Don't be gentle, it's a rental...

I just picked up this week's ride, a 2017 Dodge Challenger R/T. Hey, it was either that or an Altima.

First impressions: What a weird car! The door handle is the flimsiest, most ill-fitting control I've seen since the 1986 Yugo. Really, just on this one detail Dodge deserves a serious shaming.

It's loud, but it's supposed to be, and the actual sound is great for what it is.

It's got plenty of acceleration, no complaints at all. It feels unsettled at low and moderate speeds on the twisty mountain roads near my home. I really miss the "light and tight" feeling I get from our Prius and other smaller cars. You can really sense this thing flexing and straining in tight curves.

I bet it feels a lot better at higher speeds on a big empty highway, but there isn't likely to be any of that on my route this week.

 

Well this week it's a 2020 19 Kia Optima.

I was tired and cranky from a long flight when I got in and that didn't help, but I feel like they tweaked this car the wrong way since the last time I rented an Optima. I've rented piles of them before and really enjoyed them, but this one was newer and everything was 5% wronger.

It was one of those "pick any car out of section y" deals and I sure as heck wasn't leaving in a chevy or a nissan, the only other possibilities at hand.

On the plus side, it's still an Optima. Drives well, plenty of power, great visibility. Comfortable cabin though I did have the sense that everything on the dashboard was out of reach despite running the seat up close.

Negatives: more steering wheel buttons and I really think they crossed the line: too many.

 

Brakes are pretty touchy in this one. Key tag identifies the car as a 2019 and I thought I'd already driven one so it may be down to trim differences. Cruise control settings are uncomfortably close to the menu cursor trigger.

 

JACKPOT!

I got a 2022 Camry LE this week. Hats off Toyota, what a car! The lie-o-meter in the dash says I got 47mpg driving out of Milwaukee airport this morning. That was mostly radar cruise highway run for an hour. The person before me put it in eco mode and I didn't change it. The only thing I don't like about it is the lack of a trunk release. You can still use a remote control.

Totally makes up for the Buick Envision AND the Chevy Trax they dumped on me for the last two legs of the tour.

 

The release is now electric, with two mechanical backups.

The electric release is trigged by a switch on the dash (with delay interlock) or the remote control.

One mechanical backup is the escape system, the glow-in-the-dark tag inside the trunk. The other is a lock cylinder oriented vertically in the garnish overhang next to the plate illumination and the camera. Good enough for emergencies but a huge pain in the a** to use.

I think there ought to be either a mechanical lever or a rubber nub switch for electric release in there too.

But they just plain deleted it.

Electric.

I consider this to be an improvement because I don't like toggle pedals for parking brakes, and that's what older Camrys featured.

The rip handle in our C is great but I've also fully adopted the electric push-pull switch in our 2020 Mazda. It tripped me up a little at first but now I don't even think about it anymore.

 

Humm.. I don't know what button I pushed yesterday, but it wasn't an electric e-brake because I found a toggle pedal this morning.

So for accuracy's sake, the Camry still has a mechanical toggle pedal.

 

Never had better control of that not-emergency brake than my 1970 Volkswagen. Big friendly T-handle right in the middle of the dash. You'd pull it out like a plane throttle and the ratchet would set. To release the ratchet you rotated the handle 90° on the roll axis, and the rack of teeth were turned away from the pawl. So if you rolled it and hauled you could modulate it with very fine control because it was high enough in the cabin that the average driver could get excellent leverage.

Keeping the shoes adjusted was another story, though.