Driving in an aluminium can

I was so happy last night to be driving my own car!

I hired a Kia Cerato over in Tasmania.Hertz are one of the only hire car companies to offer a manual car in the compact size, and I have previously hired the manual Toyota Corolla from them whilst in Melbourne.On picking up my car in Hobart, Hertz attempted to "Upgrade" me to an automatic car. Since I did not consider this to be an upgrade, and there are quite a few hills in Tasmania I asked if they could give me a manual as I had requested.

I travelled over 1000km in the car, and I was not impressed at all by it. The Corolla would have been much more preferable.

Positives
- large boot size. There was room enough for two suitcases, something that the Corolla lacks.

Negatives
- No guts. I got into my car last night… coming out of a roundabout going 20kmh and up an incline in third gear I accelerated. The Kia would have gone backwards.
- crappy gears. I constantly stalled the Kia, I could not get used to the gearbox. Usually it takes me a day or two however the Kia was just too temperamental. In contrast I got into my car last night and it felt like I had not been driving another car at all.
- really light steering and really light car. It felt like I was driving in an aluminium can.
- central locking. You could not lock the car from the drivers door. Instead you had to wait until you had driven 20m down the road and it would lock itself. Then, when you turned off the car it would unlock all of the doors! Not my idea of security. (According to the brochure I just downloaded on the website it is the "Speed Sensing Auto Door Lock".)

The biggest thing really was that I did not enjoy driving the Kia. I have been a bit sceptical about Kia's, and now having driven one will not rush to repeat the experience. I would rather buy a better quality second hand car than spend my money on a new Kia Cerato.

According to the website the Cerato has a 2.0L engine. I cannot believe it! It is a world apart from my 2.0L Mazda3.