Rental Cars

While I've been out in Tucson, I've needed to rent a car in order to be able to get to work. As I am here for over 28 days, I was having a difficult time finding a place willing to rent a car for the entire time. Instead, I split the month approximately in half and returned the first car last Thursday, then picked up my second car on Sunday. That worked out well as we were going to Mexico for Becca's class retreat, so I wouldn't have been using the car during that time anyway.

So I ended up renting two cars. I signed up for economy class for both rentals, but when I picked up my first rental, I was given a free upgrade to the next level and ended up with a Chevy Impala. It was quite nice. The coolest thing to me was that it had a remote car starter, which I've never gotten to use before. I just had fun starting the car as I walked up to it, and that way the air conditioner was already running before we got in. Additionally, the car only had 334 miles on it when I got it. I had never driven a car with that few miles on it. I even got to drive the car past 1,000 miles which felt like a kind of rite of passage. That was pretty exciting.

For the second rental, however, I was not fortunate enough to get a free upgrade. Instead, I ended up with a Chevy Cobalt. It's small. It smells like a wet dog. It does not have a remote car starter. It doesn't have power windows or even power locks. It's depressing. But worse yet, it had 26,000 miles on it. Admittedly, that doesn't sound like all that much. Unfortunately, it drives like it has at least 75,000 - 100,000 miles on it. It sounds bad. It even shakes while driving. It's really quite pathetic.

The moral of the story? It is OK to rent a cheap car, after all the price is right and you just accept that you get what you pay for. But seriously, don't buy a Cobalt. They suck.