Would you say this is “similar” to a Mustang?
Well according to dollar rental, it is. I wanted a convertible for my trip to L.A, and it was only 250$ for a whole week. a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. despite the bait and switch the rental went well, no BS from dollar regarding additional fees. the various dents and scratches I expected from a rental so I was unconcerned. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.
The Buick had about 42k miles on it, and I put a considerable amount on. Due to the chilly weather and a backseat passenger, The top was up for the majority of the trip, although we did have some fun moments with it down. Highlights included the Angeles national forest, Joshua Tree national park, the marvelous 405 freeway, and various beaches like Laguna, San Clemente, and Malibu. Will post about the trip later this week.
1: Performance: That’s all anyone cares about right? The car was wholly unremarkable. Acceleration was punchy at lower speeds, but the car fell flat on its face at highway speeds. The steering had some on-center vaugeness and my sister said it felt numb, although I didn’t really notice so perhaps I’m just used to cars like this. When I finally got to drive my FOST again it just reminded me how nice it would have been on those mountain roads. The car did not have excessive body roll and the suspension was altogether about what I was expecting from a typical modern car. Transmission had a few odd shifts but due to being outside my comfort zone I didn’t really mess around with the manual mode.
2: Interior: Also mediocre, a running theme for this car. The seats were relatively comfy, and my back had no complaints on these long drives and being stuck in the car all week. The ride was less than what I expected from a luxury car. Basically, this rode like a Chevy. L.A has some surprisingly shitty roads for a town that never gets winter and the Cascada was having none. The layout of the dash controls were super un-intuitive, but I became used to over the course of driving so they were not too big of a deal, however the infotainment was absolutely terrible. Did nobody at GM take a course in user interface design? menus were laid out horribly, any sort of changes in the car would reset menus so if somebody was trying to connect their phone it would erase the entry for the GPS. Everything was very trial and error all week. Connecting an Ipod via the cable only worked about 1/4 of the time, and using the bluetooth required a deep dive into the manual. You could not use the GPS without having the radio turned on, so you would have to mute the radio if you didn’t want to listen to it. Total absurdity. Points for having decent legroom for the back seats, although the family complained that they are very “vertical” and not the most comfortable. Nobody liked being blasted in the face by cold air but that is the same for any convertible.
3: Fun factor: This is hard for me. I have had loads of fun with convertibles in the past, for some reason this was not really hitting with me so I am going to mark it down as the fact that I was massively distracted by traffic, sightseeing, and the non-optimal weather to really enjoy the thing. The car did feel very classy and stealthy in traffic, and the color combo with the black and red made up for what is otherwise not the coolest car. The convertible top had a folding divider in the trunk that gave a very sizeable and usable space when the top wasn’t desired. The car on the whole was very pedestrian feeling. I don’t know if this is news to any of you. It made me wish I had simply gotten the basic Mustang convertible. Considering the cascada starts at $33,070 according to google, I don’t understand why dollar even stocks these. Ford shows $34,505 for the ‘stang with the automatic.
Apparantly, according to my sister’s-boyfriend’s kids, convertibles are not cool in L.A. They told me it’s like a tourist thing. That didn’t stop them from enjoying it. I promptly told them they were silly, as this is definitely the town for owning a convertible.
Overall: 6/10. Fix the infotainment and it would be 7/10 perfectly acceptable. Would be at least 8/10 if it was a damn mustang instead.