I've rented cars with CarPlay before; I find that the ideal way to go about it is to do a location search as I'm walking to the car and start navigation; once I plug in the phone and enter CarPlay, it picks up seamlessly onscreen.
I am not sure if UI elements went off screen or there is a bug/quirk when its active. However it selected a destination from ages for me when connected.
I just find it odd than when I use CarPlay to play music the UI is actually worse than if I use the car's built in display to show what the phone/ipod is playing. It was like Atari 2600 vs modern display type differences
It works so well for text message interactions though (for me and my accent). I’ve had whole conversations with my wife only through Siri dictation and have come away mostly impressed.