I pit the Chevy Captiva

I wanted to rent an SUV, and instead of a real SUV they gave me one of those “crossovers” instead.

Normally you press on a map light to turn it on. This had switches above the lights, with Onstar switches below the lights. Guess which button my sister pushed trying to turn the light on in the dark.

The vehicle seem to be ackward, the size of an SUV without the capabilities. I’m not sure I’d want to drive it in the snow like my personal vehicle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It seems like a minivan for people embarrased to be seen driving a minivan.

Instead of an “OD off” button or a 4-3-2-1 shifter there was a (+/-) toggle switch and an “M” position. I had to read the manual to figure out how to downshift so I woudn’t burn out the brakes driving over the Smoky Mountains.

Apparenty it’s too much trouble to turn on your lights when it’s dark, this had an automatic light control that I had to constantly overide when I wanted my headlights on during the day (I suppose I should have checked to see if it had DRLs), and off when I was idling while looking at a map.

Thanks to fuel efficiency requirements, we can probably expect more stupid vehicles like this.

I know about RTFM, and if you buy it you should, but as long as car controls have been around I shouldn’t have to in order to figure out the basics every time I rent a car.

The Chevy Captiva, as it exists in North America, is a rebadged Saturn Vue, which was a rebadged Opel Antera. GM started building the Vue in 2007 in one of their Mexican plants, shortly before killing Saturn altogether. Rather than shut down a perfectly good factory, they continued to build cars. Since Saturn didn’t exist, though, they needed to put a Chevy badge on it and stole the Captiva name from their global portfolio. The Captiva is sold only to rental fleets.

In other words, you’re ranting about a 2008 model vehicle that’s been rebadged twice and has probably been cost-cut to high heaven because it’s not ever going to show up in a new car showroom.

Not that your complaints aren’t valid but, you know… perspective.

. . .and then I stepped on the ping pong ball!

You let them give you a vehicle called a “Captiva” and you’re surprised it sucked?

I had never heard of the Captiva before this thread (and thanks to steronz, I know now why), but I have to say that’s one of the worst names for a vehicle I’ve ever heard. What’s next, the Autoschwitz?

Nah, worse would be the Captcha. Guess what you have to do just to get the door open? :smiley:

Really, the OP is complaining about automatic lights? What’s it been, 20 years since those were introduced? When you say you had to “override them” when it was light outside, is that the same as turning them on?

Yeah, I get the impression he drives a 20-year-old stick and is happy about it, dammit.

I kind of sympathize, though; just last night I traded in my 1999 Rodeo SUV for a 2013 hatchback, and about the only thing that’s similar is where the gas and brake pedals are located.

However, the layout is still quite intuitive, the headlight dial has a few clear settings on it, and changing the 3-2-1 part of the auto shifter to M +/- is a good call, at least IMO. I’ve driven that Rodeo for over 7 years and not once have ever needed to downshift. Minimizing the controls while still keeping them accessible for those rare times they’re needed is a good step.

I also had problems when I rented an Outback for my last trip; I got in it and started driving, then got utterly confused and out of sorts when my normal driving routine couldn’t be completed because the features were different. I eventually had to stop in a parking lot, take a breath, then play with the car’s controls until I got things sorted out.

Taking 10 minutes to explore an unfamiliar car and examine its features before driving off with it pays huge dividends.

The Hyundai Hostage!

Chevy Crustacean
Ford Freebaser
Hell, let’s just cut right to the chase;

Dodge Disaster

I don’t drive a stick, but yes, I like “old fashioned” controls.

I finally read the manual to figure out the shifter, and it said “the vehicle will not allow a gear to be selected that could damage the engine”

Ok given the number of people that can’t read a tach (but why bother to include a tach then?) and 99.999% of driving. But what if you’re going down a mountain and your brakes have failed and you’d rather redline the engine instead of going off a cliff? Similar as the incidents with people being unable to stop with a stuck accellerator with the new keyless igntitions.

They don’t consider redlining to be damaging to the engine. All they mean by that is that the computer won’t let you downshift to a gear if doing so would cause the engine to spin above the redline. So if you try to drop it into first when you’re doing 70, don’t worry; the computer’s got you covered. It should let you go into 3rd just fine though, if not 2nd, depending on the gearing.

If you would LIKE to spin the engine at 13,000 rpms in order to avoid going off a cliff, you very well may be SOL, but I don’t think that’s exactly a new feature. I’ve never tried to go into D2 on any of my more conventional automatics when doing 90mph, but I don’t think they would let me.

The Saab Stockholm Syndrome -
“After a year in our car, we think you’ll agree it’s the best ever!”

The Gulag Archipelauto!

I don’t think fuel efficiency requirements are to blame for the vehicles we’re seeing. To me, that seems to be the one good thing the industry is doing (and they’re not even taking that very seriously!).

If you want a good laugh, compare the Captiva mileage with the Equinox.
Did they just install 5 spark plugs in the Captiva, or 500Kg of lead?

I travel frequently for work, and every time I travel I masochistically subject myself to sampling a new unknown model to drive. Adventure is fun :). Without fail, american cars, and Chevy in particular, have puked out the most ridiculous twisted chimeric mutants of nonsensical designs and controls I’ve ever experienced. Even mainstream models, like Chargers, Mustangs, and the like, look like they were designed by 13 year-old boys carving into their school desks in between doodles of Trogdor and large-breasted stick figures.

The last arcane model I drove, of which I’ve blacked out memory of the name of in my suffering, had some sort of super-smart-remote-keyfob with two buttons each sporting an indecipherable icon. A literal interpretation of these icons would lead you to believe that the keyfob buttons would perform the respective functions of “demonstrate the yo-yo around the world trick” and “remove cow from thresher blades.”

The action somehow varied based on number and duration of presses, walk-around proximity to various parts of the car, and sunspot cycle. Many times I had to shamefacedly shrug at passersby trying to get the trunk open while beepers, alarms, flashers, wipers and the like were chaotically turning on and off. Several days later I found the interior latch release button on the console under the instructional icon “Lindy Hop with an ice cream cone”.

Dear Sir or Ma’am,
May I please have your contact information, as I will be renting a car next week, and I am fairly sure that I will need help interpreting the icons on my rental car.

Thank you for filling the end of my day with smothered chuckles as I try to hide them from my co-workers.

Meanwhile, the Nissan Versa I had the displeasure of renting while I was in Nashville was the most miserable, cheapest piece of shit I’ve yet encountered. And I drive a Neon and have rented a Caliber.

Think about that for a second. The Dodge Caliber- the poster child for the dysfunction of nickel-and-DaimlerChrysler- had better interior materials and performance than the Versa.

At least they look like something. Enjoy your refrigerator… er, I mean Camcord.

Hey, he did inadvertently come up with the best damn car commercial ever: Trogdor and a huge-boobed chick in a car, burninating the countryside as they drive by.
And really, guys, you can’t judge any car model from a rental. Most of them are gonna be extremely stripped down and a hell of a lot of people beat the shit out of them (because they can, because they’re assholes, because it’s not theirs, because they drive their own damn car just as badly). Sure, the versions you can buy at a dealership may also suck, but a rental isn’t a good way to determine that.