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Observations
From
A Local New Car Show
First,
if I were executives with Honda, Audi, Cadillac,
and Toyota, I'd be very worried.
Your
vehicles suck.
After
having sat in almost anything I could, I have to
say that the brands mentioned above had some of
the worst vehicles I have ever sat
in. And since these brands
have been hyped lately in the automotive press,
the only explanation for the hype is bribery.
I
tested each car first by sitting in front,
adjusting the seat (where possible) to fit me -
a 6 foot guy, and then sitting behind the seat
adjusted for me.
Let
me deal with Honda (and the same applies to
Acura)
What
an over-rated brand this is. This
company had some of the worst interiors I've
seen for the money - materials and overall
seating were piss poor - cheap - and not very
roomy. And these were over-priced
vehicles. I found none of them comfortable
to sit in and there wasn't much interior room in
them either.
Audi
- I wanted to love Audi, but honestly, this
brand has cars that are just plain dull
looking. I took time to survey the
collection of vehicles and there was just
boredom all over the display.
Cadillac
- now officially the first company to ever give
me a leg cramp sitting in one of their horrific
products. The absolute worst product
I have ever sat in (previously a Chevrolet
Cobalt) is the Cadillac ATS - this is a four
door car with a back seat that has only about
three inches from the back of the front seat to
the rear seat cushion leading edge.
I tried to sit in this seat and ended up with a
Charlie horse in my left calf - I almost could
not get out of the car. I ended up
on my side on the back seat cushion and then had
a friend help my legs out of the
car. A woman who happened upon this
car as I was trying to get out said "there
is no room in there is there?"
Duh.
Cadillac's
next size up car, the new CTS, had almost as
little back seat room. My legs were
PINNED to the back of the front
seat. The nearly $50k sticker
price on this car was shocking.
Toyota.
Pure shit. Everything
sucked. New interiors look like they
cam from 1960's Detroit cars. Even
Detroit stopped building that level of
shit. Ugly. Not one thing of
beauty on the floor.
Cramped. Expensive. |
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There
were some surprises and that is why I said there
was a changing of the guard.
Hyundai.
This company had consistently superb
products. No Hyundai was as cramped as any
Cadillac and the higher up the model lineup, the more
roomy the product and no Cadillac could
match. Interior quality was shockingly good
- and in overall fit and finish and design execution,
superior to Cadillac and Honda and
Toyota.
Nissan.
Absolutely hands down superior to Honda and Toyota at
all levels across the board. The roomiest
vehicles sold today are made by Nissan. The
least expensive car on the floor, a Versa, had more
usable interior room than any Cadillac on
display. Embarrassing. When I
was cramped in a Honda Civic, the Nissan Sentra was like
a limo in the back. When the Honda Accord
was surprisingly not roomy, the Altima was
impressive. Interior design and materials
were superb and vastly superior to Honda and Toyota.
Volkswagen
- Aside from being the dullest looking vehicles I could
see, these cars were roomy and comfortable.
I know Volkswagen quality sucks - you may get 24,000
miles out of them before they have problems, but they
were some of the roomiest cars on the floor.
Ford - if
floor traffic and length of time spent waiting to get in
a car is any indication, Ford is a winner. I
generally enjoyed every Ford I sat in.
Almost every Ford was vastly superior in build quality
and attention to detail than anything Government Motors
builds. I loved the Fusion and the
C-Max. There was no new Mustang to look at
:(
Chevrolet
- pure shit. Awful. The new
Impala had an interior color combination that I can best
call "Pumpkin orange and black" - it was
stomach churning. The new Malibu was as
cramped as any of the Cadillacs. The new
truck (it isn't really new) was vastly oversold by the
press. It felt and looked cheap. I was
shocked. Had to go sit in an F-150
immediately afterwards - Chevrolet has a lot of work to
do - the Ford was hands down nicer.
Buick -
total shit EXCEPT for the Regal. It was
nice, but it really isn't a Buick. It's an Opel
rebadged as a Buick with chrome cross-dressing
accents. Everything else Buick built was
unattractive and tacky. The revised 2014
Buick LaCrosse had enough fake wood to make two mobile
home interiors - you know the kind - with that wood
paneling all over. It was absolutely
horrific - had dog shit brown interior. It
was not as cramped as the Cadillacs, but I wanted to
vomit from the garish colors.
BMW - ho
hum. Expensive.
Infiniti
- used to be nice - now they are ugly.
Lexus -
so ugly that you could catch rabies looking at them.
Scion -
this could possibly be the worst and ugliest and most
useless brand of cars ever conceived.
You will never hear of anyone being conceived in the
backseat of a Scion. They are boner killers.
Volvo -
these were once nice. I was not impressed.
Jaguar -
too beautiful to sit in. Expensive as shit.
Land
Rover - $70k seems to be the low rent model.
OMG.
Lincoln -
they are rebuilding but I'd rather have the Fords.
Chrysler/Dodge/Fiat
- these things sell? It was like going back
to the 1990's - so dull and bland. |
Thank you! I have just canceled my subscription to Consumer Reports! You have saved me so much time and money. Who needs all those ratings anyway? (Predicted Reliability, Owner Satisfaction, Accident Avoidance, Overall MPGs, Child Safety, etc.)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry - Consumer Reports is based primarily on its subscribers' data and this is skewed toward imported vehicle responses. Consumer Reports has a rather limited population of data and the real world is quite different.
ReplyDeleteMy observations are spot on - I didn't just make up what I saw - it is a fact that the vehicles I panned deserved to be panned - they are either highly overrated and are resting on their laurels like Honda, or are being promoted for some agenda that I have no comprehension (like Cadillac) - the fact remains the cars I said were cramped were cramped - the impressions of quality are my own, but that doesn't mean I was wrong. As someone who values frugality and simplicity, I am unmoved by gimmicks like the Honda Civic dashboard which is all gimmick and not easy to use - and it looked cheap.
And it is true - the hands down most roomy vehicles were made by Nissan and Volkswagen - that is not a lie or made up - I tested these vehicles as I said and if I, as a 6 foot man, cannot sit in the back seat behind another 6 foot man, then the vehicle is useless - dealing with average statistics and measurements and that is the real world. Some vehicles were smartly designed and some were horrific - like most Government Motors sedans.