From the Passenger's Perspective: 2014 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport

Here on the small Hawaiian island of Molokai, many of the roads are red clay/dirt paths, which require the use of a decent off-road vehicle.  In fact, in my four days here I have seen but three sports cars.  A Mazda Miata, a Chevrolet Corvette C6 and a Mercedes-Benz SL.  The Jeep, however (a rental) is exactly the kind of car for this island.
I'll start off by saying I've always been a hater of Jeeps.  I can't really explain why, but I was (Note "was").  This Wrangler is the Unlimited, which is the four door variant, and the Sport, which for some reason denotes the base model.  As far as the exterior goes, it looks decent, has the iconic Jeep grille, and for some reason I love the little plastic things that hold the hood on.  They make the car look like it wants to go trail driving.

The interior isn't exactly luxury, but that's not the point.  Everything is very close to you, which is good and bad.  I especially like the simple but functional air vents.  The stereo had nice sound, and the speaker placement on the roll bar in the rear was rather clever.  Drawbacks with the interior are few and far between.  The air conditioning knob button required several presses to get it to activate, and the arm rests on the door are very poorly engineered.  The only other issue was that the Jeep is very difficult to get into.  It doesn't have running boards, so to get in the back required some jumping.
My favorite feature of the Wrangler is the three-piece hard top.  I removed the two panels in the front (a very simple task), which essentially made the Jeep a Targa.   It was fantastic for blasting through the small roads of Molokai.  The panels are very easy to remove and re-install, however the rear piece appeared to be more complicated, but at the risk of rain, I never bothered with it.

As far as driving the Wrangler is concerned, I have been told that it drives like a little tank, though this isn't a bad thing.  The 3.6L V6 engine provides decent power and the handling isn't as bad as you would expect.  The Wrangler feels very solid to drive,if not terribly invigorating or sporty, as the trim level suggests.
The Wrangler Unlimited is actually rather comfortable.  Part of that may be down to Molokai's rather smooth paved roads, but we also took the Wrangler on some mild dirt tracks, where it performed very well.  The suspension absorbs most small bumps, though large ones seem to reverberate through the cabin.  The seats are nice and supportive (probably for off-road comfort), if maybe a bit stiff.
Where you may expect the Jeep to fall down is fuel economy.  Jeep rates the Wrangler Unlimited Sport (On their website) as 17 city/21 Hwy, which doesn't seem so good.  However, in around 250 miles of 45 MPH driving, we used about half a tank, which is quite good.
All in all then, the Wrangler Unlimited was the perfect car for the island of Molokai.  It does on-road driving, warm weather fun, and it'll go anywhere you like, provided you can get into it.
And, with prices starting at around $26,00, it is significantly cheaper than many alternative trucks or SUVs.  However, I have a sneaking suspicion that pretty well every other Jeep is still a bit crap.











http://www.jeep.com/en/2014/wrangler-unlimited/photos-and-videos/#filter=all&asset=13

From the Passenger's Perspective: 2013 Buick Regal

I don't like Buicks.  I really don't.  I think they're dimwitted, slow, boring, ugly, and far too cheap-feeling.  I also buy into the stereotype that the average age of a Buick owner is 112.  This Regal marked the first time I've been in a Buick, and in fact the first time I've been in a GM product since I was little in my dad's Chevrolet Silverado.  This particular Regal was a rental car for the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
On first impressions, this white Regal seemed very boring.  Sure, it isn't ugly, but it is the most generic-looking car I've ever been in.  Something that emphasizes this fact is the cover of the owner's manual.  In my family's Mercedes-Benz C-Class, there is a striking photo of the car in front of what I remember as being a cityscape or some buildings.  In the Regal, though, you get a black and white picture of a bridge and the words "2013 Buick Regal" in block letters in the lower left-hand corner.  Ghastly.

The interior isn't a whole lot better.  All of the buttons are absolutely gigantic, probably owing to the older demographic who buy this car.  For example, the traction control (On a Buick?!) button is about 4 inches long and an inch tall.  It is huge.  And in the center is a tiny, tiny little white picture of skid marks behind a car.  It's much the same story with the parking sensor button.  This Regal has Buick's IntelliLink system, which is the most user-unfriendly system I've ever seen.  To navigate the system's very limited features you have to do a combination of spinning the wheel and clicking it from one side to another, not too complicated.  The problem is that it is virtually impossible to do because the wheel only moves to the sides about a billionth of an inch.  And the wheel is on the center stack, not the usual place on the center console like what BMW and Mercedes do.  Another thing was that every time I  clicked the wheel, it never really did the same thing twice.  However, I was finally able to get into the car's settings.  So I hope whoever rents that Buick next can speak French-Canadian, can convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, and knows how to tell time on a 24-Hour scale.

Another thing I noticed was that the steering wheel was absolutely massive.  It is like something you'd find on a 1600s pirate ship.  Except with more useless buttons.
The driving experience is rather similar.  Obviously, it doesn't handle with much aplomb, but it is reasonable.  However, the engine is pretty pathetic.  It has virtually no power, and whenever you go near the throttle, it makes a terrible belching noise, and doesn't give any noticeable change in velocity whatsoever.  The handling is bearable, not exactly sporty, but that isn't what the car is for.  This car was clearly made for a specific demographic.  I won't say which demographic that is, but I think you know what I mean.  Many of them live in Florida.
So the Buick Regal is not my kind of car.  It try's to do luxury, which takes away from the driving experience, but then it doesn't do luxury very well either.  However, it is rather comfortable, even though the seats are a bit stiff.  The Regal is, however, a decent little runabout that retirees (oops) can use to run around town and occasionally visit friends.