loaner car driving tips

8. Donuts, donuts, donuts! On as many surfaces (asphalt, gravel, grass, snow?) as possible.

Alex Van Halen (on phone to rental car company): I need another rental car, please. The door on this one won't open.
Customer service rep: Do you have any idea why the door won't open?
AVH: Well, the car *is* laying on its side.

I once read an article by a European claiming that abuse of rental cars was a uniquely American phenomenon.

A co-worker was bragging awhile back about the great deal he got buying a used Ford Mustang convertible from Hertz. I thought 'I'm sure a rental car like *that* was never abused' :-)

Our car is being recalled for repairs (apparently there's a chance it could go on fire quite spontaneously) and those fuxors at A**0ld CI@rk are giving us a courtesy car.

We had one for a few days when we got our new car last february due to A**0ld CI@rk being twats to the extreme. We took it up a dangerously icy single track army road, got rammed by a sheep and slid the car down a hill sideways. It was the same model as the car we had just bought which we hadn't yet tested to it's limitations, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

My own experience - when I've done things like this in my own car by accident - is that it just won't go into an "unsuitable" gear, even with the clutch down. Or, at least, it takes more strength to force it that I have in my left arm.

(I have a nasty habit, when I'm not paying attention when driving, of getting my left arm and leg out of sync, so I bring my foot up before putting the car into the new gear. That can't be good for the gearbox.)