Is there a bad car for sale on the market today? I’m talking about a truly wretched car, like one that’s broken on the showroom floor or doesn’t even last a month before falling apart. Or, how about a car that cannot even survive a press drive?
Usually, press drives are uneventful. You arrive at the location of the press event, chat with your favorite people from other outlets, and ask the automaker’s representatives some questions. Eventually, you get to hop behind the wheel of the vehicle and embark on your testing. For the most part, all of this goes off without a hitch. Maybe you might run into an issue or two, but sometimes they aren’t even worth mentioning.
Sometimes, things don’t go so well. Back in 2021, I reviewed the BMW R 18 B and BMW R 18 Transcontinental. I found both to be phenomenal motorcycles fit to fight against Harley-Davidson’s best. However, more than one reviewer on the same trip complained about clutch slipping issues. That said, even a brand-new motorcycle having a slipping clutch is nothing compared to what Jason showed us this morning with a 1979 Chrysler New Yorker:
Today’s COTD winner is Trust Doesnt Rust, for this hilarious bit:
When auto journalists say there are really no “bad cars” anymore, this is their frame of reference.
I think my frame of reference is a first-generation Dodge Dakota with the 318 LA V8. My wife had one of those and it got a whole 9 mpg at highway speed. The truck had a fuel tank that was just 15 gallons, so that meant stopping every 120 miles or so for fuel. I’ve ridden motorcycles with better range! Oh, and we won’t talk about the exploding dashboard.
Yeah, if a car’s better than that truck was, it’s a good car in my book. Have a great evening, everyone!
Are you seriously shitting on first gen Dakotas, which were an absolutely huge sales success, made even more successful in the second gen, only to be kneecapped by terrible design choices for the third gen? Shame. I am going to guess your wife’s dakota wasn’t maintained and had bad wheel bearings or dragging brakes. Those were great trucks! V8 power in midsize package!
More likely, they expected efficient 80mph cruising in a 40yo pickup with no overdrive and didn’t understand why a 318 turning 3700rpm sucks gas.
Yeah, your 9 mpg is an expectations issue, not a problem with the car. My pickup is similar: it’ll get 20mpg at 55 and 10mpg at 75.
In the 80s, pickups weren’t really intended to go 80mph. Highways weren’t that fast, and these were work trucks more than personal vehicles.
Your highway speed was too fast.
Yes, there are, but even the worst modern cars are mostly faster, safer, more economical and full of far more features than their predecessors. There’s a time component to this assertion.
Now, now. Ya’ll gonna give me a case of the vapors…
Can you imagine spending this kind of money on that Chrysler and having all those problems right away? Didn’t these cars only have like a 1 year warranty back then too?
And I want to see the Olds diesel review.
I couldn’t find it on YouTube, which makes me think maybe the test car couldn’t be delivered, because Olds diesel.
Today’s “bad” cars tend to have one concentrated, spectacular point of failure rather than a deluxe membership in the Failure of the Month Club. For example, my son’s ’14 Focus with the legendary DPS6 transmission. Of course, some Alfa owners might have a different take on this.
There’s a whole small truck market that’s not being served right now, and around here those early Dakotas are seen as very desirable along with the 80s Toyota SR5 pickups. The folks who have ’em keep them running and won’t let them go.
I like his straightforward, matter of fact approach. And based on other comments he seems really interesting. He probably tested a lot of cars over a lot of years. And he collects and restores. Sounds like a great podcast.
Shit, I thought you were talking about me for a second.
I was thinking “Golly, that’s awfully nice but none of that is true.”
I just watched the 1980 Olds Cutlass review and he points out that the driver side HVAC blows hard and the passenger hardly is putting out any air.
Maybe cars since I started watching Motorweek or reading car magazines don’t have those kind of quality issues, but that is the kind of stuff I’d be interested in learning from a review.
Yeah… you guys aren’t getting Chinese brands yet… LDV’s seem to rust away. In Australia there was a guy whose truck basically rusted away and they tried to say it was because he parked it by the sea. The dealer he bought it from was also by the sea.
That is a bit of a stretch from your side.
First of all, the rust issues appears to be with a specific LDV model.
Second, you are using the problems with that specific model to generalize car manufacturing in a country with a population the size of Europe, US and Australia combined!
The Chery J1, was complete junk – granted they aren’t selling them anymore. The Great Walls that first launched 10-12 years ago are basically all off the road now, you never see them.
I’m not saying that all Chinese cars are bad. The MG ZS and HS are perfectly mediocre modes of transport, I’ve driven plenty of them, the BYD Atto3 isn’t entirely awful either, I’d wager that its better than most new Mitsubishis. The new Great Wall Cannon seems pretty good too.
However, there are quality issues with some brands. The article was about there are no bad cars anymore… well yeah there are.
I do really agree with you that we, as consumers, should be aware of new manufacturers and manufacturers moving to new territories (new climates).
I am simply not that worried about the Chinese manufacturers, since they a actually not new, just new to us outside and the Chinese climate includes areas that would make penguins freeze, extreme heat and extreme humidity.
I have been a passenger in both BYD and SIAC cars 10+ years ago in China, and they are perfectly good cars.
I’m going to echo another post in that article because I think it’s worth making sure you guys see it.
It would be awesome to get an interview with Bob Mayer either for an article of for an Autopian podcast. He reviewed cars for a long time, and more than that, he was a news anchor for 40 years. He only retired in 2010, but there is an NBC interview with him from only a few years ago.
Getting his perspective on his history with cars, car/sales history in general, and/or stories of his best/worst reviews, could be alot of fun and very interesting.
I truly hope he’s still doing well, would be amicable to talking, and is still pursuing his hobby.
From his retirement article on NBC6:
“He plans to devote much of his time to a lifelong hobby of collecting and restoring classic automobiles…. “I just fully detailed — including painting the entire engine compartment — a 1965 Pontiac GTO convertible and I recently bought what may be the finest original classic car that I have ever owned, a 1965 Cadillac Sedan de Ville with 23,400 original miles. It’s a one-owner car that’s been sitting in the owner’s garage in Davie for 45 years. It’s a time capsule type of car. I love working on cars.”
I think he’s actually still working part time in advertising with a firm in Miami
Sounds like he’s our kind of people. I’d love to see him on the podcast.
He seems to have been the only person in America, or at least the only one whose work is available now and not either gathering dust while the film degrades on some local TV station shelf or completely lost media, reviewing cars on TV in the late-’70s height of the Malaise Era since Car and Track had been cancelled around 1975 and MotorWeek didn’t start until 1981.
$58,446 in 2023 dollars. Nice jump scare at the end with the Olds diesel.
Yeah that olds diesel bit at the end was a knockout blow for me. How did anyone make it through that era?
Mercedes, y’all just got a bad Dakota. They weren’t bad for the time (not the highest bar, I know), at least once it was updated with the magnum V8. My family had one when I was growing up, and while I don’t remember the gas mileage, it definitely wasn’t 9 mpg. And it would light the tires up pretty decently.
The Mopar Quality Lottery. Get a good one and they can be as good as anything, but they have way more than their fair share of lemons for any given era.