as i posted last month, i went to Houston on friday for training on the 6 series.
being next door to Texas, i had the joy of driving to Houston. Baisicaly a straight shot West on I-10 followed by a long jaunt on Beltway 8 to a short drive on I-45. Fortunately my dealer got me a rental car for the trip, which i think i may have actually preferred my van with the exception that the rental didn't top out at 95mph.
So here's the Rent-a-wreck i had for the trip. 2005 Chevy Malibu. Nothing i could have done could have made this thing look good. I started out with 13,531 miles on the clock and stopped about 70 miles out at a Jack in the Box (closest one to town
) and snapped these.
The styling is obviously crap, and it doesn't get a whole lot better from there.
The 2.2L WeakerTec..i mean, EcoTec, 4 cylinder can't seem to get out of it's own way. acceleration is terrible and 1st and 2nd of the 4 spd automatic slush box is obviously geared for a 6 cylinder engine. I'm really not sure where the thing redlines. The tach goes to 7000 rpm but around 5 the thing sounds like it wants to spin the camshaft right out of the head.
The suspension set up is like Jello. It may glide over bumps and deviations in the road suface, but the body roll is atrocious. Just taping the brakes i thought i was going to scrape the front end on the ground because of the dive that is induced and allowe by the supension. the steering is over-assisted and has no road feel whatsoever. It'd be a great car for a little old lady to take to church on sunday or even the grocery store once a week since i could have fit 4 or 5 people in the trunk and still had room for my bag. But for someone who likes to see the speedo above 65 mph, this thing is horrid.
Fuel Economy isn't terrible but i wouldn't say it's great either. the car is just too heavy for the engine.
the best mileage seemed to be around 2500-3000 rpm, which unfortunately for the in town runners is between 75 and 95 mph. The highest i saw was heading into Houston, which topped out at 30.7 mpg. Oddly enough the operation of the A/C system seemingly had no effect on the mileage. Coming back though, i couldn't get anything higher than 27.9 mpg despite being in the same rpm range as the trip into town.
The car is fairly stable until 105 mph where it gets a bit shaky in the front and once you get though 80 mph, be careful passing semi-trucks because the deflected air off the front of them will push you away a bit more violently.
I found out the hard way that these cars obviously don't have standard ABS. After class i was cruising around the adjacent industrial area when one of those surprise stop signs appeared. I jumped on the brakes to stop and was surprised when at 40 mph, i suddenly hear all 4 tires screeching and feel the ass come around my right side to leave me sitting sidways across the 2 lanes of the road. fortunately there was no traffic on the road when it happened so no harm was done. I decided to try it again just for the hell of it, but this time at 60. After checking to make sure the road was clear, i got up to speed, got on the brakes and after 20 feet of skidding, let off and got back under way. I chewed out the rental company for not telling me about the missing feature, to which hey responded by playing dumb
The trip itself wasn't too bad. 547 miles round trip with the soundtrack provided by Rammstein, Cradle of Filth, CKY and Metallica.
After class i met up with RC45 and Sameerao at an indoor go-kart track and spun a few laps with them before grabbing a bite to eat and setting off back home.
On the way to meeting up with them i was passed by a strange looking 3 wheeled UMO (unidentified motorized object) This was the best picture i could snag of it since the flash wasn't reacting well with the windshield and traffic was being a bitch
I did manage to pull up next to him at a light found out what it was. See the links below for details.
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3535/
http://www.go-t-rex.com/specifications.asp?nav=en-us
Since i had no idea where i was going, RC was kind enough to let me tail him back to the freeway. Taking a service road that ran parallel to the road, he opened it up and took off for a few hundred feet. Right after changing gears, i see this little jackrabbit haul ass across the road on a collision course with the left rear tire of the Vette. The little guy hit his brakes and darted towards me before cutting back to where he was going, missing becoming a road waffle by a whisker
Hopefully the next time i go to training i'll have a car that i won't mind taking on a trip like that and i'll be able to get a good high speed run between Beaumont and whatever the next town is on the LA side of the border.
my trip to Houston
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