HHR Rental Review Part Deux

Saturday’s drive was a nice jaunt down to Carmel. We started off the morning with a spin to South San Francisco’s JoAnn’s Café. Don’t kid yourself on City Guide rating, though, Rick and Ann’s Restaurant is better. Adding in another passenger, related hiking gear, and turning on the A/C really added to the engine’s load. The engine was far buzzier and there was more transmission hunting going on. However, when the freeway flattened out I found myself going 80+ without noticing.

In the light of day the HHR still looks great! I love the gunslit windows and hunkered down stance. On the inside I noticed that the HVAC controls were hard to see. The chrome ring that selects the vents for example only has a small indent to show your selection. It’s very hard to see this indent, so I ended up spinning the dial until I physically felt the air coming out in the right places. A brighter mark would really help the situation. Getting comfortable also provide to be a task. I needed to push the seat back so that my legs didn’t crash into the center console. However, when I did this the steering wheel got further away and with no telescoping feature it had to bring the seatback to an upright position. After fiddling for quite some time I found a decent compromise but with no memory feature it would quickly be destroyed by another driver. I looked into the lighting situation that I had complained about in the previous review. There is an LED hidden behind a hole in the roof that shines down onto the console. A nice feature aped from higher end cars. The problem is, there is no lens to focus the beam of light. It’s literally a bulb behind a hole. This scatters light towards the driver and can make it a bit distracting. Surely it can’t cost that much to refine this feature? Overall, however, quality is way up on this product—GM has made great strides with this interior.

In the ride and handling department the HHR is definitely on the cushier side—but not Buick soft. I didn’t get a chance to really wring the car out on the curves as there was a lot of traffic, but I didn’t get quite the level of confidence that I do from cars such as the Mazda 3. I always felt there was a bit of guess work in judging exactly how much wheel turning was necessary in the corners. Turn too little or too much and passengers will soon change the topic of conversation to your driving skills. The Mazda 3 really makes you look like a rock star. The HHR isn’t bad, but you’ve got to pay attention—it just doesn’t communicate as well. Braking is disc in the front and boo, hiss drum in the rear. Driving solo the brakes feel okay, but adding extra passengers and gear starts to show their weakness—especially in repeated braking applications. Those drums in the rear really can’t deal with the heat. I’d add grippier pads in the front to help the situation.

One trick feature is remote start. Pressing the lock button and then holding down on the remote start button will get the HHR fired up from up to 120 feet away. When your ready to go you can just unlock the steering column with the key and drive away. Very nice to come back to a pre chilled or pre heated car.

A few final thoughts on the HHR: I love the styling. I can’t get over it and every time I walked back to the car I tried to find a reason to buy it. However, I just don’t think I can come up with a good business case. The car is a bit underpowered from what I’m used to. Adding a turbo like the Solstice GXP’s would do wonders even if it was detuned a little to prevent torque steer. Handling and braking are also factors that don’t favor the HHR in enthusiastic driving. Driven at 5/10ths the HHR is a fine, reasonably economic (we averaged between 24-27mpg), uniquely styled ride. Ratchet up the pace, however, and the HHR starts to give way rapidly. You’d lose space and styling points but going with the Mazda 3 would ultimately reward your lust for good performance. In my mind the HHR’s flaws aren’t anything that GM couldn’t fix easily. Perhaps there is a sporting version headed our way and if that is the case I think that things could be quite interesting. In the meantime I’d recommend that you try the HHR to see if it fits your needs. The HHR and its sister the Cobalt are leaps ahead of the Cavalier but still fall short when compared to the competition. The HHR wins over the Cobalt because its styling is to my liking.