover that had a grill-like cover over it, just under the bumper. It looks nice, but it provides a perfect lattice for snow, ice and slush to build up. I was driving along and a car changed lanes in front of me. I just kept getting closer and closer. I finally hit cancel on the cruise. Then the warnings started. It popped up on the dash that the sensor was dirty and needed cleaned, that the pre-collision features were disabled, and an idiot light on the dash remained lit, to remind me that the pre-collision stuff was disabled. At that point, to the casual user, the cruise control was also inoperative. Luckily, a few days earlier, I had perused the owners manual in order to figure out a couple other annoying things on the car. (More on that in a minute). Anyway, I knew that holding the cruise power on button for 3 seconds when turning the cruise on would put it into "Dumb mode". I can't remember the exact name. Essentially it gets rid of the radar sensor and just acts as normal cruise control. That's another pet peeve. Older cars have a hard switch on the cruise control. Why do new cars have to have a soft switch that I have to turn on the cruise control every time I get in the car? Anyway, I figured that I would stop in a few minutes and hit the restroom and clean the sensor. When I did stop, I went to clean the sensor, and found that it was difficult because of that lattice in front of it. I had to dig my pinky into each little opening, and even then I was just pushing the slush around under the lattice. I finally got enough out that I figured it would work, and it did. Also by then I was out of the snow/sleet, so it stayed clean, but what a pain to clean.
Next, the radio. It's a whole chapter of gripes. It might be a problem for some people, but not me, is that fact it had no CD player. Does anyone play CD's in the car anymore? I always carry a USB stick when I travel with my music on it. It seems that all rental cars these days have a USB input. So I plug my USB stick in, give it a minute to scan it, not sure if that was required or not. I hit the voice button and asked it to play an album. It actually played the correct album, but it played the songs in alphabetical order. I always encode my music with the track number, along with the album title, song title, artist, etc. Since the album played in the wrong order, I looked for a workaround. I saw that I could "Browse", and then there was a "Folder" choice. I though that would do it. But, the car was moving, and the nanny was fully kicked in. I could not browse to a particular folder. It would just play the first folder on the stick. If I was sitting still, I could browse and find a particular folder. I noticed that there were two little arrows next to the folder name. I hit that, and it went to the next folder. The problem is that it was a 7" screen and those little arrow buttons were the size of a pencil eraser, not easy to hit. So after I hit the little arrow enough times it got to the folder I wanted. Then it played the songs in the right order as I name my songs starting with the 2 digit track number, 01-XX.
Next was the bluetooth. I know that they don't let you pair a phone while you are in motion, so I did that before I started driving. I could swear that one time I started driving before turning on the bluetooth of my phone. After I turned on bluetooth on the phone, it showed that my phone was there, but had no signal, there was a line though it. And I could not make a call. Looking at my phone showed that it had signal. I just let it go. Then next time I got in the car after stopping, the phone was found and connected normally. There was a voice training procedure that you could do. I never did it though. I did try to make a call though, I said "Call" and a person's name. It started playing music, a song that could have been interpreted as the person's name. So I hit it again and said "Phone". The display showed a list of phone commands, so I said "Call" and the person's name. It started the song over again. Now mind you, by this point I had listened to several folders of music. To get back to where I was, I had to "Browse" "Folders", then hit that little button over and over again until I got to where I had left off listening before I tried to make the call. I also would not let me do the voice training while I was moving. If I was in the voice menu for phone, why would a request to play a song even work? I feel that phone stuff should have been the only commands accepted at that point.
Next, it had a button next to the screen that said "INFO". It brought up a screen that showed how long you had been driving since you last started the car, your average speed, your distance till empty, a history of the mpg for the last 15 minutes, and the current mpg. Pretty nice. But it topped out at 40mpg. There were many times that I went to that screen, and the bars were all topped out at 40mpg. I was traveling at 75+ mph, and the mpg was still over 40 for much of the time. The display needed to actively scale based on the actual mpg, or needed the top mpg to be maybe 60, or something higher than 40.
As a car, it was fine. It was comfortable, roomy, it drove fine. I was not expecting a sports car, but it handled as expected. It's just all these little things that were frustrating.
I had to go on a trip to Washington DC, (About a 6-7 Hour Drive), and since my Accord is still pretty far apart installing the stereo/computer, I thought I'd rent a car and drive there, instead of flying and then renting a car.
So between driving back and forth to DC twice, and about an hour a day between the hotel and job site, I bet I have over 40 hours of drive time in the car.
My local airport's National Rental Car counter had several Dodge products to choose from. I typically stay away from Dodge as a rule. That's a whole extra book of gripes. When the gal said "Camry", I jumped at it, as I've had them before and they are pretty good.
To start, it had the adaptive cruise control. My opinion is still out on whether I really like it or not, but it is a nice feature. If you just want to drive, and not worry about your speed, it's great. It has a selectable following distance. The problem is that even the closest distance is way too large and people are always cutting you off. I suppose the distance is safe, and it gives the car time to hit the brakes, which it will if it needs to. The major problem is that the radar sensors on the front were under a plastic cover that had a grill-like cover over it, just under the bumper. It looks nice, but it provides a perfect lattice for snow, ice and slush to build up. I was driving along and a car changed lanes in front of me. I just kept getting closer and closer. I finally hit cancel on the cruise. Then the warnings started. It popped up on the dash that the sensor was dirty and needed cleaned, that the pre-collision features were disabled, and an idiot light on the dash remained lit, to remind me that the pre-collision stuff was disabled. At that point, to the casual user, the cruise control was also inoperative. Luckily, a few days earlier, I had perused the owners manual in order to figure out a couple other annoying things on the car. (More on that in a minute). Anyway, I knew that holding the cruise power on button for 3 seconds when turning the cruise on would put it into "Dumb mode". I can't remember the exact name. Essentially it gets rid of the radar sensor and just acts as normal cruise control. That's another pet peeve. Older cars have a hard switch on the cruise control. Why do new cars have to have a soft switch that I have to turn on the cruise control every time I get in the car? Anyway, I figured that I would stop in a few minutes and hit the restroom and clean the sensor. When I did stop, I went to clean the sensor, and found that it was difficult because of that lattice in front of it. I had to dig my pinky into each little opening, and even then I was just pushing the slush around under the lattice. I finally got enough out that I figured it would work, and it did. Also by then I was out of the snow/sleet, so it stayed clean, but what a pain to clean.
Next, the radio. It's a whole chapter of gripes. It might be a problem for some people, but not me, is that fact it had no CD player. Does anyone play CD's in the car anymore? I always carry a USB stick when I travel with my music on it. It seems that all rental cars these days have a USB input. So I plug my USB stick in, give it a minute to scan it, not sure if that was required or not. I hit the voice button and asked it to play an album. It actually played the correct album, but it played the songs in alphabetical order. I always encode my music with the track number, along with the album title, song title, artist, etc. Since the album played in the wrong order, I looked for a workaround. I saw that I could "Browse", and then there was a "Folder" choice. I though that would do it. But, the car was moving, and the nanny was fully kicked in. I could not browse to a particular folder. It would just play the first folder on the stick. If I was sitting still, I could browse and find a particular folder. I noticed that there were two little arrows next to the folder name. I hit that, and it went to the next folder. The problem is that it was a 7" screen and those little arrow buttons were the size of a pencil eraser, not easy to hit. So after I hit the little arrow enough times it got to the folder I wanted. Then it played the songs in the right order as I name my songs starting with the 2 digit track number, 01-XX.
Next was the bluetooth. I know that they don't let you pair a phone while you are in motion, so I did that before I started driving. I could swear that one time I started driving before turning on the bluetooth of my phone. After I turned on bluetooth on the phone, it showed that my phone was there, but had no signal, there was a line though it. And I could not make a call. Looking at my phone showed that it had signal. I just let it go. Then next time I got in the car after stopping, the phone was found and connected normally. There was a voice training procedure that you could do. I never did it though. I did try to make a call though, I said "Call" and a person's name. It started playing music, a song that could have been interpreted as the person's name. So I hit it again and said "Phone". The display showed a list of phone commands, so I said "Call" and the person's name. It started the song over again. Now mind you, by this point I had listened to several folders of music. To get back to where I was, I had to "Browse" "Folders", then hit that little button over and over again until I got to where I had left off listening before I tried to make the call. I also would not let me do the voice training while I was moving. If I was in the voice menu for phone, why would a request to play a song even work? I feel that phone stuff should have been the only commands accepted at that point.
Next, it had a button next to the screen that said "INFO". It brought up a screen that showed how long you had been driving since you last started the car, your average speed, your distance till empty, a history of the mpg for the last 15 minutes, and the current mpg. Pretty nice. But it topped out at 40mpg. There were many times that I went to that screen, and the bars were all topped out at 40mpg. I was traveling at 75+ mph, and the mpg was still over 40 for much of the time. The display needed to actively scale based on the actual mpg, or needed the top mpg to be maybe 60, or something higher than 40.
As a car, it was fine. It was comfortable, roomy, it drove fine. I was not expecting a sports car, but it handled as expected. It's just all these little things that were frustrating.