Anyone here ever rent a specific SUV?

[davester]

Rent a minivan. I don't think it makes sense to get an SUV instead of a minivan unless you are doing serious off-road work (in which case a rental vehicle is a really bad idea) or driving in the snow. I've spent years doing geological field work in the western deserts and except for really serious stuff (i.e. driving through washes and sand dunes, directly cross country and over big boulders) a 4WD SUV was never necessary. Driving on dirt roads can be done with any kind of vehicle. Except in severe conditions, an SUV is a mass of compromises. A minivan will be much roomier, more comfortable, and more economical to drive. It's dumb to get an SUV for regular road or dirt road use.

[Onamuji]

Robert M wrote:
Hertz does it. I wanted a long term test drive of the 2009 Toyota RAV4. I rented one from Hertz and. Helped me decide that while awesome in nearly every respect, it was just too noisy on the road...

Check out the 2016 RAV4 redesign. It's not the same vehicle anymore. The sound-baffling in the doors is superb and the ride is impressively smooth.

[Robert M]

Ona,

Wouldn't go near it. The '16 RAV4 doesn't have the option of a 6 cylinder engine. Same goes for the '17. I drove both a 4 cylinder model and a 6 cylinder model of previous generations. A 4 banger doesn't have quite enough oomph for a vehicle of its size and weight. The only reason the 4 cylinder in my '09 CX-7 is acceptable is because its turbocharged.

Robert

[M A V I C]

Davester, that all makes sense. There's two issues, however. The first is some of the areas we have ended up in, the roads are in such bad shape there's no way a minivan could do it. My last car had much more clearance and it had a hard time. Many of the roads are closed for the winter and aren't maintained.

The second reason is we also want to explore vehicles we might purchase in the next few years. One of the uses will be to tow a trailer.