Today, I was discussing a problematic machine with a workmate. I tried to compare to a bad auto when something struck me: all the go-to awful cars (Edsel, Pinto, Yugo, etc.) tend to date from at least 30 years ago. What is the modern day, say after 1990, iconic bad car. And does the absence of one say anything about modern day cars?
Aztek
Sure, the quality of the cars of today is far improved across the board (while the Aztek was widely panned and was certainly hideous looking, it was probably still a better, safer, and more reliable performer than most cars that preceded it in decades past.)
I’ll nominate the Chevy Aveo. It came to my attention when I was shopping for a used car a little while ago. If you do a search with some minimum mileage and years, sort by price ascending, the Aveos dominate the low priced listings. Having driven one as a rental, I can see why. And on top of that it gets the worst reliabiltiy ratings too IIRC.
It particularly stood out because all the other automakers have managed to come up with compact cars that are at least halfway decent.
It seems to me that the Aveo was the last of the American automakers’ grand strategy of selling efficient shitboxes to fleet customers to meet their fuel economy standards.
I’ve owned both with no problems, but I regularly see people grousing about the MINI Cooper and Fiat 500.
A bad car 30 years ago would refuse to start in the morning, or it would conk out miles from home, or overheat and puke it’s coolant out in rush hour traffic, stranding you. Or it would start visibly rusting before it was a year old. A “bad car” today has a flaky touch screen, or the check engine light came on once, or somethings squeaking/rattling/vibrating. That’s not to say there aren’t modern/new cars which have refused to start or died on the road, but it’s far, far less common.
Really, it seems the most accepted definition of a bad car these days is one which doesn’t live up to the asking price. I’d nominate the 2007-2010 Dodge Caliber and Avenger, Chrysler Sebring, and Jeeps Compass and Patriot. They were miserably cheap, flimsy, noisy, uninspired, and the worst examples of the Daimler-mandated cheapening of Chrysler group vehicles. It’s not that they were necessarily unreliable, but for the asking price you could have done so much better.
I heard bad things about the quality of the Dodge Neon, and Wikipedia indicates it scored very poorly on crash tests.
I drove a '96 Geo Metro for several years. It was cheap, it started every time, and it got good mileage. Otherwise, it was not exactly a fine automobile. I remember hearing the Car Talk guys refer to it as “unmitigated junk”. It had the safety features required at the time, but I’m glad I never had to see them in action. After driving it for three years the engine started to sound like a sewing machine. But, hey, it sounded like a sewing machine that started every time I turned the key. For a guy recently out of college and struggling to make ends meet, it was fine, and as previous posters have noted, it was probably vastly better quality than a Vega or a Pinto.
The Lexus SC line has been widely panned by reviewers for its entire (amazingly long) production run. It’s the sort of “bad car” jz describes, though - a piece of shit for the money, not just a piece of shit. It wasn’t even all that bad, either; it just didn’t have anything to recommend it to a person under the age of 75.
I test drove a new Dodge Neon SXT in 2002. The sales guy told me it had just arrived on the lot that day, which was a mistake. Every single piece of interior trim was loose or actually falling off, including a rubber mat that lined a cubby in front of the gear selector which had folded over revealing six inches of cheap plastic covered in melted glue. It was without doubt the worst interior I had ever seen (and I was driven around in many, many British Leyland cars as a child, so that’s saying something).
I tested a Ford Focus the same week which was also quite bad, though much better.
Yeah, I am constantly amazed at how reliable modern cars are (though I suspect that may be partly to do with the fact that people don’t keep them on the road for as long as they did in the past).
This review of the 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage is what you’re looking for. And Hilarious!
on the contrary, the average age of car on the road (in the US) keeps getting longer and longer.
11.5 years?!?!? That can’t be right. I doubt I see more than one or two cars that old on a day-to-day basis.
Yes, that was absolutely fabulous. Thanks for the laugh this morning.
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. Confirmation bias and all that, but I seem to see a lot of older cars on the road. Getting a car to 100,000 miles used to be an accomplishment. Now, 200,000 miles is common. I’m kind of torqued that a little body panel is loose on my 2006 car with almost 200,000 miles on it. I mean, come on! Where was QA on that one?! The car’s practically brand-new! The average age of the cars in my household is 14 years.
I’m sure you do, actually. But they are in such good shape and the models don’t change that much anymore that they just blend into the background.
I’d be willing to bet that it’s a little bit confusing these days; unless you know what a particular model year of a particular car looks like, you may not know that the cars are as old as they are, especially considering that paint/clearcoat has become better than ever before.
So if a car’s not beat all to hell, and isn’t filthy-dirty, the chances of it having shiny paint are pretty high, and unless you know that particular model is of 2005 vintage, you may never realize how old a particular car is.
I mean, if you saw one of thesedriving around, would you instantly twig to 12 year old car?
even if we take that at face value, if everyone around you always has a new car, the cars they’re replacing have to go somewhere.
Yep. My Wife just traded in her 14 year old Jeep, I have a 12 year old truck and 10 year old Pathfinder. Both of them are doing great.
I regularly see Saturns and Pontiacs and Olds Aleros out on the road that still seem to be in pretty good shape, and how long has it been since they quit making those?
Yep. The lack of radical design change and modern quality control means cars last a lot longer than they used to if you don’t abuse them. I just traded in my 16 year old Nissan but still have the 13 year old Saturn.