“Beggars can’t be choosers,” they say, and they say it’s because it’s generally pretty true. It’s extra-definitely true when you’re the last person to make it to the rental car counter after arriving in town for the big convention or whatever, and you simply must make it to the hotel/meeting/booth/inlaws’ house when you said you would. Oh, you signed up for a nicer-quality midsizer? Well, looks like you’re settling for whatever’s left on the Frugal Humiliator list. “Yes, I’ll take it, sighhhhhhhh.”
The Bishop inspired today’s Autopian Asks after telling the tale of how he wound up with a Plasma Purple (yes, that’s the actual name) Mitsubishi Mirage. Now, I think this is a good color, and I would happily tool around in that little cheapster while I waited for my daily to get back from the collision center. But poor Bish was in town to shuttle important clients around, so, yeah – not the greatest pick. “At least it didn’t look like we were a wasteful company,” said The Bishop, looking on the side of things as bright as the Mitsu’s paint.
spacer
Wrencher extraordinaire Stephen Walter Gossin chimed in with this tale. “Don’t meet your heroes,” they say, and well…
I was in Phoenix for a conference in 2013 and was provided a rental to get to the event, to the hotel and back to the airport. Enterprise said I could pick anything I wanted that they had on the lot per the reservation type, so I figured that it was time to finally meet my hero. I had been enamored by the Dodge Challenger since it showed up in 2008 and this was going to be my first chance to drive one and to experience its majesty and badassery. I was wicked, wicked pumped. I was given a V6 Challenger and had to do my best throughout the rest of that week to hide my disappointment that it was just another V6 LX chassis offering, not too dissimilar from the Charger and 300. It was fine, it looked good, and drove great, but there was nothing special there. My “future dream” attempt of saving up $30K for one ceased funding that week.
And this next rental escapade comes from Griffin Rilely, freshly returned from Colombia, where he was much more in love with the cars there than he was this gem:
This past December, my mom moved to Houston and we decided to make it a long family road trip across the country. We put in the order to rent a van, and the day we were heading out, we got a call from the rental service that “we actually don’t have a van for you, but we have something of comparable size.” What we had was a Cadillac XT6, a simple three-row SUV, nowhere near enough room for two cats and four people who packed up their whole lives to move thousands of miles away. We also got a nail in a tire at one point, called customer service who told us there was a big SUV in a town 100 miles away (out of the way mind you), and when we pulled up, local rental representative said they had no such request for a vehicle transfer and only had four door sedans for us. Shitty couple of days driving that thing.
Your turn: What’s The Worst Car A Rental Company Has Forced Upon You?
Top graphic image: Mitsubishi
Down in the boot of Italy, I managed to get a Fiat Multipla. The ugliest one in the ugliest color. It was beat and abused. The manual transmission had the feel of a wooden spoon in a pot of pasta. Just stir it about until you find a gear…could be 3rd, could be 5th, foggedaboutit! Was too big for the tiny streets and we drove down a hill in a village that kept getting more narrow. I eventually had to back that thing out the way I came up hill through a town. Reverse was not well geared for going up steep hills. That day I cursed like an Italian at that car.
I don’t care how beat it was, if I was handed a Multipla for a rental I would feel like the luckiest man alive.
I think the saddest rental was the time I had a fiat 500 abarth reserved for me in Florence Italy and ended up with an Opal Corsa. At least it was a manual. if no where near as fun.
you missed out, the 500 abarth is such stupid fun
Citröen C4 Cactus. At 50k km, the clutch was more of a suggestion that power should go from the engine to the transmission. Also couldn’t make it up a 6% hill at 80km/ hour. I know that’s a decent slope, but you had to shift into second and go up at around 60. It was a car only one model year removed from the date at the time, and this was in the 2010s
My 2016 Mazda3 was hit by my neighbor (who then ran off, but was caught) and I used their insurance to fix my car. When I was picked up by Enterprise, I was brought to a lot that had the saddest collection of cars I’ve ever seen. At the bottom of the lineup was a car that I pleaded with the good Lord that I would not get. My prayers were answered with a loud NO and I was handed the keys to a 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback. UGH. It can’t possibly be as bad as people say right?
NOPE! It was misery on 14 in wheels.
A few key features:
1) An industrial sounding 3 cylinder that doesn’t even break the 80hp barrier. It had lifter tick on start up, which is impressive for a car with less than 40k miles at the time.
2) Droning CVT. It was loud and sounded like it wanted to un-alive itself and I was more than happy to help it along.
3) Hard. Plastics. Everywhere.
4) AC that couldn’t keep me cool in AZ summer
5) Pretty abysmal MPG’s
6) At least the Carplay worked?
I have normally had great luck at rental counters. I have had at least 4 F-150’s (including a King Ranch(!!!)). It appears that my luck ran out. I could not be more excited for the demise of the Mirage.
…And because I am a nerd, here are all of the rental cars I’ve had:
2014 Mazda3
2015 Ford F-150 XLT
2018 Honda Accord
2019 Nissan Rogue
2019 Ford F-150 King Ranch
2019 Ford Fusion Hybrid
2019 Kia Optima
2020 Ford F-150 XLT 2.7
2020 Ford F-150 XLT 5.0
2020 Mini Countryman
2024 Hyundai Venue
2024 Mitsubishi Mirage
2024 Ford Edge
2024 Chevy Malibu
That is nerdy. Let me see if I can remember mine
multiple Chevrolet Cruzes between 2011 and 20132012 Nissan Cube2012 GMC Acadia SLE2012 Toyota Camry2014 Chrysler 200 V62014 Chevrolet Silverado LT 4WD2014 Mazda CX-52016 Cadillac Escalade Luxury 4WD2016 Dodge Journey 2.4 SXT2016 Kia Sorento LX2016 Jeep Cherokee Limited2017 Lincoln MKX2018 Chevrolet Malibu LT2018 Ford Fusion Hybrid SEL2018/19 Chevrolet Traverse LT2019 Chevrolet Malibu LT2019 Chrysler Pacifica Touring2019 BMW 750d xDrive (in Germany)2019 Chrysler 300 S2019 Toyota Sienna SE2020 GMC Yukon XL2020 Toyota Camry LE2022 Subaru Outback Limited2023 Ford F-150 Sport 5.02023 Ford Expedition XLT2023 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range RWD2023 Chevrolet Equinox LT2023 Ford F-150 Sport 5.02023 Chrysler 300 S2017 Porsche 911 Carrera 42024 Ford Escape ST-Line 3-cylinder2024 Hyundai IONIQ 5 Limited AWD2025 Toyota Camry2024 Nissan Rogue2024 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport SE w/Tech Package
Oh, forgot about
Oooh fun…
2005 Hyundai Getz 3 door 1.3 manual
2004 Ford Fiesta Manual
2005 Ford Mondeo Auto (I actually owned a manual one at the time)
2008 Hyundai Getz 5 door 1.6 auto
2004 Ford Fiesta Manual
2013 Hyundai Accent Manual
2013 BMW 320i
2015 Mitsubishi ASX
2009 Daihatsu Sirion manual
2009 Daihatsu Sirion auto
2016 Toyota Corolla auto
2015 Toyota Hiace
2018 Toyota RAV4
2018 BMW X5 30d (loved it so much that I vowed to buy one – pulled the trigger on a 40d last year)
2018 Toyota Corolla
2018 Toyota Corolla
2022 Toyota Camry hybrid
2022 Toyota Camry hybrid
2016 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter mini-bus
I had a rental Ford Focus in Cologne, Germany.
I swear the looked at my paperwork and said “ah, he’s not German” and gave me the biggest POS in the fleet. I suspect the TÃœV would have rejected it for all the reasons.
It was self-limiting to 120km/h else it would shake, the brakes had a shudder to them, and steering didn’t have any sense of stability.
A mixed blessing as there were countless speed cameras on that trip due to construction, and it kept me safe from a ticket – but it just made me sad that I was given such a garbage car considering so close to the Nurburgring and my prior rental in Frankfurt on the same trip was a very clean Diesel Mercedes C-klasse.
This seems planned. The rental place senses you’re going to take one of their cars to the ‘Ring and flog the hell out of it so, here’s one that everyone else has already beat to shit there.
Ironically, the worst rental I’ve had was also a Mitsubishi Mirage when I traveled to Cleveland.
My company’s policy for travel is that you must charge the Economy size when renting a car. Usually, the rental agency has nothing in that category so I get upgraded to a Compact or Mid-Size. For other trips in the last year, I’ve gotten to try out: Kia Soul, Nissan Maxima, Toyota Corolla, and Mitsubishi Outlander. For the trip to Cleveland, the agency (Enterprise) had exactly one economy car on the lot. As a result, my coworker and I got to squeeze into a silver (not even an exciting color) 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage to use for a week.
About 75HP and a CVT were not too fun in January in Cleveland, where there was snow and slippery roads. It was nice that it only cost $20 to fill at the end of the week.
+1 on this one. Worst car I’ve ever rented.
I went to college in Cleveland… your experience seems typical.
Pizza cutters for wheels, though.
We went to Montana a few years back at the height of rental car unavailability. I got stuck with a Dodge Journey that was every bit the pile of crap you would expect it to be. Might have been tolerable somewhere else but in the mountains, it struggled to maintain 50mph going uphill while powerhouses like Crosstreks and Corollas blew past me.
4cyl geo metro which could barely keep up with traffic at full throttle. You could hit handling limits turning left from a stop. Really wanted a stick 3cyl to see if it was better, it couldn’t be worse.
Later got a rental versa. Which made the Toyota yaris rental feal like the peak of luxury. Like if the versa was free, I’d spend money to buy the yaris instead.
The Yaris. It’s a car.
I’ve mentioned the Chevy Malibu with the lumbar support that stuck out a mile and wrecked my back that I had to drive for 3 weeks while out of town on a work trip.
Other than that, the worse was a Nissan Versa. Small, gutless, made worse by driving around 4 guys the entire time.
2024 Toyota RAV4 with a whole 4200 miles on the odometer. No knee room because the center console is wider than my Suburban’s, tin can doors, gun slit windows, mystery rattle in the headliner right behind my left ear, and an engine of unpleasantly loud volume and unpleasantly lawn mower-like timber.
You too, huh?
Opel Combo 1995, a sort of van based on a opel corsa B even worse to drive a corsa B
A second gen MINI Countryman Cooper FWD Automatic. What a miserable little turd.
Work trip early January a couple years ago, in an area that was actively getting snow accumulation, got a RWD V6 Charger with ~65k miles, 3 different brands of tires, all four of which were a hair away from showing cords, and an engine issue that made it sound supercharged when on throttle. It was N/A, but something was so close to death it whined like the Hellcat that car wanted to be. Genuinely shocked we made it.
Huh. I rented a car in Kamloops BC in Jan 2018. They gave me a new Sonata with 4 fresh snow tires on it. I was driving roughly 200km a day and never had an issue. Then, the morning I had to fly back to the States and return it, 6″ fresh powder overnight – and no snow brush!
Seems like a lot of miles for a rental. Was it Truro? I have gotten 4 cylinder mustangs and the 6 pot charger a few times. they are at least more roomy and handle ok compared to the more often received crossovers.
Nope, Enterprise surprisingly. It was Jan 2023 If I’m remembering correctly, so still in the throes of car shortages not being fully resolved. It may not have been quite 65k miles either, I’m a bit hazy on the details, but it was certainly north of 50k, and had body damage and wear of at least triple that. It didn’t drive great either, but I blame that largely on bald all seasons in the dead of winter, and the fact that there was so much wear everywhere that it had likely been over hundreds of bumps at terminal velocity. It being a work trip meant it was the only rental place around I could deal with, and we were in enough of a rush we just said screw it and accepted it. Another rental from the same location 6 months later was a nearly new base K5, and that was a much more pleasant experience.
I cannot recall the model but it was a Chevrolet sedan rental around 2000ish with a stuck gas gauge. Read around 1/2 tank until it suddenly dropped to EMPTY and the warning light came on. Continued about a 100 yards and died. In very rural Minnesota. Fun day.
A 2015 or 2016 Hyundai Elantra. The entire car, inside and out, was depressing shade of grey. It was not very good to drive. But what I remember most of all is the hard plastic armrests on the doors. I can’t even remember another car I’ve driven that didn’t have padding there. I’ve only had a handful of rentals, but I enjoyed the Chevy Sonic I had for a month much more than that Hyundai. And I’ve certainly driven much worse cars than the Elantra as well, but it’s the worst rental I’ve had.
I got a 1st gen Kia Picanto as a rental car in Morocco in 2008. It was definitely a car.
I was on the edge of the Sahara, and the wind was brutal, blowing sand. The road was like 1.5 lanes wide, so it was a game of chicken with oncoming traffic as to who would pull off the road. I lost every time.
Now is where I complain that we can’t post pictures, because I got some awesome ones of that little shitbox.
HHR. I gave the keys back and went elsewhere.
I can second that. I got one, realized I could not see out of it at all in any direction and promptly updated my rental profile to state “Anything BUT the HHR”.
Multiple choice:
Ughh – Tampa may be the worst place in the world to rent a car.
I refuse to rent one there that is not in/at the airport. I got to the rental counter at 10 pm last month and it was not horrid. Need to have google maps up and running BEFORE you get to the car as cell signal is kind of not a thing in the ramp. I will do it again next month. Argh.
It seems I’m always waiting, sometimes hours, for a car at Orlando or Tampa WITH a reservation.
Only worse time was Houston (IAH) last year where they had no cars left to rent. At least UBER was on the company dime.
I ran into that at IAH, they were getting cars from the other airport. I get an just returned q60 at a good rate. The wouldn’t give me one from the exotic section 🙂
At 1 am after multiple flight issues I just wanted to rest. We circled IAH for 40 minutes waiting for a gate to open….
Last year, I rented a car in New Orleans. When I got to the counter, Avis only had EV’s. Now, the round trip from New Orleans to Mobile is right at the very limit of the hypothetical range for most EV’s, and there probably aren’t that many charging stations in that region.
I ended up waiting almost an hour for them to get any non-EV car
So sorry that sucks
200X Chevy “Classic” which was their way of saying “Nobody except Enterprise wants the Malibu anymore so we give up and here’s your car.”
It’s not objectively the worst car I’ve ever drive, but it’s the worst car I’ve ever paid money to drive, especially those beginning with a year starting with “2”
First-generation Hyundai Accent for a rental that required several hours of highway driving. It wasn’t great.
A Toyota Corolla. Why? It ruined my old Ford pickup for me. Good ride, comfortable, easy to park. Evil thing ruined my ego. I was a pickup man! Now I like small practical sedans!
I had one of those over Christmas. White CVT basic model. it was very boring to drive, and definitely a step down from the car it replaced, but it also did not have to be left because a wheel nearly fell off. SO I guess it is how you look at it. It was all sorts of Meh, but also did the job….joylessly.
My worst one is from this past november, when our Jeep was rearended. Enterprise gave us a Versa as a rental- because thats equivalent according to them. The versa had 45k, bald tires, and smelled like a herd of subarbros had been vaping inside. We fought them to return it, which they charged us MORE for a malibu with also bald tires, one of which needed a top up every other day. This was at a small location from the insurance company, so they got the cast offs from the airport.
Runner up is from my honeymoon- a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Reserved a small SUV. Was given a Mercedes A-class sedan. Had to tell the person that no, thats not an upgrade when we have a 2 week trip through the southwest and will be going down unimproved roads to some National Monuments. Their solution-since it was a one way drive- was to give us an accident victim GC. One headlight was pointed down about 8ft in front of the car and the bumper kept popping out.
Yep, had a miserable Sentra as a body shop rental in 2011/12? The droning CVT made me want to punch out my eardrums. Getting our Corolla back was a godsend.
I’m not going to say forced, exactly, because it was sort of my choice, but I once tried to save money by renting a car from a used car lot that had a rental business on the side. It was a late ’90s Malibu with a slipping transmission and a broken down drivers seat that had the metal seat frame poking up out of the cushion. That probably wouldn’t have been a great rental when it was new, but in that condition it was terrible
But, through conventional rental places, I don’t know, maybe an Avenger or an Equinox
Weirdly, I’ve had 200s and Pacificas I actually kind of liked, maybe not enough to buy one, but they made decent impressions
The worst? Honestly a 2008/9 Impala from Enterprise we had on vacation in Florida when the daughter was a toddler. It felt like there was something broken in the front end, it wandered like a drunk all over the highway. We rented in Orlando but made a miserable (driving) trip to Tampa to visit my grandmother for a day or two. The visit was pleasant and she met her great-granddaughter for the first time, but the car drove and rode like shit.
I’ve had plenty of other rentals I’ve disliked, but only that one felt out to kill me.
No car is a bad car when it’s “The Fastest Car In The World”