Car hire from LAX..

Murphy_The_Cat

Foxtbh wrote: »

I'm torn, really. I actually quite like luxury (my own car is a 5 Series) but I often drive a Z4 and simply love having the roof down, it's fantastic fun. And everyone says having a Convertible on Highway 101 is just one of those things you HAVE to do.

A Luxury is about the same price as a Convertible, so it isnt even a cost thing...

Just a quick thought - what time of year are you going ? If its Summer, i'd give the convertable a miss. Driving along for several hours whilst being incinerated in the Californian Summer Sunshine would be bloody awful. However if you're talking more Autumn than Summer, then way up the pros and cons.

In my recent trips to America I've always booked a Luxury Class car and generally I've been very happy with what I've been given (I've not been able to choose for a few years now. This year I got a Cadillac CTS, which was very nice indeed, but the bigger STS or DTS would have been even better. The car before that was a Lincoln TownCar and the car before that was a Cadillac DTS. The only disappointment of recent trip was a Chrysler 300 Touring , a lower mid range car (NOT a 300C), which was, to put it mildly, rubbish. But we swapped it for another without any fuss a few days later.

neilbond007

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Just a quick thought - what time of year are you going ? If its Summer, i'd give the convertable a miss. Driving along for several hours whilst being incinerated in the Californian Summer Sunshine would be bloody awful. However if you're talking more Autumn than Summer, then way up the pros and cons.

In my recent trips to America I've always booked a Luxury Class car and generally I've been very happy with what I've been given (I've not been able to choose for a few years now. This year I got a Cadillac CTS, which was very nice indeed, but the bigger STS or DTS would have been even better. The car before that was a Lincoln TownCar and the car before that was a Cadillac DTS. The only disappointment of recent trip was a Chrysler 300 Touring , a lower mid range car (NOT a 300C), which was, to put it mildly, rubbish. But we swapped it for another without any fuss a few days later.

On the coast it's not that hot though.

On the 300, don't you just love the grill on the front whistling if you go about 70mph?

Foxtbh

I'm going in September and taking in LA, SD, Vegas and SF.

Presumably though if its hot and you are on a freeway you can simply put the roof up and whack the AC on?

Gloomendoom

It depends how much you are into open air motoring. We kept the roof down all the time even through Death Valley (47°C). You soon get acclimatised to the heat.

There's a piccy in this thread

As has been said, it is much cooler on the coast, but certainly not cool enough to put the roof up.
.
.
..

Murphy_The_Cat

neilbond007 wrote: »

On the coast it's not that hot though.

On the 300, don't you just love the grill on the front whistling if you go about 70mph?

For you, its probably not so hot, but for us pasty Brits, its stifling
If i can remember properly, SD never really had the extremes of weather, either side of LA could be read hot, the Southern end of Highway 1 was really war, the Northern end less so, and SF could be quite (by comparison) chilly.
As for the whistling 300 grill, I never noticed

Foxtbh wrote: »

I'm going in September and taking in LA, SD, Vegas and SF.

Presumably though if its hot and you are on a freeway you can simply put the roof up and whack the AC on?

But if you're going to put the roof up and whack on the a/c, why get a soft top ? A few years ago I got a Sebring covertible for the few days that we were in Southern California and it was fun whilst we had it - but the Chrysler Concorde (forerunner to the 300) was much, much more practical and comfy. It was mid-late June when we did that trip

Foxtbh

Because I'm going to be doing a wide variety of driving. Putting the top up for a long highway trip is fine - because it can go down again through cities and national parks.

neilbond007

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

For you, its probably not so hot, but for us pasty Brits, its stifling

I'm a Brit! Moved out here 14 months ago

Calling me a yank... I won't hold that against you....