It’s an occasionally uncomfortable fact that few entities in this world are thoroughly devoid of positive traits or features, no matter how wretched or morally bankrupt the entity is. When it comes to people, this is a slippery slope that leads to whatever Ye’s doing right now, but when it comes to cars, it’s something worth thinking about because cars are generally harmless things.
As pro-car as we are at The Autopian, each of us has cars that we personally despise. They could’ve wronged us in the past, they could be wretched to work on, or they could just be spiteful, miserable machines sold by cynical corporations who thought the public was dumber than they actually are. A great example of that last one is the Ford Ecosport.
In an attempt to compete in the subcompact crossover segment, Ford plucked a small crossover out of its developing markets line and slightly massaged it for the American market. The result was a vehicle that, by North American standards, didn’t do anything well. It didn’t ride well, it didn’t steer well, it didn’t handle well, it wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t massively spacious, it wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t even that economical. It was misery on four wheels, and yet there’s one thing I can’t hate about it.
See that? That’s a spare tire mounted to a swing-out tailgate. It’s instantly nostalgic, and it makes the Ecosport the last truly small entry-level SUV or CUV to be sold in America with this option. Sure, it’s not the most practical place to put a spare tire, it could likely do a number on the bodywork in a light rear-end collision, and it hampers rear visibility, but it’s fun and odd. Sure, models with a spare tire carrier are rare sights on the road, but I can’t be mad on the odd chance that I see one.
So, what’s something you like about a car you thoroughly dislike? Maybe it’s the power of the unreliable and impractical BMW ActiveHybrid X6 when it’s working, or the nifty multi-mode display in the Nissan Juke, or the sleeper status of the rare PT Cruiser GT Turbo. Whatever the case, let us know in the comments below.
(Photo credits: Ford, Autotrader seller)
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More for an entire car company, I’ll probably never buy a Chrysler/Dodge vehicle for a host of reasons, but I do admire that they’ve put themselves out there more than a few times with the styling of their cars and pickups over the last decade or two and still offered good ol’ raw HP, RWD cars that were reasonably affordable.
VW and BMW’s color palettes, especially the latter’s current emerald green and purple.
Corolla hybrid the fantastic mileage with adequate power.
The crazy sleeper value of a camry se with the v6. My wife had two in recent years. Invisible cars in invisible charcoal gray. Looks just like your average family snoozer sedan except for an extra exhaust pipe. I hated switching to it from my 4runner in every way except the zoom. It had lots of that.
Girlfriend’s 2016 Forester….
But have to admit, setting cruise at 76 on the interstate, it’ll hold dead on 76 through hills and valleys, and get 34 MPG?!?! Best I can get out of it is around 26-28
Hate the VW ID4 but wow was that front seat comfy
Second gen equinox I drive at work. It is actually pretty decent on fuel (4 cylinder) and has been very reliable. And they interior shows little wear after 8 years and 160,000km except the steering wheel.
I absolutely despise the Ford Taurus, the only thing I like and can give it credit for is that it no longer is made.
There are a lot of different types of Ford Taurus but I did find the front seats in the most recent one really comfortable. Though everyone’s butt is different.
Even the original?
(or is this where you say “ESPECIALLY the original!”)
All of the above. Granted I hate the original a little less than the bloated thing they call the new Taurus
I respect someone of that amount of conviction toward a line that ran as long as it did.
I dislike the Nissan Juke, but I love this Juke Nismo seats.
Nissan/Infiniti (and Volvo) have the most underrated front seats in the entire auto industry, and have been underrated for a long time.
Even the “new” Nissan Frontier. All the reviewers at TFL said that yeah the new Frontier isn’t groundbreaking… but they all loved the front seats so much.
I miss my old Volvo C30 and the seats area big reason for this.
My mom had a 2001 Volvo V70 when I was growing up, and to this day I have yet to find front seats that comfortable.
EXACLTY!
Had an 05 S60 R (6MT). And although the rest of the car was somewhat disappointing…those front seats are the most comfy I’ve ever experienced… even with rips/tears and 100k miles of an ass in them.
My old shitbox Nissan has the comfiest seat I’ve ever sat in in a car, period. I can absolutely attest to this.
I’ve never been a fan of the Volkswagen Phaeton, to me, it’s always been simultaneously over and under engineered, an unreliable maintenance pig that’s overly complicated for no real purpose, but thar loosely Art Deco inspired interior with swathes of glossy wood paneling is beautiful
I hate the fourth gen Ford Escape. It’s ugly, it’s uncomfortable, it’s cramped, it drives poorly, it makes unpleasant noises, it feels cheap, it feels like the product of a bunch of disgruntled designers angry they couldn’t be on the Bronco Sport or Maverick programs.
But dammit if Dark Persian Green isn’t one of the best paint colors used on a modern vehicle.
This!!! And of course they discontinued it after 2 years 😐
I had several of them as company cars at a previous job, put 130,000 miles on them over 5 years. Miserable penalty boxes, terrible ride, uncomfortable seats, road noise, shitty handling, gutless acceleration, noisy unrefined engine, poor fuel economy, and lousy build quality. I guess they came in some OK colors, assuming the paint didn’t peel off, which it did on one of mine
Every time someone says “they don’t make bad cars anymore” my answer is always the Escape. I didn’t have the misfortune of having to drive one for an extended period of time – a friend had one as a loaner when his Mustang was getting repaired. Since the Mustang repair was a battle between him and the dealership that tried to screw him over he had it WAY longer than he wanted, it almost felt like the dealer gave him it in order to break him down so he’d just pay for repairing the fault they knowingly sold the car with.
But Dark Persian Green, it looks good in any lighting, it has a real depth to it, it’s the only color the accursed thing looks good in. If there was justice in the world you could order it on a car that wasn’t a steaming pile.
I hate the new wagoneer, the way its marketed, the subbranding (which they have abandoned), the exterior.
But it sure is a nice interior.
I like the powertrain/suspension of the C8 Corvette, both the base but especially the Z06. But I can’t get over the fact that the body looks like it was designed in 15 minutes with a straight-edge.
It is one GTA-ass looking car.
Agreed. It’s crazy because the C7 really worked design wise.
The heated steering wheel in my Sorento. I utterly hate the vehicle (personal problem, it’s objectively a perfectly fine vehicle) but the heated wheel in Canadian winters is amazingggg.
Heated seats are a minimum feature for me, but a heated wheel is a true luxury.
The Chevy Blazer’s design.
Never a SUV/crossover guy (and I know using this nameplate in particular is proper heresy to many) but I’ve always thought Chevy did a really good job of translating the Camaro’s striking look to it. It seems to visually put the “sport(coupe)” into “SUV” in a way few others pull off.
The current “Blazer” is indeed a fine crossover or SUV or whatever the hell it’s called, but Chevrolet really should have a) canceled about a half dozen other models that all do basically the same thing the Blazer does, and b) they abso-goddamn-LUTELY should not have called it a Blazer. A Blazer is a two-door 4WD with a removable roof. Period.
See also: the Ford Mustang Mach-E. I only have one problem with it: it ain’t a goddamn mustang, goddammit. A Mustang is a RWD coupe. Period.
I’m with you on the Mach-E. And it’s become pretty clear nobody is buying it for any supposed Mustang street cred…they’re buying it b/c it’s a competent EV crossover.
Ford bungled a chance to start a new line that it could (in one of Ford’s best things) improve and augment over the years, building nameplate loyalty.
This is more about a class of cars.
I’m thinking of the reliable penalty boxes; the Nissan Sentra comes to mind, though there are certainly many others from the past few decades. As mentioned, they really don’t have a lot to recommend them: they’re uninspired and uninspiring, slow, etc. etc. etc.
However, they are frequently available for (comparatively) very little money yet they offer a huge amount of utility in getting from A to B. I like that.
Yeah, I agree on the utility for low money on basic vehicles. Especially over the last several years as small cars–Fiesta, Focus, Fit, Yaris, etc–have been pulled from the US market. Even the lowly Mirage has gained my respect.
I hated the Sebring I owned and would never own one again but damn if top down summer night driving didn’t bring me so much joy. Unfortunately the rest of the time it was a rattling pile of sadness
My mother in law had one for many year until it was written off by a light runner. I agree, when the top worked it was nice to drive with it down. Otherwise nothing to recommend it. Rattled worse than my 12 year old Subaru did. Seats that were about as comfortable as a wooden bench. Poor visibility. “Premium” sound system that sounded worse than my Kia Soul.
They used to sell a ton of Lebaron/Sebring convertibles. Apparently they are all in the junkyard now though. Couldn’t tell you the last time I saw one.
But, hey, you can impersonate Michael Scott, right?
My bestie rented one for my LA Birthday Weekend many moons ago.
It was painted that color sometimes affectionately known as “Jewish Racing Gold”
And we had to put the luggage in the back seat when the roof was down.
The interior plastics were Yahweh-awful.
But we came home nicely
tannedsunburnt.The magic seats of my former vehicle: second gen Honda HR-V. Gutless, boring, anonymous vehicle, but man I miss those practical seats. Super useful to haul my dog everywhere.
I like that a lot of gm and subaru vehicles have amber rear turn signals. Otherwise not much of a fan of their products.
I like that audi is pushing for sequential rear turn signals to be more widely implemented and trying to change the FMVSS requirement to have one light flash repeatedly, breaking the pattern (or outside the pattern in their case). But they lose points for the signals being red.
I like the shape of the Pontiac aztek’s rear tail lights. The spiny vents were fun. The cooler-console was a nice touch.
Hated the Stratus (well documented) but the colors that were available were great. Dark Rosewood Pearl please!
The last-gen Outlander my in-laws rented in Belize sucked pretty hard. But I did appreciate the reclining rear seat. I know a lot of modern compact CUVs can do this but some don’t and hey, the Outlander has it. So kudos.
Not a specific car, but whatever you say about current BMW design, they really have one of the best color ranges.
The Nissan Cube looks like it has a perfectly cromulent interior, in spite of its rear exterior being a war crime.
Not quite accurate for my own tastes, but I’m sure many people would say they hate a Toyota/Lexus something-or-other for being boring but mostly reliable.
At one time I used to drive a family member’s Suzuki Sidekick. I loathed that thing. It went like a constipated snail, had all the cornering prowess of a loaded forklift with a full load hoisted to maximum height(I’ve had it up on two wheels a number of times in a tight corner), at idle it rattled as if Michael J. Fox just smoked some crystal meth, it had all the sex appeal of an old sow, and it guzzled down fuel quicker than John Thorogood could guzzle down liquor in spite of having an “efficient” 4-cylinder engine making all of 80 horsepower.
What I liked about it? It had a Miata-like weight of 2,600 lbs, it was inexpensive to purchase and maintain, it was reliable, it was robustly built, it was mechanically and electrically simple with minimal bullshit features, it was narrow(increased maneuverability in traffic), it had 4WD capability, and most importantly it had a manual transmission. Sports cars and EVs have a lot to learn from this crapcan SUV, specially modern sports cars and EVs.
I don’t miss it in the least. Overall, I still loathed it. The vast majority of modern cars, I loath even more.
Hehe “Constipated snail”
My grandfather had one he used on his farm and around town. Agree with everything you say, it was absolutely miserable to drive. But he literally never had any problems with it, and it didn’t exactly have an easy life. He’s kicking himself for selling it eight or so years ago, with prices for them starting to climb.
I’ve used it to raid grocery store dumpsters for food they’ve thrown out many a time. It had enough room to fit a lot of stuff in the back.
It had a good amount of room back there, but man that back seat was hilariously small. When I was growing up he’d drive me into town to pick up his octogenarian mother (to this day I have no idea how she got into the thing) and I’d have to contort myself into the backseat.
It is indeed a sad commentary on the state of modern motoring that you recall a car that you absolutely loathed, that you would still take over most new models in a heartbeat.
That there was an SRT version of the Dodge Caliber.
Came here to say something similar. The Neon was that cute econobox that had Hellcat-like options from the factory. I hated the smile, the quality of the paint, the interior… all of it. Except that you could get the turbo-4 at 300HP from the factory, complete with turbo-timer and different maps.
High speed hot garbage. Still, just the idea of 300HP in that plastic progenitor of the Patriot makes me smile.
Now I’m thinking of a Patriot/Compass (first gen) with 300HP. I think that would be quite funny – and would probably twist itself in half in short order.
I hated everything about driving the Caliber, since it was the worst example of the cost cutting that Daimler and later Cerberus did to Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep. But taking the SRT-4 Caliber down an off-ramp and accelerating as fast as I could with such a bonkers power-to-size ratio put a big grin on my face that let me ignore the horrible sight lines and hard plastic interior that feels cheap compared to my son’s plastic Step 2 car.
So the last true “muscle car”?
That is what a real muscle car was right? A run of the mill car with a big motor slapped under the hood?
I hate that I don’t have a rebuttal for this. You sumbitch. LOL
Two examples jump out:
1) I’d never buy a VW anyways, and even if I did I’m not sure I’d even order the option, but I do appreciate the fact that GTI still offers those goofy plaid seats.
Nothing about the car or the seats is to my personal taste, but I’ll always support companies selling some variety instead of endless seas of black.
2) Land Rover somehow has the courage that Jeep and Ford don’t; namely offering a V8 + 2 door bodystyle combo in their Defender. I can’t fathom paying $100,000+ for a vehicle I can’t trust to get me to work every day, but their idea should be emulated.
MAKE INTERIOR SELECTION GREAT AGAIN
Ford…
They circled the problem!
Thank you for this chance to be the first at something.