What if?

Few weeks ago I went to Toyota dealership to test drive Scion xB. My expectations were to try funky car with ability to pack something bike like with folded seats. It should drive like a normal car with extra special of boxy Japanese appeal. It was black automatic and one year old. Boxy on outside, somehow stylish and roomy. Gauges are center mounted with digital speedometer and rest follows as four round shapes laid on the shelf. They somehow make it tick. Because rest of the interior is bits and pieces of other Toyotas and it is uninspiring, grey and cheap. Steering wheel was all plastic with additional friction resistant texture. I found seating position to be on strange side. To be clear: you can’t seat in xB like you do in normal car and be able to reach sun visor or left ventilation fixture. Just can’t. You should seat upright and as close to the steering wheel as possible. Like you seat on rather than in. Pedals were shifted to the left to my liking and comparing to...

On a second week of January 2016 I rented Nissan Sentra SV from Enterprise. Given rental location provided car with 3 overinflated tires (38 Psi) and forth one under inflated (27 Psi) while norm is 33 psi for all tires. Such mismatch contributed to rotational movement of the car during braking and inability to stay in the lane on highway speeds. After I figured out what was wrong and deflated/inflated tires it behaved more predictably. Bouncing sound of basket ball also was reduced. So to set up stage: it January, it snowing and it 100 km trips daily. With range of speed between 50 km/h to 110 km/h. It cold to -10C. I was driving it for four days. Overall 1200 km. Fuel efficiency was between 7.6 to 8 l/100 km on average. It way above manufacturer promised 6 l/100 km. No matter how economical I was within reasonable driving style (no jack rabbiting or even dynamic start/stops but no coasting from 1 km before traffic light either so car will stop itself) it never improved. Int...