As a thanks for helping me remove that decal (the hair dryer worked fine) I thought you might like to hear about an H3 I got as a rental car.
Yeah, I mean a Hummer H3. Last week I had one as a rental and thought you all might like a quick report.
This was a business trip, so I can't comment on off road capabilities. I picked up this beast at the San Francisco airport and drove it up 101 to Novato and then Petaluma and back. All total, that was 243 miles according to Hertz.
But here's the scoop:
First impression ? It's not as big as I thought. Although the side step sticks out too far making it mandatory you use it to get in and out. (I'm 5' 10" and one of my passengers one day was about 6' 2" and still needed it.)
1) First annoyance -- The rear windshield wiper is on and there's no obvious way to turn it off.
2) It's too dark to see a lot, but this is a bare bones interior. Even more than a basic Wrangler (my opinion).
3) All right! This puppy has Sirius Satellite radio. Time for some Blues (channel 74 ? same as XM)
4) OK, that wiper is getting annoying.
5) The radio (even on regular AM) has a weird feature. During acceleration it gets louder. Wish I had packed a couple of CDs. Curious whether or no this happens then too. Most annoying is that it does not go back to the original level when you slow down making talking on the cell phone problematic (yeah yeah yeah)
6) I CAN'T TAKE THAT WIPER SQUEKING ANY MORE.
7) OK, crossing the Golden Gate bridge in the high winds is a little scary. I can't believe this pig is getting blown around. I need to rethink the width of this thing too. These lanes seem awfully narrow.
In the hills of the North Bay now. Surprisingly, this thing doesn't have a lot of giddy up. It is difficult to get up some of these.
9) Man, the thing has a lot of wind noise, rattles and a whistle I can't identify. Hmmmm. And it's only got 1683 miles on it. This is really quiet a surprise.
10) At the hotel now and whoops must be declared. The H3 is too wide for the parking spaces!
11) Next morning. There's thick frost on the windows. Looking around in the day light, there really is nothing but the basics in this vehicle. It's also not real clean, but that's the rental lot's problem.
12) Hey, while I'm waiting, where's the owners manual so I can turn off that *&^%$#@! windshield wiper? Ahhhhhhh It's a funky little knob on the dash with some weird ass icon. Got it now.
13) I can also see now to tweak the sound system settings. And it's got a good one. Bose speakers. No name on the in dash unit. Is there an echo in here? (That's a joke for those of you that are humor impaired.)
14) Tuesday night now and I'm talking six people, including myself, from San Rafael to Petaluma. Maybe 25 miles on the highway (still 101). Three of them are pretty small so we've got four people in the back seat. They claim they're comfortable (but I'm glad I'm driving).
15) Hey, I am parked two spaces from a new Unlimited with nobody in between. These two things look a lot alike. The Unlimited is some sort of olive and looks nice. This is the first one of these I've seen in person. I like it, but it doesn't look like a Wrangler to me.
16) No pickup. I've gone from moderately heavy traffic into open highway and even flooring this thing there's no power.
17) Last, but not least, when I turned it in, the tank was only ? full. Hertz is telling me that's 14.5 gallon tank so that means I got about (can this be right?) 16.758620689655172413793103/gal.
That's about it. All in all, I'm hanging on to the Wrangler. The H3 had no advantage that I could see.
