PT Cruiser Review: American Mediocrity at its finest

Mediocrity - that just about sums up what Chrysler has delivered to the world in its PT Cruiser. I've been driving a rental PT Cruiser for about 3 days now and although i can't find much in the ways of negative things to say about it, i also can't find much in the ways of positive things to say about it. it's just... there. kind of like a big flashy Dodge Neon.

(sorry for the stock photo - the light hasn't been the greatest for photos)

upon first glance, it's kind of neat looking. and almost looks big. when you sit in it for the first time, you'll notice that you're much more upright than in a car, but perhaps not as much as a mini-van and there's no climb like in an SUV. perhaps as a result of having not driven many north american cars, i found almost all of the controls to be counter-intuitive: the controls for the windshield wipers required twisting instead of up/down motion, the power window controls are in the upper-middle area of the dashboard.

the trunk area is also surprisingly small for a vehicle that appears to be so large, but if my memory suits correctly the entire thing is in fact built on a Neon frame, which would put this into the compact or sub-compact size range.

when you step on the gas pedal, it accelerates well. certainly nothing special, but the 150 hp 2.4 liter engine is definitely more powerful than my Toyota Yaris. it does not absorb the bumps and cracks of the road as much as i'd hoped for from a $25,000 automobile - i'd actually say that my significantly-less-expensive sub compact Toyota actually does a better job in that respect. although i haven't actually purchased gas yet, i can tell by the gas guage that it's not even remotely close to as fuel efficient as the automobiles i'm used to.

good news: there is plenty of head room in the vehicle and loads of leg room. being 6'2" tall, i can certainly appreciate this. my Yaris is just barely large enough for someone my size, but i have no issues in the PT Cruiser with that respect. HOWEVER, as Martini points out in his review of the HHR (GM's similarly styled offering), there are various visibility issues to the point where it could almost be a safety concern. for me, seeing things like stop lights required me to crouch down and forward to be able to see them as the PT Cruiser's roof seems to slope forward into the field of view; the passenger-side visor almost entirely blocked the right side of the windshield when it was down; the rear-view mirror does not offer a full view of the rear window and there are large and noticeable blind spots. i find myself looking over my shoulder and crouching to look around continuously while driving this thing.

all that said, it's a nice looking automobile in my opinion. the retro, fluid style to it is very appealing to me, but i think that the less expensive and more fuel-efficient HHR would appeal to me more - even with its visibility issues. in an automotive world dominated by either power or efficiency, Chrysler's PT Cruiser offers neither. just a nifty looking small car.

in which i start knitting and rent a car... or van... or something?

i got my yarn order in for my sweater yesterday.  i know, it took a while - but it's literally going to be the softest and most comfortable sweater in the history of human kind - made entirely from Misti Alpaca yarn that i got from Knit-o-matic.

 

on top of being the softest and most comfortable sweater on the face of the earth, it may rank as one of the heaviest since it's going to have like 10-12 balls of yarn in it.  i *think* that means it will end up being around 2 1/2 lbs by the time i'm done with it.

 

totally off topic, if you have a love for death metal like i do, and a love for Arnold Schwarzenegger movies like i do you'll have to check out Austrian Death Machine.  Death Metal + Arnie = Total Brutal.  'nuff said.

 

and while the Yaris is in the shop getting it's bum(per) fixed, i've got a PT Cruiser as a rental.  my review of the mediocrity of america will follow in the next couple of days.

bamboo wednesday! part 21! and a Pontiac Grand Prix review!

although i do have a picture from what should have been last week's bamboo wednesday post, i uploaded it to my laptop rather than my work PC, which is where it's waiting right now.


i've been on holidays for the better part of the last week. thanks to Dalton McGuinty, many ontario residents got to have a holiday on monday, so i extended that holiday all the way to wednesday the week before. why not eh?

i rented a car to go on a road trip this past weekend, and inspired by Martini's review of his Acura CSX loaner, here's my review of the Pontiac Grand Prix that i rented.

to start off, the car was much larger than anything i've driven in recent years. and although a larger car does not necessarily make a more comfortable car, it certainly seemed to help in the case of the Grand Prix.

it took me a few minutes to figure out how to adjust the seat settings. the driver's seat is all automatic and mechanical, a luxury that i am most definitely not used to. other interesting luxury features were the inclusion of steering wheel mounted audio controls, cruise control, headlights that would automatically turn on based on how light or dark it is outside and a stereo whose volume automatically adjusts based on how fast the car is driving.

and fast i drove. the 200 hp 3.8 liter v6 engine made for some quick and responsive acceleration. hopping from 110 km/h to 150 km/h to pass old ladies on the highway was no problem at all.

although the volume and sound quality from the 6 speaker CD stereo were quite admirable, i was disappointed by the fact that an MP3 CD player or auxiliary audio jack (for my iPod) were not included).

fuel consumption was mediocre at best though. although i didn't track the exact amount of mileage, i would estimate that i drove in the area of about 750 km and spent $67 in gas at $1.05 per liter, a guestimate of about 11-12 liters per 100 km. with a Toyota Yaris as my regular car, i think i'm a little spoiled since even on the worst of days it barely breaks past 7.5 liters per 100 km (with the air conditioner running). from what i've been told, my gas consumption compared to other similarly sized cars is on par.

my main complaint other than the stereo was that actually entering the car seemed a little cramped. once you were sitting in the car, there was ample space, but it seemed that actually getting into the car could present an issue to someone with back or knee problems. all in all, it was a fun car to drive, give one a try.

more details to follow on what actually happened on my holiday later.

i saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes

today i made a startling discovery: if you clean out your car regularly, it will be easier to find lost items inside of it.

a couple of days ago i lost my house keys, and have had to have some loaned to me by a kind-hearted soul. i did a quick check in the car and on my desk at home - no luck. i figured if they weren't in those two places, the only other place they could be would be on my desk at work.

today i discovered that fact to be untrue. i was completely puzzled. stumped as it were. "where the hell could they be?" i wondered quietly to myself so as to not alert my coworkers to my paranoid schizophrenia.

back to the car i trekked, this time for a more thorough search. under the seats, beyond the gum wrappers and behind the scarf - there they were mixed among the grains of rice.

i can now go home.

overly so

i made a startling realization last night of how dependent on technology i have become and how quickly it happened.

last night when i hit the button on my keyless entry thing (which is ironically on the key) for my Toyota Yaris i noticed something very very odd.

the doors did not unlock.

i pressed the button again. and again. and again. each time i noticed that the "click" of the doors unlocking was not happening.

i stood there puzzled for a moment trying to figure out what to do next. i had my cell phone in my hand and actually debated for a moment calling the Toyota dealership to ask them to fix it for me.

then it occurred to me - if i put the key into the lock, and TURN it, something might happen. miraculously this resolved my temporary dilemma of being outside of the car and needing to get into it but what do i do in the long run?

my first guess after much long and difficult thought was that i should perhaps try changing the battery in my key for keyless entry. stupid technology.

a kitty shouldn't smell like cigarettes, it should smell like a kitty

by the way, if you haven't already seen the Trailer Park Boys movie, you should get your arse to the video store to go watch it. if you're ready for a movie with an abundance of bad language, drinking, drugs and rampant ridiculosity - that's what you'll get. for anyone who's not familiar with the Showcase series, it will give you enough introduction that you could easily start following the show without having to track down key episodes of the series in order to trace any character development. and the great thing is that for anyone who may not have the good fortune to be able to catch the series on television, most of the seasons are available on DVD.

totally off topic, i've been stuck in traffic for much of the last few days. we had a hella snow/freezing rain/ice storm on thursday that retarded the highway drivers, causing me to have a 3+ hour drive home. it did enough damage to the city that friday i could warrant working at home even though the weather was much nicer.

and what the hell is up with the gasoline situation? is it the same in the US with gas prices skyrocketing and supplies being ridiculously low, or is it only us canadians that are getting anally violated at the gas pumps? thank god i bought a Toyota Yaris. i'm lucky enough that even with all of the insane gas prices ($1.02 per litre this morning - that's about $3.30 per gallon for americans) i can get away with just topping up a small amount in the ol' gas tank and still be able to get myself around. it is pretty awful though that 5 out of the 10 gas stations between my home and my office are completely out of gas. most people are pretty much at the point that they just fill up whenever they see a station has gas. hopefully by the time my lease is up on this car, the alternative fuel engines will be much more popular. i'm personally cheering for the hydrogen fuel cells, but i think the hybrid technology's going to win out first.

6, 86, 53, 120, 35

i've determined that i have one complaint about my 2007 Toyota Yaris sedan .  the "random" feature on the cd/mp3 player is HORRIBLE.  i have three CD-RWs that i throw a bunch of music on and will often put the cd in, hit random and hope for the best.  what i've noticed in recent weeks is that on a CD with 140 songs i've been hearing the same songs over and over again when i'm driving so i thought to myself "i'm going to test out the random feature and see what happens."

the test: 
put in a cd, hit random several times to see which songs come up.  put in a second cd, see which songs come up.  re-try the first cd to see the results.  disc one has 135 songs, disc two has 143 songs.

the results: 
i noticed that hitting the random function several times on disc one produced an unfortunately predictable result:  tracks 6, 86, 53, 120, 35, 6, 86, 53, 120, 35... quite the pattern (i will admit that these may not be the exact track numbers as i'm going from memory, but i do remember that i heard the same 5 songs repeated).  disc two yielded a very similar result, but the really startling discovery was upon re-trying disc one i got the EXACT same results as the first attempt two more times in a row.

the conclusion:
there is a calculation that the random button uses to pick songs which is not necessarily random, but based on some sort of mathematical formula calculated against the number of tracks on the CD.

since this was a less-than-scientific method of testing i have determined that i'm going to actually take down the exact track numbers, compare them to the number of tracks on the cd and carry out this test on all three cds.  i will then use this formula to predict the "random" result of a soon-to-be-created disc four.  the conclusion of this experiment will be documented and forwarded to the Toyota corporation in the hopes that it will be either fixed or enhanced so that future generations of the Yaris MP3 CD player will be less predictable and therefore more enjoyable.

and no, it does not mean i'm a dork for conducting experiments on my car's cd player.