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Rental fleets are often bare bone models but they do give you a chance of living with them for more than a test drive. I am currently in a Frontier. People keep wishing for a compact truck that nobody is building but I think the Frontier is coming damn close. Considerably smaller than the "midsize" Ranger. It has everything in the right quantity. Oh, if it has CVT, it's a damn good one because I don't feel a thing. Price wise, it's actually no cheaper than the Tacoma, the supposedly gold standard in this segment.
Yes, but mostly what not to buy. I once wrote about a terrible rental experience to Nissan.
I forget which model it was, but it was a compact 4 door that was not worthy of selling in my opinion. The entire vehicle reeked of poor quality.
I was all hot on a Chrysler 300 until I drove a nicely equipped one as a rental. Just felt like it drove too "big" for the actual size of the car and was hard for me to see out of. It also had that "short T" goofy gear selector they only used for a few years, which was frustrating to use.
I thought I really wanted a Prius - until I rented one. Really disappointed. So I rented one again to be sure. Still really disappointed. Just to be certain, I rented one for two weeks. OK not just disappointed. i hate that thing.
Rented a Cube. Went back and got a different car after five blocks.
Another time a Montero - I did not return it early, but I really disliked it.
Most of the time, I am renting a car I would never consider buying.
IN a reverse instance, I rented a Grand Caravan and liked it a lot. So I convinced my daughter to buy a used one during college - mistake. Still they are pretty inexpensive, so I suggested she just try again. Probably got a bad one. Bigger mistake. No excuse at all for the third one. At least it did not last very long, so I no longer had to work on it daily.
The rental cars are always stripped down versions of any car I might even think about, so they are always poor examples for me to try. I used to advocate renting a car you are considering before buying one, but no longer. They are consistently disappointing. Just rent something to move you from here to there. It is less expensive and not as disappointing if you are not expecting a good car.
Rental fleets are often bare bone models but they do give you a chance of living with them for more than a test drive. I am currently in a Frontier. People keep wishing for a compact truck that nobody is building but I think the Frontier is coming damn close. Considerably smaller than the "midsize" Ranger. It has everything in the right quantity. Oh, if it has CVT, it's a damn good one because I don't feel a thing. Price wise, it's actually no cheaper than the Tacoma, the supposedly gold standard in this segment.
Once you get pst the economy models, most rental cars are not "stripped down" models. The rental cars do not like to purchase the stripped down models as they are very hard to sell at a reasonable price when they ship them off to the auction or to local dealerships.
As for the Nissans, I cannot believe how poorly the transmissions handle in cars with as few as 35k miles. The only worst transmissions are the Ford dual clutch transmissions on the Fiesta and Focus models.
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And to answer your original question, I will not purchase a particular vehicle model until I have taken a 3-5k rental to determine if I really like the model.
Every time I drive a rental, it convinces me that I never want to own a car made in a later model year than my 15-year-old driver.
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