As part of my ongoing saga with having a cab decide to try to merge into my car, I’ve had to hand over my car to the body shop for roughly two weeks. In that time, my insurance has graciously (due to me paying, of course) provided me with a rental car. The rep offered me a Mitsubishi Lancer, which I was very excited by – I’ve always wanted to drive one, and this was my chance! But lo, my hopes were dashed, when a few moments later the rep told me that the Lancer was actually out. I was then presented with a few different options – a Nissan Sentra, the Ford Focus, and a Chevrolet Malibu.

Originally, I was leaning towards the Focus – it’s a decent little car, and in the right model, very peppy. This being a rental company, I figured it’d be the bare minimum – four wheels and, if I was lucky, a motor. (If I wasn’t, picture Fred Flinstone’s feet.) Based on that, I decided I’d try the Malibu – a large-ish, generic American car. I knew it’d have a big engine that did nothing but suck gas, and wouldn’t so much corner as wallow around a bend. However, I also knew that it’d have the interior space of a drawing room, and that I’d probably feel lost in the car.

Well, the first two predictions came true. The last, not so much! Turns out that the room in the car is taken up by the engine and trunk – the middle portion is probably 1/4 of the car! (No, not quite that bad, but still a pronounced smallness to it.) The front seat only moves back so far, and until the rep found the button to make the seat go down, I was pretty much part of the steering wheel. If I tried to take a corner, I’d be bruising my thighs with my ham hands. While the steering wheel does telescope and move up, it doesn’t come out very far, and sure doesn’t go up very much. The designers also thought that they should take the steering wheel from a bus – that thing is MASSIVE.

To top it all off, I’ve gotten so used to having a gas pedal that requires pressure that the vapid feedback I get from the accelerator drives me bonkers, and gave me a cramp from having to keep things “just so.”

TL;DR (you’d better have gotten this far) – it wallows, it wheezes, and it has the interior room for a family of mutant dwarf pigs. Steer clear!

Addendum
Things I’ve noticed in the last day while driving this behemoth:
1) Every time you hit a pothole, a crack in the pavement, or some other protrusion marring the perfectly flat surface of the road that the Malibu expects, the steering wheel bucks like an enraged steer trying to break loose. This causes some serious consternation.
2) On the flip side, the steering wheel has a good 10-15 degrees of play before it notices that you’re attempting to turn. Seriously – I feel like a bus driver.
3) A bus is a good comparison, especially when it comes to turning radii. I’d need an empty six lane highway to get this thing to do a 360. Parking in Toronto requires a nine point turn.
4) The person (or committee) that decided that the turn signal had to have the loudest, most horrible clacking noise should be summarily executed. I spend a lot of my time waiting to turn trying to decide what weight sledgehammer I want to introduce to the dashboard.

Hopefully I have found the full extent of the nightmare that is this car. Any more surprises would be very unwelcome. Can’t wait to have my car back!

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