A little fantasy road test

[wstander]

My little fantasy road test in the same vein as our favorite infamous CR report on the the Insight follows.

I chose to parody off of the new 2010 Camaro, due to its also being reintroduced after a short hiatus and also in a slightly different form.


I was handed the keys to a new 2010 Camaro by a friend at the dealer and he wanted me to drive it around, show it off to friends and all, and then write a little summary of the experience as it pertained to daily life instead of the test track.

Day one: Picked the car up and drove to Jim’s house. Jim is a coworker who really liked the Insight, and declared the rear seat suitable for him to ride in a 30 mile commute when necessary… after he bumped his head entering the car. Jim was very excited to see the new Camaro, and he had a mission for us. Babysittiing the twin grandchildren in the carseats, plus the requisite nanny dog, Maggy the Black Lab, he wanted me to transport he and the 3 over to his daughter’s house first, then we could go ‘check out the car’. 
I agreed. The Camaro of course, has the latest LATCH system installed for child seats to fit in the rear seats of the car. Now, that being said, the back seat is cramped, and getting access through the 2 doors is tricky and tight. But we did succeed in locking the child seats an then the twins in position…every one is happy except Maggy…no place for her in the back. Normally, she would ride in the rear hatch area of the Insight, looking over her ‘charges’ protectively, but there is no more room in the back of the Camaro, so she adopted Jim’s lap and was able to observe the back of the car over the center console.

Twenty miles later, we arrive and offload the twins, Maggy, and the twins’ carriers, etc. We are off to do some, uh, impromptu seat of the pants road work near the dairy farm roads….Jim has his stopwatch, and we both just want to see what this puppy can do, unleashed as it were. The basic car has a 304 HP V6 with a 6 spd manual transmission, both taken from the Cadillac CTS. Rated at 17/29MPG. We checked out the acceleration, and it seemed quite brisk….our MPG numbers returned a bit less than 15MPG during all of the white smoky burnouts and redline throttle runs, but I assume under more moderate legal conditions, 23 or so would be the norm. All ofthis on Premium Fuel, of course. Some day we will try it out, but Jim and I were feeling the ‘need for speed’ and so irritated the Holsteins a bit more before heading back to our homes and tending to more mundane matters. For more ‘professional review’ of the Camoro, check out the usual places, such as Edmuds or Kelly…

But, I digress:

Out on the road, my wife had called and reminded me that we needed to go to the commissary for our monthly run. I dropped Jim off at his house, and headed home. After shopping and filling up 2 huge carts of groceries, a normal $400.00 grocery bill for the month that fit neatly and tightly in the Insight, we had a quandary: Seems that the trunk of the Camaro LOOKS big, but it is shallow and will hold 11.3 cu ft. The Insight of course, can hold 32 cu ft…2 trips later, we have our food at home…better plan next time

Of course, the Camaro was never intended to be a workhorse, but still….that is a lot of car not to be able to hold much cargo.

Ah, the weekend. We took the car up to Julian, got a pie, drove around the area for a while, and headed back to Ramona and home, where we once again filled the 19gallon tank with Premium. This time the mpg improved a bit to 20, owing to the low speeds, etc.

Sunday morning we awoke to discover that the TV was dead…hmmmm. Hey, great excuse to get a new flat-panel!!

Have breakfast, check the internet ads, and find that WalMart has a bunch of sets, from 42-46” LCD as well as plasma…

Jump into the car, and drive down to the Poway store, where we find a very nice RCA 26” LCD which exactly fits the bill!! Earlier, we also found a cabinet kit which I have to assemble that will look great and provided a base for the TV as well as storage for the Sony HTIB that we hooked it to.

Buy the TV and we wheel it to the car…

UH OH….(you think we would learn….)

I thought that it would fit in either the trunk, or possibly upright across the rear floor……..wrong!! Nuthin’ fits back there, save little kids and some groceries!! Manager did tell me that a guy with an Explorer had a similar problem and had to fold down the back seats in order to ride the TV flat on its back instead of the preferred upright..

Back to the store, the manager marks our purchases and we proceed home to retrieve the Insight. On the way, we stop at Crate&Barrel where we had purchased the cabinet kit earlier, loaded it and then it was back to WalMart, where we loaded the TV in to the back on top of the cabinet pack. Mind you, the back is FULL and visibility is only through the mirrors, but we took our time and nervously drove home slowly, ever mindful of every little bump and the lowness of our car with this weight. But we, did get safely home, and as it was early on a Sunday in a rural area, met little traffic.

Insight still returned 41.1MPG, by the way

In closing, the staff at WR (Walter Reports) cannot in good conscience recommend this 2010 Camaro as a primary vehicle even at the base price of $22,245.00. This car is best left as a toy and given that it is an entirely new model, there is not sufficient information to estimate its reliability.

WR acceptability score: not acceptable