If you’ve seen the documentary A Faster Horse about the development of the 2015 Mustang, then you’re no doubt aware that a car design is made up of many, many subassemblies and parts, all of which are brought together by disparate teams. These are all held to strict budgets and from the outset the core product team determines how much of the overall budget each team gets.
That results in cars that very obviously have had money spent on one area—say the suspension or body design—and that has caused some deficiency elsewhere, like in the quality of the interior materials. This robbing peter to pay paul strategy can result in cars the have one glaring fault, and that’s what we want to find today. What are the cars that demonstrate the most obvious case of a cheapness cop-out?
Image: RoadSmile
Hooniverse Asks: What Car or Truck Had The Worst Case of "Cheap Cop-Out?"
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General Motors has had some kind of inescapable contract with Tupperware for at least 30 years, but that doesn’t excuse the rank shittiness of the Cadillac ATS interior compared to the competition. Every aspect of the car (other than the cruddy 4-bangers) feels so carefully engineered and expensive. Except the stuff you sit on, touch, and look at for hours. One of these things is not like the other…
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Hey, don’t besmirch Tupperware like that! My mom has pieces that are over 30 years old that have held up way better than any GM interior!
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I’m pretty sure that Fisher Price does GM interiors.
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I’ve pressed fake fisher price oven buttons that are better than gm hvac buttons
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It’s not a good sign when your luxury car’s instruments look a smidge less expensive than those equipped in a Hyundai Accent.
http://images.gtcarlot.com/pictures/68038696.jpg -
Actually, I’ve had people remark about how new and clean the interior is on my 2005 STS.
Granted, I have no kids, and there’s been someone in the passenger’s seat for probably all of 15 hours in its 145K mile life, but still.
Given the givens, it’s really not bad.
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My 1975 Duster 360 was fast and reliable but unbelievably crude and cheap. The car was noisy, poorly put together, and rust-prone. The interior was worse – substandard materials thrown together
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I was rather disappointed that our 2004 Trailblazer, a vehicle with a nearly $35k sticker price (if not sale price), relies on a metal stick to keep the hood up. Also, no under hood light. My Silverado doesn’t use a stick to hold the hood up. All the other dozen or so GM vehicles that my family had owned don’t use a stick.
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I have never owned a vehicle with an under hood light. And it only takes once for the gas struts to drop the hood on your head and shoulders for you to appreciate the hood prop rod.
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Counterbalance springs are the best option.
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A hood that swings open far enough to stay there by itself is the best option.
http://www.autogallery.org.ru/k/pa/36ply4dr2_Braatenclassics.jpg
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See the positive version: functional gas struts are a sign of a well-maintained car.
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Yes, and mine has a new one. But guess how you find out you need a new one…
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How much more encouragement should you need, to become one with your vehicle?
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Hood props are an easy and reliable solution, and anything else just overcomplicates things and makes them more failure prone for a negligible gain in practicality, even springs do. Literally nothing can fail on a metal stick. Dem fancy gas strut kajiggers are just the hood equivalent of motorized trunklids.
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I’m reading “truck” like a Jurobean, and that means busses are included, right? Well, here’s the MB Citaro city bus cockpit in all its utilitarian glory:
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–o8FYL3aN–/mk4mvlztekaf4xabveyt.jpg -
Can’t remember exactly which way it worked, but I remember 4 door Neons with either the front or back windows power with the other manual.
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I once rode in the SRT-4 of a friend-of-a-friend. It was the rear windows that are unpowered.
My wife thought it was odd that the passenger mirror on my W126 was powered while the driver mirror is not. I said to her that it works perfectly in the cold light of Germanic logic. The driver can easily reach the driver mirror, so why would it need to be powered?-
Well the second gen/version of the Neon was under the Daimler Chrysler Era.
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There were plenty of European cars in the 1970s and 1980s that had electric front door and manual rear door windows.
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That’s precisely the setup on my ’83 Austin Maestro Vanden Plas. Power door locks all the way around, though, so I’m still living fairly large.
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My 2001 Ford Focus (European market) is the same: the power door locks are even remote-controlled, but on the rear seats: roll your own.
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And the same on a Talbot Alpine I had.
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It doesn’t get better than that.
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I don’t intend to learn anything to the contrary.
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I was shocked the first time I saw electric windows in the rear, too. Suddenly, kids were first class citizens, too.
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Same on W124s and Citroen BXs
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Still much better than Malaise GM, without rear door glass capable of being unrolled.
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/IMG_2912.jpg-
Some manufacturers are still doing this, see lower down.
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This was a trick to increase rear seat room. They did include swing-out vent windows (which were power operated if you ordered power windows). Supposedly, GM had a design for roll-down windows which they could have put into production, had customers rejected the fixed glass. My mom’s ’78 Malibu Classic had the fixed glass (like this, only with nicer cloth).
The funny thing is, the rear glass had a “wiper” at the bottom, just like the front windows (the rubber that superseded the old “fuzzies” from earlier days), as though the original plan was to do roll-down glass.-
It looks like the base of the window is wider than the bottom of the door, due to the wheel arch notch. No place for the glass to go.
I used to have a Challenger coupe. It was a de-contented car intended to be inexpensive. The quarter windows were the same as hardtop parts, but without window regulators. A plug covered the hole in the panel where the crank would otherwise be, and the glass was not attached to the roof at all.
I’m pretty sure the wiper was there as a cheap way to keep leaves and dirt out of the panel.
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I don’t imagine it’s the worst cheap out – that would be something that causes safety issues – but the most consistently irritating is the screen used in Toyota stereos. It’s cheap, hard to read, dies completely in cold weather, and is something you look at on a regular basis.
http://images.newcars.com/images/car-pictures/original/2010-Toyota-Matrix-Coupe-Hatchback-Base-5dr-Front-wheel-Drive-Hatchback-Interior-Stereo-Controls.png
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I’m torn between the gorgeous order of those buttons, and the unspeakable sadness of colour choices here.
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The location and shape of that hazard light is killing me.
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That I actually liked, it’s easy to find in an emergency and the shape makes a bit more sense in person, even if it looks like they had planned to have a second button beside it before the feature it was meant to activate was cancelled after the molds for the switch gear had been ordered.
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I don’t even know where to start. This is about interior materials, design, and NVH: All pickup trucks before about 1977. All Oldsmobiles, ever. Saturn. Japanese economy cars between about 1995 and 2015 (for some reason recently they decided to pay attention again.) Chrysler LH cars (which were otherwise pretty darned impressive). Chrysler minivans (the difference after the DC merger is pretty amazing; look at the 2002 T&C and compare it with a 2003 T&C. Serious nickel-cutting.) Audi and BMW after about 2002. Ford, off and on, mostly on, with their small cars since 2010. Toyota Prius. Camry since about 2005. Nissan, almost all vehicles until the newest redesign. As you can probably tell, cheap interiors are one of my biggest pet peeves.
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All Oldsmobiles ever? They were one of GM’s better brands in the ’60’s & ’70’s.
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Naah. It’s all velour seats and fake wood. But look at the Intrigue and the Aurora, which should have saved Oldsmobile. Way too much cheap hard plastic and switchgear interfering with what look like nice proportions and shapes.
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I won’t be swayed, but I grew up in what was an Oldsmobile/Pontiac family. Till I was a teenager my grandpa drove what had been his mom’s last car, a ’72 Ninety-Eight hardtop sedan; I’ll grant some fake wood, but I don’t remember much for velour. I was just putting a new glovebox liner in my dad’s ’68 Cutlass S convertible on Saturday, and there was no fake wood or velour to be seen. (Though, the seats were out of the car – it’s in the middle of a restoration – but they had been vinyl and I think they’ll be vinyl again.)
I remember riding along when my dad test-drove an Aurora, in the 1st year when they came out; I don’t remember it being out of line for a car of the mid-90’s.-
Sure. Vinyl. That’s what I’m talking about. Especially black vinyl. And the Germans are not immune: see MB-Tex vinyl. Vinyl is desirable in a pickup truck or other working vehicle where there’s a serious possibility of stains (see also rubber floor mats) but vinyl has no place in a car, not when there are perfectly decent cloth materials and have been for generations. Or leather, which was not originally a luxury material. My parents’ ’67 Pontiac had black vinyl, which was OK, I guess, but kind of a cheap touch in an otherwise pretty nice car. But luxury in the ’60s meant a ball-cooler vent and an FM radio. And the Aurora was perfectly in line for a car of the mid-90s. In fact it was better than average design, but let down by its materials.
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A ball-cooler vent still sounds pretty luxurious today, honestly. (Or, taking it a step further, I tend not to like most fancy features in new cars, but, my kingdom for a cooled drivers’ seat…)
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I always thought oldsmobile had the best possible turd-polish of all the gm brands
Saab 9000: for all its luxury doo-dads, the damn steering wheel doesn’t tilt.
http://images.gtcarlot.com/pictures/77644916.jpg
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I remember looking very seriously at those when they were new. The Swedish explanation was “Ze seet ees zo ajustabool eet ees zafer zan tilting zhe steering wheel.”
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The early ones were adjustable fore-aft, but not tilt. I think airbags got rid of all that.
Mazdaspeed3 uses the same rear motor mount as the base model which has roughly 1/2 the torque. It does not last long.
$400k-ish list price and the fastest production car on earth, and still the Jag XJ220 had these environmental controls, which look even cheaper surrounded by leather.
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They look like Volvo items, and entirely serviceable. If it works and is good, well, that’s good.
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I find it difficult to believe an English luxury brand would use Volvo parts.
/wink
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RS200 interior looks like some toddler’s toy… But it is a racecar so it gets by.
http://www.bestcarinf.com/manufacturers/ford/ford-rs200/ford-rs200-7.jpg
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I…don’t see anything wrong here…
The only lockable glove box in my third gen firebird is in the trunk, and it’s made of cardboard. It’s dense, heavy duty cardboard, but still wood pulp nonetheless
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There’s worse than a Volvo key.
http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-global/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/750×422/quality/95/http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/369/247/8/S3692478/slug/l/22-2005-aston-martin-vanquish-s-1.jpg
Though I am amused that my late ’98 ZX2 shared a part with an Aston.-
Ah, yes. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/10/31/doh-aston-martin-owner-finds-volvo-logo-on-key/ (and mentioned by Doug Demuro on [Redacted] in one his Aston ownership columns last week).
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At least it’s not the infamous Aston Martin / Ford steering wheel.
On mid 1970s K5 Blazers, the passenger seat, the back seat, and a top were all options.
Viper HVAC. Or is it a LeBaron?
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One must simply be grateful that the Viper even had HVAC.
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To be fair, the “H” part of HVAC was standard equipment, and almost perfectly reliable.
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Mazda RX-8 automatic. Everything it shares with the manual is superb, but rather than fitting a slushbox that could handle the motor output speeds, they lowered the redline and detuned it, losing 30+hp in the process.
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To be honest, it was something of an acknowledgement that anyone buying an automatic RX-8 was missing the point entirely, so why give bother giving them more than ~200hp? That’s plenty for the type of milquetoast individual who buys a car like the RX-8 purely because they think it will make them appear to be a more interesting person.
Imagine if Honda had capitulated to the 0.00001% of buyers who would have gone for a manual if they’d offered it. That would have soured my view of the car, much like I think the Miata automatic has always been a useless never-shoulda-been.
First things first, and getting personal bias out of the way: as the past owner of a Lada Niva, I can somewhat excuse the quality of the interior on what I believe to be a Samara used for the lead photo of the article. Those cars were a product of their time and place, so their inherent cheapness and poor fit and finish is at least somewhat excusable – and, at least in the case of the Niva, surprisingly hard-wearing. That said, I would never own a Samara because they are, by pretty much ever measure possible, fairly terrible and largely-inferior to the Riva that they were intended to replace. With that out of the way:
My nomination for worst cheapening cop-out is the Chevrolet Chevette Scooter. This was the basest of base models, and was built strictly to come in under a price point. Where the penny-pinching is most offensive is in the area of the door cards: the standard plastic ones were replaced with cardboard items which left the doors looking like the photo below after a few years. If this had resulted in an improvement elsewhere in the vehicle, that might have been acceptable – but no, this was literally just a way (along with stripping out everything else that might have made life with one of these vehicles even somewhat bearable) to sell them a cheaply as possible.
Cheapening cop-out number two: the 1988 – and, very specifically, 1988 – Pontiac Fiero.
I’ll admit to having a certain love for the Fiero. The notchbacks are as good-looking as the GTs to my eye, and the proposed 1990 model was very sharp. I’m even in the minority that prefers the snubnose cars over the beak-nose models. But despite having test-driven several with the genuine intent of buying the car, I never have. And it all comes down to one thing: the dashboard, as pictured below.
This is where I am singling out the 1988 model. The GT in particular looked great, most of the bugs from the 1984-1987 models had been ironed out, and the car finally received the suspension that it should have had from the start. But that damned GM dash remained unchanged from the earlier models, and remained a missed opportunity for improving the overall feel of the car.
To be fair, that dash has also put me off of 1984-1987 models: even when I’ve liked one that I’ve driven, the end result is that I walk away because I just can’t stand the thoroughly uninspired design of the instrument cluster. The center stack is passable (though not great), and I don’t mind the layout of the ancilliary controls too terribly much. But in a car that should have at least a sporting feel to it, the instruments should match that feel.
For comparison, I’m including a shot of the instrument panel of a 1969 Fiat 850 Spider not unlike the one I had some years ago. That was a cheap but cheerful car, built to be thoroughly inexpensive. But it never felt like anything on it was a cop-out – it just was what it was. In the Fiero, it felt like a beancounter’s vision of what constituted ‘perfectly adequate’.
In my WRX, I’ve always had the sense that the development and production money rather clearly went into the powertrain (nevermind how long the EJ25 and the Subaru AWD system have been around), to the detriment of interior sound-deadening. I’m actually pretty happy with the interior in general, though some of the materials could be better, but there sure are a lot of creaks, rattles, and wind and tire noise. Oh well — less sound-deadening = weight savings, yo!
Did anyone else look at the lead photo and wonder briefly what was off about the Fox Mustang interior?
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I was thinking it looked remarkably similar to my erstwhile 1991 Hyundai Excel.
For the first ~four years, 944 interiors were 924 interiors (then already 8+ years old) simply with yellow gauges.
http://i.wheelsage.org/image/format/picture/picture-gallery-full/porsche/924/autowp.ru_porsche_924_coupe_5.jpeg
http://ipocars.com/imgs/a/d/r/h/j/porsche__944_targa_1985_5_lgw.jpg
You realize rather quickly that the electric mirror controls were an afterthought: x-y-joystick in the driver’s door panel, left-right mirror selector in the middle, at the ashtray. When rolling, you’ll have to switch over the hand at the wheel twice.
My 2010 Saturn Outlook turn signal clicker sounded just like my grandmother’s Galaxie 500. It worked fine, but being instantly transported back to a base full size sedan from 1972 is a little disappointing after spending $30K on a nearly new full size SUV.
You know what’s cheap? Cheap is a late seventies BMW, where every steering wheel is a mandatory option.
The CURRENT MODEL Citroen DS4 and Citroen Cactus don’t have wind down or any, opening windows in the rear doors. Unbelievable! I wasn’t aware of this until I took a friend along who was interested in buying a Cactus.
‘How are the kids supposed to breathe’ she said,’No sale here’, then went and bought a new Hyundai.
http://mediadws.keycast.com/Media/Libraries/864/1/ds43_w690_x_h330_ae600dee-a185-4d16-9513-b78b72e9761e.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02811/Citroen-C4-Cactus-_2811933k.jpg
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That’s impressive.
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On the other hand, operable rear door windows are rare in minivans, so it’s not that big of a stretch.
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The rearmost windows behind the doors invariably open at their trailing edge so that you can get a breeze passing through.
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