Being in-between cars for the last couple of years, I have hired many compact and intermediate SUVs for business travels. They’ve all had their strengths, weaknesses, and foibles, but all have been great in their own way. This good fortune couldn’t last forever though, and just before I receive my new car for the next three years, my luck ran out. What an awful car.
It started at the car hire dealership when I was forced to admit defeat, and seek assistance to connect my phone to the car using CarPlay. The young gent came back out to the car with me cheerily; confident in his ability to fix it. Indeed, I shared in his confidence. The car beat him too, and so he trudged back into the office in defeat to seek further assistance. Upon his return, he passed on his newly acquired knowledge that CarPlay (and indeed the Android equivalent) only works through a wired connection with this vehicle. First world problems, I know…but I hated it already. Wired connection? On a brand new car?! Ok this isn’t the frictionless method I’m so accustomed to, but let’s deal with it and move on.
“Where is the connection?”
“Just below the dash, there.”
“The USB-A socket? The one that new devices haven’t used for the last 3 years or more.”
“Yeeaaaahhhh…did you book a car with a USB-C connection?”
“No, just a car from this century. I don’t even have a USB-A lead anymore.” I probably do somewhere in the darkest depths of the man-drawer. “Is that shelf below the socket a charging shelf?”
“No, the charging shelf is under the arm rest.”
“Seriously? So I strap the phone under that piece of velcro to hold the phone at forty-five degrees there, and trail a cable I don’t have across the gears control to the dashboard?”
“Yeah…although the cable should charge it as well as connect it.
“The cable I don’t have – that one?”
“Yeah…”
“Do you have another car I could use instead?”
I know, I know, I know. But I wasn’t happy, and had visions of having to use a TomTom. I mean, can you imagine the shame?!
“No, sorry – this is all we have.”
“Well it won’t do, sorry.” I’m not proud of myself I hasten to admit.
“Let me see if one of my colleagues has a cable.”
Back in the office we went, with much muttering from me. They did have a cable, so I did drive the car. Eventually. After discovering the limitations of the seat adjustments, and the inability to place your right elbow anywhere remotely resembling comfort. I hate this car.
The drive home to pick up my luggage was accompanied by the incessant bleeps of the car’s overspeed warnings. I wasn’t, by the way. On a 40mph hour road I know like the back of my hand, the car insisted it was a 30mph hour zone (unlike Apple Maps which it seems to distrust entirely). I wonder if that is why every car I have the misfortune to be behind on a Sunday never goes beyond 30mph…?
“I hate that car” I declared as I walked through our front door.
The previous renter had generously left it with nearly a quarter of a tank of fuel, so I filled it up before I hit the main roads. Wow, almost 310-miles’ range. I hate that car.
Thankfully the journey was uneventful, and I arrived safely at the hotel. The evil genius inside of me had conjured up a devious plan to mitigate the severe shortage of car parking spaces at the venue we were delivering the course at. There are two electric car charging points there, and as this is a plug-in hybrid, I would drive us both and use the EV charging point as a sort of VIP parking slot – right near the front doors. Maybe this car could have at least one redeeming quality – especially in the forecasted rain!
Nope. It turns out these EV bays are for employees only, and so I was sent out to disconnect the leads and find a car parking spot elsewhere. In the rain. As I was coiling the lead up and placing back in the boot, I discovered a neat feature of this car. If you wave a leg near the rear bumper it will open/close the boot as applicable. It detected my leg, and the boot started to close on my head. Thankfully it stopped after only a minor impact, and retreated to its fully open position. I hate that car.
Then I discovered another feature. There’s a lock button which will prevent the closing of the boot. Right. Try again. Once the cable was re-stowed I depressed the lock button, and pressed the red ‘close’ button. Nothing. Lock and unlock, and close button sequence again. Nothing. It was raining quite heavily by this point, so I went all retro and tried to close the boot with my hand. And then the car alarm went off. I hate that car.
The best thing about a Vauxhall Grandland? Handing the keys back to the car hire dealership. Have I mentioned that I hate that car?
Other than an hour and a half delay in getting into the venue on the first day of the course (we had missed the third booking system we needed to use it would seem), and a cannula leaking on my head from my annual CT scan on Monday…quite an uneventful week. I do hate that car.
