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I'm going to be spending a week in the TN/NC mountains next month, and I've decided to rent a car rather than drive my own. My concern is the power output of these rentals, I don't want anything that's going to be straining to maintain speed and get me ran over when going up steep hills.
I know the local Enterprise has 4cyl Malibus and Fusions, but I worry they won't be powerful enough. The "full size" class has the Impala, Charger, Sonata, and Altima (latter two likely 4cyl too). The "premium class" simply says "Nissan Maxima or similar", but I'm thinking the Chrysler 300 may be in that group as well.
If any of you have driven any of these cars in hilly terrain I'd like to hear your input.
I was gonna suggest a Jeep, but then I saw these "mountains" are in NC & TN. Them ain't mountains! You might as well save some money and rent a Metro.
I don't think any of those cars will be real problem... just get something with a 6 cyl instead of a 4 if you want more "oomph" or a V8 Charger/ 300C if you want to launch yourself to the moon when you hill climb.
Well, the easiest answer is no 4 bangers. They arn't all bad, but you don't want to get stuck in a bad situation. I would think their fuel economy would go straight out the window in the mountains.
I took my old V6 2008 Charger through some mountainous areas, and she held her own quite nicely. Still a hog on gas, but at least I was confident I had up hill passing power to spare.
edit: I was gonna say Jeep too till I saw where. I also changed "2008 Charger through the mountains" to mountainous lol
Well I drove my Venture minivan up there several years ago, but it really labored on those long hills, at one point I even saw my temp gauge go 3/4 way, it has NEVER done that before. I really don't want to drive my Tundra that only gets 16 mpg.
I think I'll probably go with an Impala, if they don't have that I'll upgrade to a Maxima.
We rented a Jetta and it handled California mountians very nicely. Due to a forest fire we detoured to Vegas up and over Big Bear and the Jetta rocked it, excellent car, plenty of power and handled nicely. Good brakes that didn't warp rotors on the way back down. 30 mpg. I could almost see driving a Jetta in real life.
I have taken my 4 banger CRV, loaded with people and stuff, up to big bear without any trouble. And the car is mine, so I wasn't flooring it or anything. Just rent what you like.
I may try to request an '11 or '12 Charger, it'll be a good opportunity to test out the Pentastar V6.
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I know you can find those in Hertz fleets.
