We didn't spend much time in this car. We only drove around 27 or 28 miles in it and had to put in about 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of gas. It was weird. Drove from Philadelphia airport to home, gas needle didn't move. I filled it up until the pump clicked. Should have been full. Drove it back to Philadelphia airport to drop it off. And the needle decided to drop. So added more gas and then returned the car. So we'll say overall gas mileage for this trip was disappointing.
Why such a short car rental you might ask? We arrived on our flight back from Israel at ~5 or 6 AM on a Sunday morning. Public transportation back home was going to be a few hours and a cab ride was likely to be around $45 plus tip or you could get a private limo for $65 plus tip or... you could just rent a car and return it the same day for less than $40 and an additional 30-ish minutes of your jet lagged, half asleep time. Which is exactly what my wife and I did. That being said, I was perhaps not as attentive to car deals as I might be.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Extended Test Drive, 2012-2014 Hyundai i-Gen i20
My wife and I took a trip to Israel and we didn't exactly plan every day out. So, to allow a bit more freedom we arranged for a rental car. It didn't cost that much and unlike the USA you can rent a manual transmission! We both love our manual transmissions, so this was a very good thing.
Having done some Wikipedia research this car had at a max 138 hp and 123 lb-ft at the flywheel. This is by no means a fast car. In fact, considering the modern horsepower wars where tons of cars in the USA are breaking 150 bhp, 200 bhp, and many even clock in north of 300 bhp, this is a very slow car by comparison.
Here's the thing though, almost all the cars in Israel are city cars of the low horsepower variety. My Subaru BRZ, a Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Camaro of the four cylinder variety would be in the upper echelons of fast cars in Israel, even more so if you had a V8. But, one, Israel has fuel prices that are similar or in excess of much of Europe and two they have an enormous tax on cars, really close to 100%. My BRZ is a roughly a $60,000 car there. So most people buy cheap cars that can do everything for them. And this means a lot of compacts and subcompacts with small engines, often with 5 doors. Enough on that.
This car is all about momentum driving. Once you've gained any speed do your absolute best to keep it (except on that really twisty road down from the Golan Heights because it does not have the handling dynamics to take it at real speed).
Having done some Wikipedia research this car had at a max 138 hp and 123 lb-ft at the flywheel. This is by no means a fast car. In fact, considering the modern horsepower wars where tons of cars in the USA are breaking 150 bhp, 200 bhp, and many even clock in north of 300 bhp, this is a very slow car by comparison.
Here's the thing though, almost all the cars in Israel are city cars of the low horsepower variety. My Subaru BRZ, a Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Camaro of the four cylinder variety would be in the upper echelons of fast cars in Israel, even more so if you had a V8. But, one, Israel has fuel prices that are similar or in excess of much of Europe and two they have an enormous tax on cars, really close to 100%. My BRZ is a roughly a $60,000 car there. So most people buy cheap cars that can do everything for them. And this means a lot of compacts and subcompacts with small engines, often with 5 doors. Enough on that.
This car is all about momentum driving. Once you've gained any speed do your absolute best to keep it (except on that really twisty road down from the Golan Heights because it does not have the handling dynamics to take it at real speed).
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