Chevy Equinox

Our rental car for our recent trip to Clearwater Beach was a Chevy Equinox, and that ended up being quite the challenge.  Instead of a shifter in the normal place between the front seats, it was on the column, as you see in the first picture below.  It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to get it in reverse, which involved pulling the stick towards me, then pushing it up.  To go forward, pull the stick and push down.  Push the button on the right, and you put it in park.  

If that wasn't bad enough, operating the wipers was a totally confusing mess.  While shifting gears occurs when you're not moving and you have a moment, needing wipers happens while you're in motion, and you shouldn't take your eyes off the road, made even more important on unfamiliar roads.  The second picture shows the unusual design where you twist one of the two mechanisms for the front wipers and the other for the back.  And you push the button on the end for wiper fluid.

Finally, it took me a solid five minutes to figure out how to turn the volume up.  I looked all over for the normal plus and minus signs or anything else that might indicate volume.  Nothing.  I found the power on/off button you see in the final picture, with its typical power icon.  Then I thought maybe it was also a twist knob.  Bingo, that was it.  

I've driven many, many rental cars over the years, but nothing came close to the confusion this caused.  Having this very unconventional design in a rental is a really bad idea.