If there’s one thing we can always count on with the cars we drive, it is that at a random unspecified point in its existence, it’s that the shi…uh…oil will hit the pan. Be it a 2019 Volvo or a 1995 GMC, every vehicle will break down eventually. Such an event happened to me this past summer, and oh boy, what an event it was. Buckle up, oh my audience, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Welcome to my review of the Ford Freestyle, a rental car for people who like to flirt with Death…even though Death has a top speed of about 65 km/h in this case.
‘Twas the night before August, and all through the lot, every car each ran smoothly, except mine (which did not). All of a sudden, arose such a clatter. My transmission went -“CRUNCH POPPITY POP”, and I got madder and madder.
Something something Santa, blah blah No CAA Coverage, yadda yadda $900 dollar repair job, you know the song.
Amazing song analogy aside, my car was making terrifying noises which in turn prompted me to seek the help that only the oil-coated hands of a master mechanic could deliver. So, off to the countryside garage your intrepid narrator drove, praying to the God of Transmissions to grant him safe passage across the legendary valley known to some as the “Four Oh One”. Somehow, by some miracle, I made it. It was at that fateful moment in time that I was introduced to the vehicle which I would drive for the next two-ish days. Upon exiting the garage office almost a grand lighter, I hesitantly clicked my rental’s key FOB, and shuddered at what it activated.
Is it a car? An SUV, perhaps? No, surely it must be an aesthetically-cursed bus, squashed beyond recognition by several very fat schoolchildren? As it turns out, what I was staring at was in fact a Ford Freestyle. It was a crossover, one of the first models that the Ford Motor Company produced sometime in 2007. And oh my good goddamn was it ugly. With detailing accented with rust, and a front bumper that had clearly been replaced at least twice, this vehicle had might have been considered new and daring ten years ago, but looked like a criminal plodding slowly towards the electric chair now. I winced, sighed, and got into the driver’s seat.
The smell hit me before anything else. I felt, for a brief moment in time, that I was sitting in the middle of a barnyard. The Freestyle had clearly been used to haul some form of farm-related paraphernalia at some point in the not-to-distant past, the scent from which still lingered. Luckily enough, I have relatives who own a farm, so the smell was by and large nostalgic for me, as opposed to offending.
Driving the thing home was another matter entirely.
A one time inspection of the vehicle had me already a bit nervous, as the sidewall of the tires was sporting age/weather related cracks. When combined with the near baldness of the all-season tires, I was more than a little spooked. Things got worse when I got on the highway. With acceleration akin to a Windows 95 connecting to the internet, the Freestyle groaned into a barely acceptable highway speed of 70 km/h. Pushing it beyond this would result in a protest of thumps, clatters and sputters. This car wanted to die, for me to drive it into a median and send us both to Valhalla in a flaming blaze of glory. I had a mean craving for spaghetti, so the Freestyle was given no such honor.
Upon arriving home, I curiously glanced under the crossover, maybe to glimpse what was making such death rattles. The answer was rust. Oh, so very much rust. I wasn’t surprised, but all the same…flakes for days down there. It was at that moment when I figured out why those cracks where present in such numbers on the tires: this car probably hadn’t the structural integrity for any body work for years. As such, nothing had been taken off of or replaced, save maybe an oil change here and there. Yet, it was to be my ride to and from work for the next 48 hours, so I steeled myself to make the best of it.
As I am alive today to tell you this tale, you may correctly assume that the Freestyle made it back to the garage in one piece. I returned a month later for more car-related woes, but did not see the freakish vehicle hanging around. Perhaps it met its match at the hands of a semi-truck, or bottomed out when its pilot tried to reach a reasonable 100 km/h. Either way, I believe the Ford Freestyle went to the Great Parking Lot in the Sky, because in spite of being an absolute nightmare of a car, it probably meant well.
Fast Food, Slow Cars 