Big Toyota

Big Toyota

I took my car to Scottie's Body Shop on Monday to get some dents fixed. They needed it for a week so I walked across the street to pick up a rental at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I was just going to get some econo-box, but the econo-box wasn't ready, so they gave me this monster with red, green, yellow and black New Mexico license plates. New Mexico must have changed their plates recently because I have never seen any that look like this.

The monster is a Toyota Highlander, at least that's what a couple of people have told me. I have seen any insignia to indicate anything other than it's a Toyota. It's very like my wife's Mitsubishi Endeavor, though it seems bulkier, but maybe that's just the swollen looking body shape.

It works fine like you would expect a late model rental to work, though there are a few little quirks that I have not yet learned to appreciate. The cruise control is one. On my old Dodge truck, you could not set the cruise control any lower than 35 MPH, which kind of sucks when half of the time I spend driving is on streets with a 25 MPH limit. Yes, I know, it only takes a minute to cover six blocks at 25 MPH but it feels like a friggin' eternity, especially when the road looks like it could handle 100 MPH traffic. Well it could if it wasn't for all the people toddling out into the road. You can set the cruise control in my car, a Hyundai Sonata, or the Endeavor to 25 MPH which is great. Keeps me from blasting my way to a suspended license. So I'm thinking plus one for Asian cars. But not this monster. This one the lowest you can set it is 28 MPH. Why 28 for Pete's sake? Don't tell me, I don't wanna know.

But 28 is okay, I am unlikely to get a speeding ticket for going 28 in a 25 zone. Out on the freeway it's fine. Or is it? Cruising down the Sunset and the car starts slowing down. What the heck? What are you doing you stupid machine? I set the cruise control for 60 MPH and I expect you to stay right on 60 MPH, not go wandering around the speedometer. I can do that all by myself, thank you, I don't need any help. It took me a while but I eventually realized that it only did that when there was a car ahead of me, and it wasn't that close, maybe ten car lengths. This car has RADAR. Too bad it isn't also equipped with Sidewinder missiles.

The windows in the front doors will go all the way open or closed with just a momentary touch of the button, which is great except when it's 90-odd degrees out. Then you want to leave the windows open a fraction of an inch so the inside of the car doesn't turn into a superheated oven when you have to leave it parked in the sun. Getting the windows to stop at the requisite position takes considerable fiddling. If it was my car I am sure I would eventually figure out how to get it to behave, but right now it's kind of a pain.