"Tristan" (casselts)
05/28/2019 at 17:29 • Filed to: None
2
10|
"Tristan" (casselts)
05/28/2019 at 17:29 • Filed to: None | 2
| 10 |
On Sunday night I found myself, my wife and my 2 girls stranded in Denver with my connecting flight to Rapid City cancelled for weather. United was nice enough to NOT reschedule me for another flight, but rather to leave me in Denver to figure it out for myself. It’s only a 6-hour drive from Denver to Rapid with a 5 month old and a 2 year old. How hard can it be? TO HERTZ !
Initially offered a Nissan Somethingorother I replied with my usual rental counter- plea of “Do you have anything else?!” He had a Fusion. “That’ll do.”
The final-gen Fusion is a car I’ve admired since its debut. It’s pleasant to look at. I wanted to like this car so badly, and in typical Ecoboost form, I probably would have enjoyed it. But that Hybrid drive... it’s so bad. So, so bad. The electric motor doesn’t appear to do much of anything and only pulls its weight under the most minimal of loads. The engine booms and shudders to life. The slip-n-slide CVT is as bad as any Nissan CVT I’ve experienced. Then there’s the useless, gimicky menus on the TFT display that allow you to “Collect leaves a you drive!” and proclaim “Thank you for driving a hybrid!” upon shutting it down. This cause me to vomit in my mouth a bit.
The seats were decent, t he NVH was quite tolerable, it held the road fine, the steering was numb, the seats were okay, the UI on the Sony CarPlay system was clunky, the dial-a-gear shifter is stupid and unintuitive- I found myself accidentally putting the car in reverse instead of park more than once, the steering wheel... ugh... are car companies in a contest to see how many tiny buttons they can cram onto a steering wheel? The trunk is itty bitty because the hybrid batteries take up a bunch of room, the gas tank is teeny (why do car companies make you choose between decent economy and a decently-sized fuel tank? 10 mpg? 40 mpg? You’ll stop for gas every 200 miles and you’re gonna LIKE IT!).
I know I complain about my wife’s RAV4 a lot, much to the chagrin of Zoidberg, but this car made me miss the RAV4.
I’ll end my bitching now and step outside to continue yelling at clouds.
I hate new cars.
Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
> Tristan
05/28/2019 at 18:14 |
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Small gas tanks are such a crock. I would gladly sacrifice an MPG or two if I could frequent the pump less often.
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Tristan
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
05/28/2019 at 18:31 |
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I’d love a TDI Jetta with a 50 gallon tank. 2,000 mile range FTW!
WilliamsSW
> Tristan
05/28/2019 at 18:42 |
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Ok bad Ferd but what the FUCK IS WRONG with United???
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Tristan
> WilliamsSW
05/28/2019 at 18:44 |
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I’ve never had a problem with them before, but this didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth... At least I fared better than Dr. David Dao.
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WilliamsSW
> Tristan
05/28/2019 at 18:57 |
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“not getting the shi t kicked out of you then dragged off the plane” is a pretty low bar though.
I used to fly them a lot (and AA) and never had them fail to rebook me. Guessing there are very few flights to Rapid City and they’re all full. Ugh.
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Tristan
> WilliamsSW
05/28/2019 at 19:02 |
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I called to see if I could get a refund for the connecting flight if I chose to drive it instead, assuming they had rebooked me for the following day... “Oh... no... you haven’t been rebooked. And it looks like all three flights are full tomorrow. I don’t know when we could get you out.”
Yeah... At least I di dn’t get the shit kicked out of me and dragged off. Always look on the bright side of life!
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WilliamsSW
> Tristan
05/28/2019 at 21:10 |
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Well I hope the rest of the trip was good after those headaches —
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Tristan
> WilliamsSW
05/29/2019 at 01:43 |
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I love driving and hate flying, so I secretly like that my flight was cancelled and I got to drive. Plus it was good quality family time, and I got to take my wife and kiddos to Carhenge!
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WilliamsSW
> Tristan
05/29/2019 at 10:39 |
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Nice!! Rapid City is 6 hours from Denver? IIRC Alliance Nebraska is about 4 hours- yes I’ve actually done that drive. Carhenge is pretty cool.
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Tristan
> WilliamsSW
05/29/2019 at 16:43 |
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Roughly, but it takes a lot longer with kiddos in tow. This was my second visit to Carhenge- my first was with my dad on our last road trip to retrieve an antique John Deere 13 years ago!