Right now, I'm driving a 2013 Impala LTZ from National. Even though the car is from National, it is out of the Missouri Enterprise fleet, through Elco Chevrolet on Manchester Road in St. Louis.
It has been in service since a few days after Thanksgiving of 2012, and the odometer reads 7800 miles.
It is hard loaded... power sunroof, Bose sound system, heated leather seats, 18" wheels, and on and on. MSRP is over $32000.
However, it is difficult to overlook that this car is still based upon a model that has been in production for nearly 15 years.
Chevrolet is likely heavily discounting these last year models to the rental fleets, which is fairly obvious considering that Enterprise would put one hard loaded like this into the daily rental fleet.
The ride is nice, however, it gets choppy as soon as the 18" tires find broken pavement, then there is a a chop in the ride and a boom through the cabin. I blame the tire/wheel package for this. Something less than a 50 series (Goodyear RS-A) tire would likely behave much better.
Handling at interstate speeds is neutral, maybe a little twitchy with cross winds. Cornering is spot on, especially for a car of this size, even when one is going a little too fast.
The Bose sound system is everything that I expected. Wow. It is Cadillac quality.
The bucket seats leave a lot to be desired. Very little support, and they are hard. They feel like an old time bench seat. I suspect that this is due to this car being a staple in the law enforcement fleets. The seats need to be wide and relatively flat for officers who are wearing gun belts.
The 3.6 liter VVT engine is fun to drive, but the transmission is unpredictable. Sometimes, the transmission is spot on, and the car is a rocket. Other times, the transmission stumbles around and acts confused. Is this from rental service? I don't know. But if I owned this particular car, it would be going in to the dealer for that to be checked out *tomorrow*. Could be just a programming issue.
It has already seen one oil change, it has a Microgard oil filter on it now.
Rear visibility is horrid (as when backing up or changing lanes), but is no worse than a Taurus. I could see out of my folks' old Park Avenue MUCH easier, and it was a larger car. I don't care for the mirrors on the doors either. They need to be a little bit larger for my liking.
The interior is a mish-mash of all sorts of plastics, in all different styles, shapes, and textures. The car really shows its age with the interior. Fortunately, GM is doing much better with its interiors in its new models.
It is too bad that GM couldn't get the 2014 replacement into production a few years sooner.
All in all, I can't complain a whole lot, as I'm paying $15.78 a day to drive this.
It has been in service since a few days after Thanksgiving of 2012, and the odometer reads 7800 miles.
It is hard loaded... power sunroof, Bose sound system, heated leather seats, 18" wheels, and on and on. MSRP is over $32000.
However, it is difficult to overlook that this car is still based upon a model that has been in production for nearly 15 years.
Chevrolet is likely heavily discounting these last year models to the rental fleets, which is fairly obvious considering that Enterprise would put one hard loaded like this into the daily rental fleet.
The ride is nice, however, it gets choppy as soon as the 18" tires find broken pavement, then there is a a chop in the ride and a boom through the cabin. I blame the tire/wheel package for this. Something less than a 50 series (Goodyear RS-A) tire would likely behave much better.
Handling at interstate speeds is neutral, maybe a little twitchy with cross winds. Cornering is spot on, especially for a car of this size, even when one is going a little too fast.
The Bose sound system is everything that I expected. Wow. It is Cadillac quality.
The bucket seats leave a lot to be desired. Very little support, and they are hard. They feel like an old time bench seat. I suspect that this is due to this car being a staple in the law enforcement fleets. The seats need to be wide and relatively flat for officers who are wearing gun belts.
The 3.6 liter VVT engine is fun to drive, but the transmission is unpredictable. Sometimes, the transmission is spot on, and the car is a rocket. Other times, the transmission stumbles around and acts confused. Is this from rental service? I don't know. But if I owned this particular car, it would be going in to the dealer for that to be checked out *tomorrow*. Could be just a programming issue.
It has already seen one oil change, it has a Microgard oil filter on it now.
Rear visibility is horrid (as when backing up or changing lanes), but is no worse than a Taurus. I could see out of my folks' old Park Avenue MUCH easier, and it was a larger car. I don't care for the mirrors on the doors either. They need to be a little bit larger for my liking.
The interior is a mish-mash of all sorts of plastics, in all different styles, shapes, and textures. The car really shows its age with the interior. Fortunately, GM is doing much better with its interiors in its new models.
It is too bad that GM couldn't get the 2014 replacement into production a few years sooner.
All in all, I can't complain a whole lot, as I'm paying $15.78 a day to drive this.