jontyrees
Member
Well, I guess that's stating the obvious, since they are very different in size and tgt mkt. But since nobody else I know would be remotely interested in hearing me ***** about it, I thought I'd share my findings with the SHO crowd.
I just got back from 2wks vacation in England, with my wife and 2 teenage sons. we always rent a car for the trip, and I look forward to seeing what kind of family sedans they're driving in Europe each year. Vauxhall (Opel) Insignia was nice - Buick Regal over here. Ford Mondeo was nice - not as stylish, but very effective and drove well. Even had a Golf one year when the rental place was out of larger cars - that was nice too. All these are diesels, btw, all manual gearbox. This year I thought we'd hit the jackpot when I got handed the keys to a brand new 320d BMW, M-Sport package. I was wrong. By FAR the most annoying car I've ever driven! The infotainment system was a pain in the ass to deal with, and the sound was pretty lousy, but that's been well documented elsewhere. Add on to this that it was just difficult to get in and out of, (I'm a relatively athletic 52 yr old, 5'9" 170lbs, so that usually isn't an issue), and i could NEVER find a good relationship between the seat, the pedals and the steering wheel. There was nowhere near enough room for my HUGE size 9 feet - kept kicking the bottom of the console, snagging on stuff. Plus the trunk wouldn't even hold the two large suitcases we had, so we had to wedge one of them into the back seat. Once underway, it drove well, but it was tricky to launch smoothly from a stop, and I stalled it several times - even my wife remarked that she'd never known me to stall a car so often. I'm sure there were other niggles, but basically it just annoyed me for 2 weeks straight. How do these things get such a great reputation? It was soooo nice to get back to my SHO!
I just got back from 2wks vacation in England, with my wife and 2 teenage sons. we always rent a car for the trip, and I look forward to seeing what kind of family sedans they're driving in Europe each year. Vauxhall (Opel) Insignia was nice - Buick Regal over here. Ford Mondeo was nice - not as stylish, but very effective and drove well. Even had a Golf one year when the rental place was out of larger cars - that was nice too. All these are diesels, btw, all manual gearbox. This year I thought we'd hit the jackpot when I got handed the keys to a brand new 320d BMW, M-Sport package. I was wrong. By FAR the most annoying car I've ever driven! The infotainment system was a pain in the ass to deal with, and the sound was pretty lousy, but that's been well documented elsewhere. Add on to this that it was just difficult to get in and out of, (I'm a relatively athletic 52 yr old, 5'9" 170lbs, so that usually isn't an issue), and i could NEVER find a good relationship between the seat, the pedals and the steering wheel. There was nowhere near enough room for my HUGE size 9 feet - kept kicking the bottom of the console, snagging on stuff. Plus the trunk wouldn't even hold the two large suitcases we had, so we had to wedge one of them into the back seat. Once underway, it drove well, but it was tricky to launch smoothly from a stop, and I stalled it several times - even my wife remarked that she'd never known me to stall a car so often. I'm sure there were other niggles, but basically it just annoyed me for 2 weeks straight. How do these things get such a great reputation? It was soooo nice to get back to my SHO!
