Let's hear it!

Full disclosure, as an electrical guy, my opinion may be biased. My vote goes to those old Jag XJ's immolating in people's driveways and garages. Here's my reasoning:



Most clever answer earns this lovely universal English Vehicle Repair Kit:

Anything French.

PapaSmurf2k3 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:03 am

Anything French.

Okay, that too.

Actually, did you know the only difference between Heaven and Hell is in the job descriptions?
Heaven: The French do the cooking, the Germans build the cars, and the Brits are the police.
Hell: The Brits do the cooking, the French build the cars, and the Germans are the police.

^AHAHAHA! That's funny.

Mitsubishi, anything French, Ford. In that order.

Mitsubishi hasn't made a good car in 30 years. And even when they did, their cars were average at best. They were NEVER the best. There's not ever a reason to buy a Mitsubishi instead of something else. And how many are left on the road? You see 90s Accords, Camries, Altimas. But Galants? Only a few VR-4s are left. They're bad at everything.

Meanwhile, the French make ugly cars with bizarre packaging using unreliable everything and with the tinest, least refined motors imaginable.

And Ford. Well, like I say, Ford gets the easy stuff wrong and the weird stuff right. Some Fords are worth owning, but most are the personification of compromise and lack of direction. Crappy ergonomics, bizarre mechanical issues (spark plugs that break off in the head, dry dual clutch transmissions for no damn good reason other than they felt like it, first and second gen tauruses with transmissions slightly more robust than gold leaf in an oven...
And of course their physically gigantic and overly-complex DOHC V8s that struggle to make as much power as competitors' OHV V8s of comparable size, with torque delivery that rivals my VG33 in peakiness.
Oh, right. And an entire stable of over-promised and under-designed turbo engines that consume themselves from the inside out while offering horrendous fuel economy and little to no power advantage over comparable "all-motor" alternatives but with none of the refinement benefits of the increased cylinder counts.
Oh, and they think offering a 2.7 V6 as standard in a half-ton but NOT offering that motor in the midsizer is quite sane. A 2.0 is clearly enough for a 6000lb GVWR pickup.


--------------------------------

Okay wait, I take it back.
VW gets all 3 top spots to themselves. I completely forgot about them, which says all you need to know. They're not terrible in the "holy crap how are you still in business" kind of way like Mitsubishi, they're just...below average at absolutely everything possible. And they're expensive. And they're insanely unreliable. And they're ugly. And they are usually cheap-feeling despite demanding import prices. And they can't decide if they are a fun car company, an everyone car company, a turbo funmobile company or a "here's a huge I4 in a generic 3 door because screw effort that's why" company, or a diesel sedan company, or an electric car compa...oh right.
They're just...wrong at every step. The golf R is pointless and uncompetitive now. The Jetta hasn't been fun for nearly a millenium. The Passat has gone from wide Jetta to 8-cylinder luxury midsizer to hyper-budget I4-only midsizer in a mere 20 years. There's literally no reason to ever buy a VW when any other option is available. For less money, with better features, generally better-looking, and far more reliably.

Yep, Volkswagen wins. The company that cares more about getting one over on their sibling Porsche than actually building good cars.

MinisterofDOOM wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:09 pm

Yep, Volkswagen wins. The company that cares more about getting one over on their sibling Porsche than actually building good cars.

Rofl, or getting one over on the EPA (damn college students, grumble grumble)...

Good choice!

I would put Mitsubishi here but they are a bigger entity overall, not just a car company.

However, the top spots goes to: Any Nissan with a CVT, Honda's with the crapper 1.5T, and Toyotas.

I made myself clear, I hate Nissan's during the Carlos Ghozn era, because of all the corner cutting, shoving a stupid CVT with a V6, etc. However, its the CVT that I really hate the most out of Nissans. The products themselves should be competitive against Toyota, Honda, and Mazda, but with those garbage CVTs, they compete with Mitsubishi and Hyundai. I am a Honda Fanboy, but that is starting to wear off on me, after realizing the stupid decision Honda Motor Co. made with shoving that small tiny engine and slapping a turbo into a Civic, Accord, and CRV. I am okay when its a 1.x Liter 4 banger that is NA, but if you slap a turbo in there, just forget it. You'll loose customer's right there and any reputation of being reliable. Toyotas. I have a hate towards them, especially the Corolla and Prius. These two specific models are notorious for making their drivers to be horrible drivers on the road. Talk about Left lane hogs. If it ain't a Karen, it would be a Corolla or a Prius hogging up the left lane doing either the speed limit or below; if it ain't these two, its always a slim chance its some other Toyota model.

I find modern Fords to be super frustrating because of odd electrical glitches and complex mechanical issues that shouldn't be in mass market cars. The Fiesta's 1.5 overheats and the Focus has that horrendously designed DCT. These are economy cars that are supposed to cost little to maintain.

Nissan suffers from a general malaise and as of late so does GM with its crossovers and pickups.

I used to hate how Toyota cut corners on quality 13ish years ago but they seem to have turned things around.

worst ever? Without a doubt, the Yugo. Game over. Nothing ever comes close. Anyone who has had the misfortune of driving one (I drove a couple of them), will confirm they made British leyland cars seem like Lexus. Tiny, tinny, poorly made and unreliable, and those were it's good points. Honorable mention goes to the Subaru 360, the first car Subie imported to the US. Unforgiveably awful.

As far old Jaaaaags, as someone who worked at a BL dealership, and whose father owned an old Jaaaaag sports car, I can confirm they were dreadful in terms of reliability. However, the fun to drive factor negated a lot of the frustration. My father always said his Jag was his favorite car to drive....when it ran. It was a sexy lemon.

Bubba1 wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:40 am

worst ever? Without a doubt, the Yugo. Game over. Nothing ever comes close

Never had the displeasure of driving (or worse, working on) a Yugo, but that's probably a good thing. One of my old bosses with an XJ12 would've agreed with your dad, his favorite remark about it was, "It'll pass anything but a repair shop."

It was ais [frequently] that it was easy to spot the house with a Jaguar. Just look for the large oil stain in the driveway. The valve cover gaskets were nutorious for poor seal.

MikeRL411 wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:35 am

It was ais [frequently] that it was easy to spot the house with a Jaguar. Just look for the large oil stain in the driveway. The valve cover gaskets were nutorious for poor seal.

In the late 80's early '90's it was even easier, just look for the garage with the fire trucks.