The EspadaIII car rental thread

Back in Israel for the holidays. Visiting my father and going to the Dead Sea for a couple of days.

Got a Hyundai i20 auto. Haven't yet driven it as Espadrille drove from the airport as I made some calls. Her opinion is that it's nothing exciting and it lacks Bluetooth.

I tried to drive it tonight but it wouldn't start. In Israel many cars have a digital keypad to enter a code before the ignition will fire. Never had a problem with it before. On this occasion though the car would not start. So we get a lift with my father to a restaurant and when we return, we try it again. Still no joy. Car rental office is closed; I'm getting frustrated.

Then Espadrille says '...Have you tried pressing the brake pedal?...'. Bingo, the car starts. I can understand with a manual car, the need for a pedal to be pressed when starting, but an automatic? What is the reason?

As Espadrille said to me afterwards, "now you know how my Mum feels when she is confused by some simple but unexplained change in the way things used to operate." Now I feel old. How can someone as technically knowledgeable as I when it comes to operating a car be stumped by something so simple.

Frustrated of Manchester (via Tel Aviv).

Have now driven the i20 and apart from the idiot starting procedure, I like it. It's well built, comfortable, a decent amount of power for four people on a trip including luggage for two nights. Economy is fair so far despite the four speed auto which lacks a gear between two and three and needs to broaden the spread between top and bottom.

Dislikes include the boot which is not quite big enough to take a standard cabin bag on edge, lack of Bluetooth (which surprises me) and rather candle like headlights.

The dash display is clear and the digital fuel guage has 12 segments so there is more of a true reflection of fuel remaining than those guages with only six segments (the Sirion for instance).

So a 👍 from me.

Being less outdoorsy, I don't have the need for large cars so could downsize, in fact I drove the Captur for several months fairly painlessly although if it was to be a permanent car I would want some more creature comforts..

I like large cars. Estates, large saloons and SUVs, even pick-ups.

I would like an electric car though.

I suppose whilst I still have two children not yet at university, keeping a large car is going to be necessary, for the biannual removal trip.

When I was a child (about 11?) we had a long family holiday in the USA. We did a road trip from Miami to Montreal in a Plymouth Volare. A three box saloon which in American terms was mid-sized but was larger than a 1970s Ford Granada.

The obviously stupid thing about it was the boot. Good sized with space for lots of luggage a deep wheel well; except..... the spare wheel was screwed down in a position that can only be described as being perched on the ledge of the well, so reducing the useful boot space one suitcase and some soft bags. The obvious answer was to unscrew it and place it in the well, which worked fine, but we never understood the logic of the positioning in the first place.

But as Dixi says, basic cars these days fulfil about 99% of people's daily needs for car based transport.