I had to rent a car for a few days for family things. So I called up the the big E for a car and set it up. My wife and I went at lunch today to pick up the car. The guy behind the counter tells me "Good news Mr. Noddaz! We have a free upgrade for you! It's a Nissan Altima!" My deadpan reply, "You call that an upgrade?". Totally caught the guy off guard. E gave me a Malibu instead. I haven't driven something from the General in a bunch of years. Hopefully I won't be disappointed. Too much anyway.
In reply to Noddaz :
Fingers crossed.
IIRC, I got a Cobalt as a rental a number of years ago and was pleasantly surprised. Not sure how much of that was expectations going in, and how much was down to just "this automatic isn't as terrible as the automatics I'm accustomed to."
Last time they told me that it was a mustang gt convertible. In upstate NY. In January. Gee, thanks.
My question is what the hell did they consider the Altima an upgrade to? A pedal bike? A SmartForTwo? Horse and buggy?
In terms of top speed and intimidation factor an Altima is an upgrade on lots of things 
It'll depend a little bit on location and weather, but based on past experience, I'd probably hitchhike before driving a Malibu.
Sonic
UberDork
4/20/24 12:15 a.m.
I've driven rental Altimas and company pool car Malibus all in the last 2 years and the Malibu is the clearly superior car. The Altima was so obviously awful it made me angry, and it only had 1500 miles. It couldn't even go straight down the highway.
In reply to Sonic :
So the swerving from lane to lane, getting nowhere in traffic is built in? I just assumed it was the drivers 
ddavidv
UltimaDork
4/20/24 7:49 a.m.
I just got an Equinox as a company car. I can't tell you the last time I drove a GM anything. Probably my '65 Skylark convertible. Anyway, it's got really comfy seats, a leather wrapped steering wheel and the quality seems to be on par with most other transportation pod crossover things.
But the engine...what a gutless turd.
In reply to ddavidv :
Our sales team is complaining about our car allowance amount and they are telling us we may get company cars (Malibu's). This might get ugly.
Just got an escape as my long term rental
until my company car comes in. It's ok. We shall see what happens when my real company car comes in. Probably German. Hopefully enough weight for a nicer one.
Rent a Chevy Spark and tell me Big Altima Energy isn't an upgrade.
I was frequently in rental cars for a previous job and the Altima was my go to. They make for a great appliance. Bluetooth hookup was quick and painless.
So far, the Malibu is ok.
The front seats have no real side support. You sit more or less on them rather than in them. Somehow the front seats remind me of the front seats in the 1972 Camaro I used to have. The audio unit is worse than the unit in my wife's 2007 Accord LX. It just does not sound very good. And there is lots of road noise. But that may be the Ironman tires this car has. The Malibu has decent acceleration and the brakes work well in day to day driving. One last thing. No USB port for the front seats that I can find. It might be there, I just have not found it.
In reply to Noddaz :
Ironman tires. I see that enterprise is taking the cheapest route possible to keep the cars on the road.
With that said, "how many miles are on the Malibu?". The rental cos are keeping the cars long term. It's not the old days where they were sent to used car lots before the first set of tires wore out.
In reply to John Welsh :
When I ran a Goodyear store 15 years ago my two largest accounts were Enterprise and AutoZone (besides the WEX shiny happy people). We were told way back then that we needed to provide the lowest price alternate that was capable of traveling 30k miles before being washed out. The pricing difference between our death rubber and the 55k mid grade brand name tire at the time was $9, we couldn't get them put on.
