Chevrolet's Fleet Queen Abdicates The Throne
Chevrolet is ending American imports of the Captiva Sport, a fleet-only crossover that was popular with rental car companies.
With the introduction of the Trax, Chevrolet no longer needs the Captiva Sport in its lineup. The Captiva was originally designed to pick up the slack of the Equinox, which was in tight supply when the Captiva Sport was introduced in 2011. Automotive News reports that the Trax, built in Korea, is expected to take up the position that the Captiva did, and also offer a third crossover option for Chevy’s retail customers.
Despite the enthusiast interest generated by the Captiva’s fleet-only status, the Captiva received two damning reviews from both Jack and Bark M. On occasion, I’ve been offered a Captiva as an “upgrade” from my usual Escape or Impala at the Avis counter, and I’ve declined every single time, based on the condemnation of Jack and Bark. I may not get a chance to review a rental Captiva, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be missing much.
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Let them eat cake!
I had a Captiva as a rental. The TTAC review was spot on - it is tossable - handling is really surprising. That is the only nIce thing that can be said. It is otherwise a steaming pile of crap. Cheap interior materials, uncomfortable seating position, infotainment a decade outdated, gutless, noisy, poor use of space exterior dimensions vs interior, poorly built. Hated it, and I've turned them down when offered as an "upgrade." I knew something was up on this when I saw in GMs October numbers only 3 dozen Captivas had been delivered.
For being "fleet only," I have seen lots of these with people clearly owning as their personal car. I don't think the fleet bit was stuck to all that well at any point. There are two or three in the garage here at work.
I have sampled numerous examples of the Captiva Sport (and after they'd been abused in rental fleets for several thousand miles). Honestly, the only thing wrong with it is that it doesn't have GM's latest "Global-A" electronics architecture (but neither do the Lambdas), and for that reason it feels a bit dated...and of course the stigma attached with buying something that was without doubt a secondhand, ex-fleet vehicle. That's it. Other than that, it wears decidedly better styling than the Equinox and Terrain, has ample space, handles well, and can be had with large alloys, a backup camera, remote start, sunroof, and even MyLink with navigation. Most people don't even know that it's fleet-only. I think it's a fine vehicle. And as far as being a "fleet queen", quite honestly, most Chevrolets are. Nine out of ten times I rented a compact (or in Hertz' language, mid-sized) car with no reservation, I got a Cruze without requesting one (which was fine, because it was what I had wanted).