otisptoadwater wrote: My last rip to Silly Putty Valley scored me a Kia Soul, I went back to the rental desk and immediately insisted on a different car. I'm 6' 3" and 250 Lbs, I don't fit in compact cars, cattle class airline seats, or the hotel version of a twin bed. After being told that was the only car they had left I reluctantly went back to the car and found that not only was there plenty of room behind the wheel, this rental turned out to be a pretty zippy little econo-box! Not much room for extra stuff and it would be hard to get four Otis sized folk in to one of these cars but still not a bad car for short trips across town.
How would it perform at altitude? Would the grind going up an down the hills be too much for it? How about bad weather? Could this car hack it in the snow? I dunno.
Good inputs. And CR doesn't consider all those factors.
One thing I've noticed, though, is the Korean companies are more agressive lately. Looks like you can get lower prices and even better warranties too with some of them. I'm sure they want to get a much bigger market share, and China is probaly next. CR didn't rate them well in the past, but now they have.
CR did rate a Ford pretty highly among the small cars (Ford Fiesta sedan SE, 33 MPG), but it's a new model and the reliability isn't established. But if you want to buy USA cars, it's really hard to tell now where they were made. USA companies build a lot in Mexico, several foreign companies build in the USA. Parts come from anywhere, it's a global market.
