i just got back from a week in the canadian rockies (alberta, spectacular as always).
rental reservation was for an awd hyundai tuscon (not too small, not too huge).
of course when i got there they didn't have that, they said they had a jeep compass (hard no, junk), a kia sportage, and a hyundai santa fe.
knowing the santa fe already and figuring the sportage would be big enough, went for that.
got to the lot and it was clear it was a BASE model. it had about 24000 on the clock, which i thought was a lot until i realized that's kilometers.
car had a small naturally aspirated engine, and was awd which was good.
rental crooks asked if i wanted snow tires, said that would be an additional $20 a day. (rude words in thought), um, no thanks. they said the tires on it were 'mud and snow', is that the same as all season?

i'm writing this because i'm still surprised how much 'trim level' affects ones perceptions (well mine at least) of a given vehicle. i bet this vehicle in top trim would get approving nods from me. in this base trim, it was fairly awful.

why? glad you asked.

seats of course are all manually operated. this i don't actually mind, but power and memory seats are certainly useful. i don't think this car had any lumber adjustment at all.
speaking of seats, i WAS surprised it had heated seat buttons (3 levels). i guess the rental company doesn't want to find foreigners frozen in their seats on the ice fields parkway.

no navigation in the car isn't optimal when one is sight seeing in places unfamiliar. still the car had android auto / apple carplay at least, so i plugged in the phone, and was good to go, as long as i had cell service.

no power rear hatch. the indignity of having to actually lift and slam back down the dirt/salt encrusted back hatch wasn't something i was used to.

as you can see, even though it didn't snow the entire week there, the car still got COVERED in salt and dirt. numerous times i had to grab a handful of snow or a tissue to clean the rear camera so that it was usable.



no safety features, like parking sensors, cross traffic alert, blind spot monitoring, let alone adaptive cruise, lane keeping, etc. it had NADA of those.
definitely made one pay attention more.

the biggest deficiency in this cheap crossover though was probably the headlights. they were almost utterly useless, even when not caked in dirt and salt. i guess the base has some kind of halogens. they looked like some kind of projector bulbs though but maybe it's just a design to look fancy, but still useless.
these headlights were DANGEROUS and should be banned.

the 'stereo' sounded worse than the speakers in my cell phone.

the engine/transmission was pretty gutless, not helped by being at elevation (probably 5-7K ft at different times).

the road noise was pretty obnoxious at all speeds. wind noise, road noise, engine noise.

when i got back to the home airport after a week in the sportage, i got into my top trim santa fe, and was pretty stunned at the difference. it's quiet, it's comfortable, it's plenty powerful. it has all the safety features. power hatch. it has a great nav system, a pretty good audio system (good for its price point to be sure). driving home was peaceful and despite some nuts on the road who insist on tailgating or cutting in or cutting off, relatively relaxing.

anyway, just wanted to share a recent car experience. and if you like scenery, go to the canadian rockies. they're SPECTACULAR.

here's a few snaps...

 

i will add our most popular topic though, that i'm CERTAINLY glad it was NOT an electric vehicle though.

only had to fill up once. in the basement parking of the condo i saw a tesla plugged into a 120v socket... figured it would take a week to recharge that thing at that pace and the cold weather and inclines would only make the range worse.

 

Beautiful place to visit! I've never been.

But yeah. trim level makes a HUGE difference, also I have found that rental cars have a beat on feel that colors my perceptions.

 

Alberta is stunning. I'm heading up to Banff and Canmore soon for a friend's wedding and cannot wait.

I went to Minnesota last June and was given a Sportage for my rental. Mine was a mid-grade trim and I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

 

I feel cold just looking at the photos, lol.

 

Stunning and beautiful scenery! I once had a three week IT bootcamp in Bushkill, PA (yes, you heard that right!) in 2015. Landed in Newark, NJ and drove to PA and back in a rented Prius C. Although the Prius was loud and there was a lot of road noise, it drove surprisingly well. and I think I spend maybe $15 on gas the whole trip

 

Aha! I wasn't far off. From the pictures you posted earlier in another thread (but didn't say where), I had guessed Glacier National Park.....just across the border in the U.S. Agree....the Northern Rockies are stunning.

My brother had had two recent Sportages, a base LX and a top-line SX Turbo, and, while he doesn't quite have the low opinion you do of the base model, he agrees that the SX is much nicer in most ways, except for the slightly lower-profile tires.

 

beautiful pics!!!!!

 

nice! we stayed in canmore as we have also done a couple of other times. we find banff too touristy and crowded. canmore basically has one downtown street with plenty of great restaurants. we did eat in banff one night and that was great too though.

views out of condo this trip from the deck:




and what might be the best view of a fast food place ever.

 

back to cars, i looked down from the balcony one day and on the street were 5 or 6 japanese brand vehicles, 3 or 4 s. korean brand vehicles, 1 jeep, 1 f150 and some gm truck.

 

this other small town (bragg creek) was the only place i've ever seen a gas station and weed shop in the same establishment

 

You can fill up and get high in one stop!

 

That's near my old stomping ground. Pennsylvania is an interesting state and quite beautiful when you get off the beaten path. When I first moved there some friends drove me to see the Pocono "mountains", think I laughed for 10 minutes straight.

If anyone comes to Alberta I recommend you check out some of the less touristy places especially if you're into hiking. There are spectacular trails but some are pretty hard core. Number one in this video is incredible. Summer and autumn only though any other times trails are closed or probably dangerous.

 

Just thought I'd chime in on the lack of nav.. with Google Maps, you can download offline maps to your phone to use when you have no data or when you're roaming and you want to conserve data. Open the app and click on the icon in the top right, it should have an option for Offline maps. It lets you select the area to download, and you can download multiple maps if you're travelling to different places. The offline map works off of your GPS signal instead of your mobile data, so while you won't have traffic updates, you will have the basic navigation functionality without using any mobile data.

 

Bummer about the base rental, but as others have said beautiful pics!!