My sketchiest rental car was kind of a surprise for me. It all began with my first DSM getting totaled January 4th. I was dead set on replacing my Spyder with an AWD DSM, not really stopping to think that $2000 won’t get you very far in that market. I found a manual one for sale in my price range a month later at a dealership in Storm Lake, IA, a 9 hour drive on the best of days from my college in Terre Haute. After calling the seller (Edgar) and learning about how this Talon has a radio but it doesn’t appear to work, about how the alternator doesn’t appear to charge the battery and sometimes the car just dies, about how it’s really loud due to the straight pipe, I tell him that I’ll be there on Saturday. What’s the worst that could happen?

The plan was to pick up a rental car on Friday and pack it so that my boyfriend, who was driving in for the weekend from Indianapolis, could join me when I left early the next morning. We would buy the car in Iowa and return the rental on the way back. I don’t remember what car I had reserved, but I remember being excited about driving it. The cashier, however, had other plans. He scanned my car backwards, such that the magnetic strip was not actually in the machine. He tells me that the card wasn’t accepted and asked me if I had another. He won’t hear about how its his mistake and tells me that unless I have another card that I can provide, I’m not getting a car. Enterprise has a strict policy to not scan the same card within a 24 hour period and, as a college student, I only have the one card. They won’t accept payment from someone who isn’t present, so after leaving some choice words with the manager of the store, I had no choice but to come back in the morning.

We had to wait until 10 when they opened, putting us four hours behind schedule already. When I arrive they tell me that there are no cars available. I ask them about the car that I had reserved for pickup the previous night that was still in the parking lot and they play dumb. I tell my boyfriend that he can keep trying if he wants, but I refuse to deal with these incompetent idiots any more. I sit in his car. ~20 minutes later he comes out with a set of keys to a Chevy Cruze.

I had plenty of experience with the pile of garbage that was my room mate’s Cobalt, so I was at least interested to see how Chevy had decided to move on from there. And I was impressed. The car wouldn’t wow anyone, but in contrast to the Cobalt it was comfortable, ergonomic, and intelligently laid out. It was easily the best rental car that I had ever had, not that that says too much.

We set off a little after noon, 6 hours behind scheduled. I called Edgar to let him know about the delay, and he said that he would be willing to wait at the dealership for us to arrive. The drive there was uneventful. My boyfriend streamed music over the car’s stereo while we explored the car’s interior features. The moment that we crossed into Iowa, however, he lost reception. We made the remainder of the drive in silence.

The Talon was a real POS. unpainted aftermarket bumpers, 5" exhaust tip, ragged cloth interior, leaking sunroof, a flashing narrowband AFR gauge, completely bald maximum performance summer tires, and the whole thing smelled so strongly of lemon air freshener that my boyfriend dry heaved when he first got in the car. But it has AWD and a 4G63 so I give Edgar all of my money (and some of my boyfriend’s) and stop at a nearby Wendy’s for a 10PM dinner. There, we discovered that the nearest Enterprise location is in Des Moines, three hours South and a bit out-of-the-way.

When we got back on the road, things started going downhill. The car dies very frequently while driving, and the only way to get it to come back is to take the key completely out of the ignition and then put it back in the ON position. A few times. Eventually the engine will come back to life. We decide that I should lead the way back to Enterprise so that my boyfriend can spot anything falling off of the Talon or would be alerted by me pulling over. Since he doesn’t have cell coverage, I couldn’t call him in an emergency. I should also point out that the car’s balance shafts were installed 180 degrees out of phase, very significantly increasing cabin vibration through the solid motor mounts to the point where I couldn’t see out of any of my mirrors because of how badly they were shaking.

We’re driving through completely abandoned rural highways, unaware that a weather emergency has been called and that travel is restricted. I’m too busy keeping the car running to see all of the warnings come up on my phone. After an hour or so, I realize that there are no headlights behind me. I pull over on the side of the highway, expecting to see that Cruze crest the previous hill (yes, it turns out that there is one hill in Iowa) but after several minutes, I was still alone. I wasn’t willing to get off the highway and go backwards lest I pass him without noticing, so I did the most logical thing in my situation. I turn around and drive backwards up the highway.

Fortunately he was just on the other side of the hill. Unfortunately he had stopped because the car had shut off. It had complained of high engine temperatures and flashed a warning about disabling the air conditioning before the entire car shut off and couldn’t be restarted. Coolant level was fine and no steam was coming out of the engine bay, so we opted to wait and try again later. We waited in the Talon. The heater in the Talon wasn’t functioning properly and wasn’t doing much to make those low single digit temperatures any more comfortable.

It was 20 minutes before the Cruze would start up again, and we set off a little more cautiously this time. About 20 minutes later, I caught my boyfriend pulling off on the side of the road again. This time, he said, the car shut off without warning, and the only thing that he could do was pop it into neutral and coast to the shoulder. By this time it’s almost midnight. Enterprise is closed and I couldn’t call anyone anyway. My phone died and the cigarette lighter in the Talon didn’t work. Can we just leave the rental car on the side of the road and call Enterprise in the morning to pick it up? My boyfriend refuses to drive it anymore. The Talon would be better, he says.

We were 20 minutes from Des Moines. I convince him to keep driving. The car died just down the street from the Enterprise location. I’m absolutely pissed. It’s already 12:30 and we still have a 9 hour drive ahead of us, so I align the Talon with the back bumper of that steaming pile of crap and push the fucker up that hill and into the Enterprise parking lot. Of course they’re out of deposit slips/comment cards so I chuck the keys in the direction of the drop slot and continue on my way back to Indiana.

While we were dicking with that Chevy, the aforementioned winter storm and blown over top of us and we spent the rest of the drive following the end of that storm front on bald summer tires in a consistent 8" of snow and pretty thick ice. The semis were blowing by us at 40 miles an hour. Even with AWD we couldn’t maintain 30 without fishtailing. We tried to rest in the back hatch at a truck stop but the sun came up before we got any sleep, so we continued. We got home late Sunday afternoon, exhausted and no longer on speaking terms. I called Enterprise the next day to report all of the problems that we had had with our rental, but the receptionist denied seeing any light blue Cruzes in their parking lot to which she could attach the problem report. The car was missing and, since I had left my rental paperwork in the glove box, no one had any record of which car I had rented. They brushed it off as a prank call and that was that.