Part of the varied specs are buyback/repurchase cars - the OEM dictates the spec, and agrees to buy the car back at a set monthly depreciation rate. For the most part, what the rental company buys will be a little more basic although certainly not absolutely stripped (exceptions are some of the more specialty products…

It is bizarre! I don’t quite get it. I can only imagine they have a deal with Ford where they get certain allocations of various classes of cars, and they take the ones they don’t want? Unclear!

That’s my guess I’ve rented a lot over the years and most suck, but I’ve had hemi challengers, gt and eco boost mustangs, but the stranger ones are TRD Tacoma or even trailhawk Jeeps which seem odd for a rental

I got a stick shift mustang once which blew my mind I've rented hundreds of cars through work over the last twenty years and never had a manual

I used to have to rent frequently since I traveled for work and one day the agency told me they had no cars available, as I’d landed late. When I pushed them they said they did have a stick shift available, a compact. I told them I drove stick, and was preparing to find a 5 year old manual Elantra or something like…

“Ok Mr Smith, I see your reservation is for a mid size sedan, unfortunately, our last Chevrolet Spark just left this morning. Fortunately, I do seem to have a full size coupe in inventory here and can offer you a complementary upgrade, but I would strongly recommend you spring for the supplemental insurance. Enjoy…

I’ll be the absolute first to say that I was very lucky and privileged. I graduated from grad school with no debt (school in the UK), and was able to get a good job at a supporting company. All my travel was work travel so I amassed miles and status. I’m also married to someone that also works in tech leadership so…

Dude, it’s like maybe $300 at most to upgrade out of basic coach. Like Hobbs said, if you can’t swing that in a budget you don’t have a travel budget. 

“Just about anybody can rent it”

That must be nice.

While I think business or even premium economy can be out of reach for most people, I always budget business class when I’m looking to go on vacation. If I can’t afford to fly in business (especially on a red eye across the atlantic or to Asia) then I can’t afford to take the vacation.

You flew coach on a flight over 5 hours AND managed to be on that one particular flight? Yikes. No wonder you are cranky in this post.

Let’s put aside the awful gas mileage which is inexcusable in 2022...this thing’s proportions are just...off. It makes the Commander look nice!

I would think pretty much anybody would crash if they were committing a crime and were aggressively confronted about it while attempting to fly a complicated machine. Divided attention isn’t conductive to being a pilot.

And all DJI units are registered with a DJI account to be fully unlocked. You can’t just pull open a $12-18K drone out of the box and fly it across quite a large body of water. If stolen it would have definitely been serial registered at some point, if not US or Can FAA (sorry I don’t know the name of it in Canada).

Theft is certainly not out of the realm of possibility, especially for use in a criminal enterprise. And it’s not like there isn’t plenty of rural nowhere in southwestern Ontario for someone to practice flying a drone... if they didn’t already know how to use it. No reason a freelancer couldn’t have a side hustle.

To be fair, they were flying this in the middle of the night, flying at night is a lot more difficult than flying during the day.

It’s also about $18,000, and not very common. You’d either have to have staked out an industrial user or a professional film crew to steal it. I imagine whoever is using this purchased it as an investment in order to smuggle guns/drugs/what have you across the border.

I guess, but this isn’t really the kind of drone you just plug your phone into and start flying. It’s pretty complex and requires training. It’s absolutely massive, almost 2 meters across, heavy, and requires a whole communications setup that isn’t just a phone plugged into a controller attachment. This isn’t…

This looks like a DJI Matrice - I’ve used this kind of drone to carry Blackmagic cameras. This is a very expensive drone, so this isn’t some kind of yokel, this is probably connected to some kind of organized crime.