A week with a Nitro

Now I know that the title probably gives this entire post away but I don’t care. As a minority of you are aware, I spent a good part of this week in Cleveland for a client. Its custom in the “consulting” field to travel a lot and rent a lot of “neat” cars. This car/SUV/truck mentioned in this article is ummm not so “neat”. The car in mention is the new Dodge Nitro. Let me explain how we ( my teammate and I ) came upon this miraculously piece of engineering ( I can almost vomit right now ). I land at Hopkins airport and head over to the National Rent-A-Car Emerald isle where basically if you are a member you can walk right up to a car and bypass the counters and drive away. I will mention we as my teammate and I from now on. Since we are both Emerald Isle club members, we walk up to a “full-size” car or so we thought. A nice Impala. I have driven an Impala before and they feel like driving a big boat. The suspension feels like jelly and the steering is so unresponsive that you would not know the difference between driving over a dime and driving over an elephant ( only true drivers will get that ). I really believe that Impalas are made for old people. Another thing that I hated about Impalas and generally anything GM are the cheap materials. It seems like the entire car was dipped in a plastic mold.

We get into the first car which is an Impala ( L ), and start to drive out of the lot. We are behind a decent number of people and we notice that one woman is in line and her trunk is completely open. She approaches the exit counter and the lady in the booth nicely shut the trunk. The lady in the car, turns left and the trunk opens again and the lady just seems to drive off. Next we pull up to the exit counter and lower the window and notice a certain noise from our car. After a little thought, we decide that it’s the front left tire as it has low tire pressure. The lady instructs us to exit the place and turn around and drive the car back into the lot and notify someone. Here we are, turning back into the lot and we see the lady with the trunk problem and someone is trying to repeatedly shut the trunk with no luck. Oh well. Either National has a ton of bad cars in Cleveland or there is something in Cleveland that attracts ratty cars.

Now back to the Nitro. Starting off with the looks. WHO THE HELL ARE THE ENGINEERS THAT COME UP WITH THESE CRAZY ASS DESIGNS? The Nitro to me, looks very dull and looks very much like a spin off of the Grand Cherokees ( which they very well may be ). The keyless entry has only two buttons: lock and unlock. Whatever happened to keyless entries having a trunk button or a ignition start button? Next, we examine the door handles. Its very cheap and uses a handle and a button which is huge. Now once we get into the car, all of the materials seem once again cheap and everything seems to be some sort of molded plastic. The steering sucked so bad, and on many occasions, the steering wheel would not return to its position, and if a driver wasn’t turning it back, we may as well just drive in circles over curbs and back into turning lanes. The suspension, was once again, very jelly-ish. I cannot fathom what this vehicle would be like off-road. All of the electricals were disappointing as well. We decided to play a game of lock/unlock in which we both press opposite buttons as quickly as possible and see who can push the buttons faster. It was a tie, but we noticed that after pushing them for a decent amount of time, the unlock buttons on both sides would not work. It got to a point where the unlock on the remote didn’t work. There must be a timed sensor or something, but in either case its stupid.

Now to the good stuff -

Two great spots in Cleveland if anyone reading this decides to visit. Café Tandoor which is an Indian restaurant. Had a great selection of food and very tasty. We took part of the food that was left over home and I left my Styrofoam container on the back seat. Well, I decide that I will drive back and on the way back I was very curious as to how the brakes in the Nitro were. Very randomly ( forgetting the food on the back seat ) I hit the breaks and once again disappointed. But then I started to smell Indian food, and it got stronger and stronger. We look in the back and what do you know, all of the food spilled. Oh Well, I guess this is why it’s a rental. We just turned the floor mat over and it was done. The other spot in Cleveland is the Cornerstone Brewery. Delicious IPA. Enough Said.