Now that I've written about the wedding and mostly leaned on Scott's post about it, I think it's time to talk about the car I rented. At this point, I'm glad I went for the upgrade from compact to mid-size, because 560 miles, most of that with two or three passengers and luggage, would not have been fun. Thus, instead of the Chevy Aveo, I was tooling around in a Chrysler Sebring.
The Sebring was very interesting, because it is ostensibly in the same class as my own car, the Ford Fusion. That class being mid-size, 4-door sedan. And not all cars in that class are the same. While I like my Fusion, I did not care for the Sebring at all. It performed adequately and I really pushed it at times since it was a rental car. It was hard on the gas, hard on the brake, and fun times driving LA area freeways. Despite doing well enough, it didn't do all that well. For starters, I could never get the seat to feel comfortable. It had manual controls in a day and age when at least a powered or partially powered driver's seat seems standard. The lumbar support felt like it was either al the way in or all the way out, I couldn't get enough thigh support and for whatever reason, I couldn't even get the angle of the seat back to feel right. It was just all wrong.
Perhaps I've become used to Ford controls from work and my own car, but I didn't like how everything was on a stalk. The headlights and dimmer switch were on the turn signal stalk on the left. The windshield wipers were on a stalk to the right. Under those, the cruise control was on yet another stalk. Now that I have them on the Fusion, I really like the buttons for the cruise control and the radio on the steering wheel. Additionally, the turn signal had this half-way setting that made the blinker blink three times that was rather aggravating because it took too much force to get it into proper turn signal position where it stayed on. There are few situations in driving that your blinker should only flash three times. I know most people only flash their turn signal about that much, but that doesn't make it right. The cup holders between the seats weren't well designed either. On the fusion, the cup holders are lined with an insert that you can remove and clean in case you spill your drink or otherwise collect bits of detritus down there. On the Sebring, the cup holders are lined, but you can't take it out. Well, you might be able to take it out, but it would involve a lot of prying. But the worst part about the interior is that it had an analog clock. No, no, no. No one wants to look at an analog clock. People want to see numbers, not roman numerals.
The vehicle styling was average. Like so many cars, it does not have any space between the edge of the rear seat and the wheel well. You can see it pretty clearly in this rear quarter view. There should be a gap between the rear seat and the wheel well. If they do it well, it'll be right where the vertical face of the edge around the fender ends like in the Fusion. Additionally, I have no problem with cars that choose to put tail lights on the trunk, but the plastic mount and case for the light on the inside of the trunk was cheap and looked like it wanted to fall off. The trunk also felt small, but at least it handled the luggage we threw into it.
The Sebring is not a bad car, but it doesn't really do anything right enough to make me want to drive one again. It had a nifty sliding top to the center arm rest and storage area that made it useful as a little table. But if that's the best thing I can say about the car, then we have a problem. The 4-speed automatic transmission is at least one gear behind the times in a day and age when Ford and GM are at six, Mercedes has seven, and Lexus has eight. (The only Sebring model with a 6-speed is their apparent top of the line Limited N Package. What an unappealing name for an options package.) In the end, I like renting cars, because it lets me mercilessly deride what's wrong with them without ever having to own them.
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