{"id":1022,"date":"2012-05-15T23:17:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T04:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2012-05-15T23:17:31","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T04:17:31","slug":"am-i-really-that-picky-my-rental-car-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/05\/am-i-really-that-picky-my-rental-car-adventure.html","title":{"rendered":"Am I Really That Picky? My Rental Car Adventure."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of you know that I have my pet peeve about rental cars. When I reserve a particular size of car, I would really like that size. I’ve been renting vehicles most of the times I travel to Omaha for my AF Reserve duty, and rarely do I receive what I’ve reserved.<\/p>\n

Call me cheap, but when I don’t expect to do any more than shuttle myself to\/from my job every day, I don’t need more than the smallest, most fuel efficient car available. Some of you may remember my adventure with the Ford Mustang that I rented in late February 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This time around, I was pleasantly surprised when the car rental dealer attendant told me that they had a “subcompact car” waiting for me. That was what I had requested.<\/p>\n

A Toyota Yaris<\/a>. It starts at $14K new. Probably among the least expensive cars on the market. \u00a0And that’s what you get. It’s a very very simple, low powered, basic car. Hooray for 30+ mpg and hooray for it being nice and nimble in the tight Offutt AFB parking lots near the building where I work.<\/p>\n

But as you can see from the picture above, I couldn’t even fit my single wheeled duffel bag in the back. I wasn’t expecting that. BOO! I was able to toss the bag into the back seat, and I guess I should be thankful that there even was a backseat. It could have been a Smartcar, right?<\/p>\n

This car has mostly manual controls (except the power windows and automatic transmission), a very basic stereo (with an MP3 jack, at least), and the dashboard information — such as the speedometer, odometer and engine lights — was in the middle of the car<\/a>…instead of right behind my steering wheel on the driver’s side. Why is it like that? I’m not sure at all.<\/p>\n

From what I read, the 2012 Yaris doesn’t have that centralized dashboard anymore<\/a>. Phew!<\/p>\n

With a 106hp engine, you can imagine the cars trailing behind me when I am trying to climb a hill, say, near I-680 and Dodge St. in Omaha, where you’re climbing up into the elevated express lanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s a better view of the car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

It maneuvers quite well. But not very powerful, which is evident on hills.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of you know that I have my pet peeve about rental cars. When I reserve a particular size of car, I would really like that size. I’ve been renting vehicles most of the times I travel to Omaha for my AF Reserve duty, and rarely do I receive what I’ve reserved. Call me cheap, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,23,616,243],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-gu","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":384,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/08\/friday-night-flights.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":0},"title":"Friday Night Flights","date":"01 August 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Neal: What's the flight situation?Del: Simple. There's no way on earth we're going to get out of here tonight. We'd have more luck playing pickup sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak.Neal: I guess we'll find out soon enough.Del: Yeah, but by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":523,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/03\/my-new-commuter-life-part-i-getting-there-is-half-the-battle.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":1},"title":"My New Commuter Life, Part I: Getting There is Half the Battle","date":"04 March 11","format":false,"excerpt":"I might have mentioned it, I might not have, but I kept my Reserve position at Offutt AFB, Nebraska even though I now live in Florida. \u00a0I've received dozens (yes, dozens) of inquiries about why I would want to do that.Three reasons why I kept this position:1.) There's very little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TXAWif13wfI\/AAAAAAABReU\/l8h1wS9lCZ8\/s640\/IMG_4293.JPG?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":568,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/05\/now-i-remember-why-i-havent-rented-from-avis-lately.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":2},"title":"Now I Remember Why I Haven’t Rented From Avis Lately…","date":"18 May 11","format":false,"excerpt":"This is what happens when I rent from Avis for the first time in over 10 years!Greetings from yet another soon-to-be-fun-filled week of Reserve duty :-)Today has to have been the best flying experience I've had in a very long time. \u00a0Perhaps since the trip TO Disneyworld in late 2009.0.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.upgradetravelbetter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/avis-ezfuel.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/the-new-jaguar.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":3},"title":"The "New" Jaguar","date":"08 March 08","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been seeing this commercial by Jaguar on FoxNews, I have always liked the song (\"Hush\" by Deep Purple), so to tie it to this INCREDIBLY SEXY car is really cool.Author's Note: I doubt I'll ever get to own one of these, I like having both of our cars paid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ranting\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2591,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2013\/09\/a-new-job-in-the-local-area.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":4},"title":"A New Job! In the Local Area!!!","date":"26 September 13","format":false,"excerpt":"About two years ago I had written this soul-baring post about going back to school for a secondary math\/science teacher certification. I've done no such thing. But last week I was hired to become a math instructor! I had been in communication with the US Air Force Academy\u00a0math department since\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force life\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MathTeacher-32059-300x252.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":201,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/08\/welcome-to-nebraska-indeed.html","url_meta":{"origin":1022,"position":5},"title":"Welcome to Nebraska, Indeed!!!","date":"03 August 08","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm fine...Dave asked me to run to Lowe's to pick up one more can of primer for the basement-painting project he's working on, and I guess my mind was wandering and I missed the already-red light and the car making a left turn in front of me.I've never been in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"automobiles\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}