Hire cars

As some of you may have noticed, I'm a bit of a car nut. I like cars, both in terms of driving and designers, although my main taste is older cars. We hire cars pretty regularly as we fly south quite often, usually when my wife has work south and as a result we end up driving all sorts of cars, although they are usually medium to large family cars, focus to mondeo size.

Over the years we've had various cars, from memory the ones I remember are; Seat Ibiza ( older style, not very good), Vauxhall Astra (various mk's, all rubbish) Vauxhall Insignia (petrol's rubbish, diesel is quite good), VW Polo (gutless but comfy), Kia C'eed (alright), Hyundai i30 (newer version, very good on several occasions) Nissan Quasqui (unmemerable, as in I remember we had one but I remember nothing about it!). I'm sure there have been a few others, cutoff the top of my head I can't remember. Both my wife and I have driven various others cars over the years too; Ford Focus ( both types), Toyota Avensis and Auris, VW Fox (cracking little car), Vauxhall Zafira, plus a few others that escape me. There is of course the Rover 25, both MG ZR's Andy current MG ZS to add to the list, but they were all fabulous cars ( ok, so I'm slightly bias).

So whatscthe point in all this? I'm not trying to brag about all the cars I've driven, just saying I've driven a few, so when I say the Vauxhall Mocka and the 2wd Toyota Rav4 are crap cars, you know I'm basing it on having driven lots of cars and not just because there not the same as my car. So;

THE VAUXHALL MOCKA AND 2WD TOYOTA RAV4 ARE CRAP CARS.

Don't worry, I am going to justify my opinion. We'll start with the Rav4, and ill start with the positives, which there are a few.

The forward sidewards vision is great, mostly due to the height of the vehicle and it is a conftable and very spacious car. We managed the 4 of us with all our luggage for 2 weeks with no problems at all. The engine was great to, if I remember rightly it was the diesel version. For these reasons alone I wanted to like the car. However, there were 2 major drawbacks, namely rear vision was not great, I might have gotten use to it in time, but the killer was the ride quality. On a flat straight road it was very comfy, but the moment you hit a bump you'd been better off on a bouncy castle! And ill not go in to the whole driving down county lanes. When a car is bouncing and wallowing down the road, it doesn't inspire any confidence. I don't know how well it would have handled as I never had the confidence to push it. Now, I know its no sports car, but even so, ill not be hoping for another one, which is a shame as it does have a lot going for it. As a simple plod arounfmd town car it would be great, but I'm a driver and its not a drivers car.

However, no matter how bad the Rav4 was, the Mocka was in another league of rubbish! Ill be kind and start with the positives, um...... Well with that done we'll move to the negatives. Ready? Rear vision is rubbish (thank good for parking sensors), wing mirrors are rubbish, cabin space is rubbish for such a big car and boot space is just laughable, you can't fit a fold away child buggy across ways and leave your large cases at home, there's only just room for a couple of small cases if you want to leave the parcel shelf on. The 1.4 turbo engine is possibly the worst engine I've ever had the pleasure of using, its pretty gutless at any speed and has no grunt, we were I first on many occasions when going up the steep country lanes as you had to keep the engine screaming to get any it to move at anything other than a snails pace. Yes I know that turbo engines work better at high revs, but this one had nothing below about 3000rpm and above that it had very little, you had to properly flog it to get it to go. Not really what you want when trying to join a motorway at 70!

Friends of ours bought a Mocka when they first came out, think theirs was a diesel one, anyway they swapped it after less then a year for a BMW X1.

So, the 2wd Rav4 isn't great (I assume the 4wd isn't much different) and the Mocka is just rubbish but what about good cars? Ill leave out the MG's as I'm defiantly bias there, I will however praise two cars, the VW Fox, its just a shame they replaced it with the UP, and the Hyundai i30 which was a very present surprise when we hired it.

We had a VW Fox for several year and we went all over the country and a trip round the Republic of Ireland, all without any dramas. Granted, there was little to shout about with the car, but it did everything we ever asked it to do and never gave a moments trouble. It is the perfect car for any young driver, cheap but with the VW build quality. The Hyundai i30 on the other hand was a surprise. When we first got it we thought it was going to be rubbish, but very quickly we realised that it wasnt, we've had a few over the years and even the 1.4 petrol is a good car, a little gutless on the motorway but not like the Mocka! The 1.6 diesel is an excellent little car, so much so that we very nearly bought one. We didn't in the end as we got given a Toyota Auris by the inlaws, as they were going to get rid of it. I would have brought the Hyundai but a free car is a free car, next time were in the market for a new car though, it'll be an i40 we'll be looking at.