Lincoln LS

Hertz is a great rental company. The gold club is free yet not everyone uses it, and I’m not sure why. Just find your name on the plaque and go to the number’d spot and there is your car, trunk open and keys in the ignition. No fussing about with signing papers and waiting in lines. Simple and easy. Anyway, I rented a Lincoln LS for the trip to see what they were like. I have to say I’m quite impressed. The American’s are finally starting to figure out how to build cars on par with the Japanese and Europeans. And Hertz isn’t skimping either. No low end model here. This puppy was the high end LS with a V8 and all the bells and whistles except the navigation system, which I added via NeverLost. The car MOVES. Nice speed, fantastic acceleration and handles great. Alot of nice touches too. Lights come on on the side mirrors that light the ground around the car when you unlock it. The steering wheel is electronic telescoping and moveable as are the pedals. Memory seats are just like the Navigator and work great. Acura could stand to learn a thing or two on how memory seats should work. Both front seats are heated and AIR CONDITIONED. I’d read about this being available in the new Navigators, but this was my first experience with them. It actually works. You ass and back get nice and chilled with three settings of cold. Amazing. That would be awesome in Houston. The rear view mirror and the side mirrors auto dim, which is nice. Good button placement on the steering wheel including an mute button for the stereo system which is loaded with speakers, two for each front passenger actually. And this LS wasn’t in the fake/real wood trim either. It was all modern brushed chrome looking. Overall I was very impressed with this car. The trunk could have been a bit larger, it was ALOT smaller than the Acura’s and hard to get our suitcase into, odd given the relative size of the rest of the car. My only hesitation in actually owning one was that this one was new with only 86 miles on it and it had some noticable creeks here and there. This may be due to the horrible streets in Houston or just an artifact of American construction, since most US built cars creak more than thier foreign counterparts. I will say though that the Acura CL is creaking a bit now at 13,000+ miles. So it may be a wash. Depends on if the LS creaking gets worse over time.