My favorite rental car ever

My wife and I recently went to Hawaii and our first stop was the island of Maui. We got our car from Enterprise rent-a-car and I had reserved a mid-sized car. They gave us the 2002 Subaru Forester, which technically is not a mid-sized car, but it is classified as an SUV. Ours was green with a brown interior. It wasn't a sporty looking SUV, but I had heard Subarus were reliable and they all come with 4WD, which turned out to be a huge plus on Maui.

Performance:
I really liked the handling of the Subaru forester. It was responsive a couple of times when I got cut off in traffic and I felt it handled tight turns much better than my 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder.

I had to slam on the brakes once to avoid an idiot and it performed very well, they did not lock up and the car stopped in an adequate amount of time to avoid the accident.

My favorite part of the Forester is it handled two rather challenging conditions with authority. The first was our drive on the road to Hana. For anyone who hasn't driven this road, it is a crazy road. Tons of one way roads and bridges.

I was very glad that the Forester had excellent safety ratings:
http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle%5Fratings/ce/html/98018.htm

Several times one of the locals nearly hit us head-on on the road to Hana. I thought I would get a chance to test out the airbags, but luckily I didn't. The road has MANY MANY curves, and the Subaru handled all of them with no problem. There were even a few wet from a recent rain storm and there was never any slippage with the 4WD.

The other trip the Forester did well on was our drive up to Haleakala National Park. The top elevation on this volcano is over 10,000 feet, so the thinner air at the top should effect any car not properly tuned for it. Now, I did not ask if our car had been tuned for high altitude, but the drive up the volcano did not slow the car down much at all. I wasn't trying to break any speed records getting up, safety first, but it handled the moderate 10-15% grades with no difficulty.

When we were on flat ground, the reaction off the line at stoplights was good and we could beat people off the line if we needed to switch lanes, all I was asking of this SUV. Overall I was very happy with the performance.

The interior:
The interior of the car was pretty basic, but it had two cup holders in the front and comfortable driver and passenger seats. My wife likes to stretch out and put the seat back and there were several times she was able to nap. I'm a big guy, 6'4" 260lbs and the driver seat was a little small for me, but almost any car is for me. I was still able to be comfortable and the center console on the car was small enough that my leg didn't constantly rub against it.

Our interior was very basic, as it was a rental car, but it still had a CD player and the radio produced acceptable sound. The interior light was very bright when we used it one night.

The visibility on this vehicle is OUTSTANDING. There are windows all around and I had no blind spots at all. I like to look over my shoulder before changing lanes and this SUV is great for that!

The interior looked very good for a 3 year old rental car, but that might be from Enterprise, so I can't comment any further on that.

The trunk handled our very large suitcase very easily, plenty of room for all our stuff. I wish it had a privacy shield, but that might be available as an accessory.

The exterior:
Well, I have to say the exterior was a little boxy looking and not that appealing. My wife thought it looked nice, but I have to disagree on that. I've heard the newer Forester has a better looking exterior.

Summary:
Despite my disappointment at the exterior looks, I quickly fell in love with this SUV. We even got 22mpg average on our trip, and that was with the climb up the volcano! I'm seriously considering this SUV when it is time for me to purchase my next personal vehicle and will always be asking for it when I get a rental car.