I was given some bad news on my truck, so I still have the auto HHR. I decided to so see Avatar yesterday (awesome movie in Imax 3D), putting over 150 miles on the auto. Not surprisingly, the tranny chose to downshift on a couple of hills that I am used to simply leaving mine in 5th and ignoring, as mine will not lose any speed on them - putting another feather in the manual's cap. I had an instance yesterday in the metromess where I needed to call on some power out of the engine. I felt like I was waiting an eternity as the auto was "thinking" about the best gear to be in, and seemed to pause between second and third, before finally deciding that second was the one I actually needed, and the car started to accelerate. Still, the auto seems to respond to my style of driving quite well. I now have the DIC up to 32.2 mpg. I still cannot get the damn driver's seat into a comfortable position. I know I will not buy a 1LT equipped HHR, if something happens to mine because of this seat. The ones in my LS are MUCH better.

Oh yeah, this one has just under 30k on the odometer, and there are no rattles, squeaks, or noises coming from the vehicle. Not bad given that as a rental, those miles are probably some of the hardest miles that a vehicle can be subjected to.

 

Molly Dory..........The first twins reported here on the site

 

Cool. Identical ones at that. My set up will be temporary. My truck will be fixed by tomorrow morning, and I'll be returning the red one back to Enterprise.

 

I recommend driving the auto in "I" when you feel the need, that should help with the "auto-lag"

 

My truck is now fixed, and the automatic HHR has been returned to Enterprise. I had managed to nudge the DIC up to 32.3 mpg on the drive back to Grapevine. The auto can post some pretty respectable fuel mileage numbers, but I'll be glad to be back in my truck and still prefer my 5 speed. It was still fun to put miles on a different vehicle for a few days.