Dealerships will let you test-drive--just be prepared for the hard sell.

Why not just go to the dealers and ask for a few hours in the car you are looking at?

Yes, you go to the dealer and ask for a test-drive. Or do you mean a long-term trial? To what end?

It's fun to test drive cars you have no intention of buying.

If you're actually looking for a Subaru, this Subaru FAQ has suggestions.

"Subaru rental" on Google turned that up. I say that not to sound snarky, but because I was actually totally surprised at how useful the links that turned up were. I'd assume other car manufacturers might have similar suggestions?

I would think it might be hard to get a rental for the exact model and year you want, though; I'd probably call the rental place directly (I mean, the local branches) and see if they could help.

Also, a lot of the car rental places' websites have links like "Our Fleet" that describe the makes and models of the cars they have. I've used that info a lot in the past to figure out which places made the most sense to rent from, given what I needed.

Thanks, occhiblu. I was just using Subaru as an example. I'm looking for a whole bunch of things. I did find your Subaru link, but I haven't found a comparable on for a CR-V, for instance.

We want to take whatever the car is up to Tahoe on a ski trip to see how it ACTUALLY does. I'm guessing dealerships would be cranky about that.

Honda does not do rental fleet leasing so if you find a rental that does have CR-V's it will most likely be very pricey.

Sometimes Enterprise will rent cars that aren't the blah rental oldmobuick. You have to call the place and keep calling outlets until you find something you like. And many dealer service departments have Enterprise on hand to rent out the make of cars you'd be getting fixed. You can rent from them.