Outsider’s Perspective: The most hateful car in production today

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After the statute of limitations by Mazda expired everyone has agreed: The New Mazda Miata is the single best vehicle in the planet must own one. Yes, even if you need a seven-seater SUV what you must buy is a Miata. Personally I think that the rumoured Fiat 124 will add a little bit of Zest (and hopefully a lot of sales) but the fact that everyone has agreed on that has left me with a thought: can I find a car in production today that everyone could agree to hate?

Even if we go just looking for the absence of good there’s a couple of names that spring almost instantly to mind. The U.S Volkswagen Passat for one. If Richard Hammond has gone on record saying that he hates the European MQB based Passat (Probably because of how dull he finds it) one has to wonder what would think about the lager, duller, cheaper brother of the pair. It may just be enough to get him to sing praises about the one in his home market. However, it has something that the Euro model doesn’t. The lovely 3.6-liter VR6. So that saves it.
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Then we have the Nissan Sentra. A car that somehow manages to do the impossible and makes the Toyota Corolla look exciting and interesting. Seriously. The Corolla is slightly more powerful, has slightly better trunk space, better fuel economy…slightly and when it comes time to sell it again (which, if you buy any of these you’re not looking for emotional attatchment) the Toyota will probably have a better resale value. But it’s not bad, it’s just that it’s not as good as its main competition. Maybe if they made a GT-R version… While we’re on Nissan, how about the Rogue Select. Select by whose standards?
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Then you have the ones that are so underwhelming that they aren’t even sold in the United States. The Mitsubishi Mirage G4 for example. Take an already mediocre Mitsubishi, graft a trunk into it and beat the front with the ugliest of all the ugly sticks. Unfortunately, the added trunk means that it’s better than the hatchback Mirage…marginally.
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The BMW 2-Series Active Tourer…Now we’re talking. This isn’t the first apparent betrayal by the Bavarians. I think that was when they made the M3 a V8? Or was it when they made the M5 a V10? Or when they made it a V8 again? Or when they made the X5? Or the X3? Or the X1? Or the X6? Or…you get the drill. Not that they a toss with the amount of money they’re making on all of them. The 2 AT commits the unholy sin of making a Front wheel drive BMW, this from the company that decided to run this ads not too long ago.
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Well, I know why they decided to do it after all
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The fact that they already had the FWD UKL platform lying around all nice and developed also meant huge savings. It’s not like the people who will buy a 2AT will be as excited about good weight distribution and lovely handling as they’ll be about it having as many BMW badges as they can possibly fit in it. But we’re going on the right track.
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The Fiat 500L Living should also go here. If only because it’s named 500 instead of literally anything else. It’s one thing to try and capitalize on the look of the Fiat 500, it’s quite another to draw some 500-esque design cues on your seven-seat crossover and try to sell it as a 500. “Giant Panda” Just saying…
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But for me none of this cars are the most deserving of hate, probably because with the possible exception of the Mitsubishi I haven’t seen any one of them. No, the car that makes my blood boil, that makes me want to fly to the plant where its made and bomb it until nothing but rubble and a lot of confused but unharmed employees is this: The Hyundai EON.
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Do not let the modern-ish styling fool you into thinking that this is something worthy of paying new-car prices for. This abomination upon earth is all the faults of the Mitsubishi Mirage taken to 11 and with some new interesting and dangerous ones. For a kickoff. The Mirage, with its 11.2 second sprint to 60 MPH thanks to its 74 horsepower 1.2-liter 12-valve three pot seems like a veritable hot-rod compared to the EON, which has a 814cc, 9 valve three-cylinder. This means 56 horsepower and a 0-60 time of 16 seconds…in 2015. Go ahead, count 16 seconds now imagine that when trying to merge into anything faster than a city street. Fortunately if you want to do burnouts you still can, because the standard tires for this…thing are 145/80 R12. No, that’s not a typo.
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Inside, things get worse. Even with all the tricks in the book to make it look nice, the interior of the EON still looks like it was made with plastics that were reject for Cozy Coupe production for being too drab, miserable and cheap. AC is standard but, without trying to be a sourpuss, with that engine I’m damn skippy that the AC is about as effective as having your passenger fan you with a piece of cardboard while you suck on an ice cube.
The EON is terrible by even 1990’s standards, yet because it’s cheap and it looks similar enough to to other small hatchbacks that that fact isn’t immediately apparent. Not to mention that they sell them with very long-term loans so that the payment seems lower than they already are means that they sell very well. So every day I’m treated to lines of shiny happy people in EONs with dealer plates, unaware that they have spent their hard-earned cash on a subpar vehicle that wouldn’t have passed muster when I was in the womb. That, above all else, makes it hateful.

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  1. john horsey Avatar
    john horsey

    Please tell me it’s manufactured for Hyundai by a manufacturer that I love to hate? VW, Mitsubishi, Ford?

  2. Lokki Avatar
    Lokki

    Too bad (well, excellent actually) that the Chevy Aveo is out of production. Took a cheap and dirty trip to get drunk with an old friend and accepted on as a rental car (maybe 5K miles on it?) for a couple days. I couldn’t decide if the brakes were stuck, if it had a bad transmission, had a bad bearing, or all of the above. It moaned and dragged, and it couldn’t have been that low on power. Even the cheapest Chevette of the 70’s with the cardboard interior panels was’t as big a POS as that Aveo
    http://www.esacademic.com/pictures/eswiki/48/07_Chevrolet_Aveo.jpg

    1. Citric Avatar
      Citric

      The Aveo was sort of like a middle of the road compact from 1985, driven hard and poorly by a succession of teenagers going through driver education courses for 20 years, and then sold new in 2005. The one I drove squeaked when you turned left.

  3. stigshift Avatar
    stigshift

    The Toyota Prius. I drove one. Once. Like driving an appliance. Less character than Michelob Ultra. Truly soul-sucking.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/2012_Toyota_Prius_v_–_03-21-2012.JPG

    1. ptschett Avatar
      ptschett

      Michelob Ultra has character?!?

      1. stigshift Avatar
        stigshift

        No. None whatsoever. And yet, the Prius has even less…

      2. Synchromesh Avatar
        Synchromesh

        I wholeheartedly agree! What a boring appliance. Another nomination in that category is Smart. Puny size, awful transmission, so so fuel economy for the size and quite expensive.

    2. Kiefmo Avatar
      Kiefmo

      I drove one about 450 miles per weekend, every weekend for 9 months a courier gig I took on for extra money.
      One thing I can say in the Prius’ favor is that they’re durable. Even after being flogged mercilessly by a succession of careless people and being subjected to minimal maintenance (15k oil changes), they never developed any weird noises, still ran perfectly well, and the brakes remained perfectly functional, if odd in behavior.
      And I floored the thing every chance I got. Away from every stop light, on every on-ramp. Every passing maneuver. Never complained, and always got right around 40mpg. When I quit the job, my assigned car, as well as all others in the fleet, were approaching 250k with no major failures among a dozen of them.
      Even if it has zero character, I have to respect that kind of stubborn durability.

  4. JayP Avatar
    JayP

    Has 4 wheels, on board powerplant.
    Even if it sucks, I bet I’d dig it. It’s not a sports car.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      Thank you for saying that. I think “hate” is a way too strong word to apply to an industrial product. Unless it intentionally/knowlingly kills people, or falls apart on every second corner, creating a poverty trap of endless repairs.
      I’ve occasionally driven small, underpowered tin sheds, the Daewoo Matiz being the worst of them. No matter how poor I was, I’d never buy one, but they are tossable little appliances.

  5. quattrovalvole Avatar
    quattrovalvole

    0-60 in 16s? The Toyota minibus that I learned to drive in probably took longer to reach 60.

    1. Kiefmo Avatar
      Kiefmo

      I can do better than a 16s 0-60mph in the 300SD if I catch myself on a downhill on-ramp.
      People are too obsessed with quickness. I say they’re just poor drivers.

  6. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    I actually have a bit of a soft spot for the North American Passat – I’m sure part of it is its Euro character is a unique selling point here instead of just another car. Still, it’s reasonably solid and competent, and all engine choices are interesting, not just the VR6.
    I’m intrigued about FWD BMWs – I’m not about to see it as a great thing, but 15 years of Bavarian Minis suggest it’s not the worst thing ever. That said, at elevated prices, the BMW would be the car listed here that’d have the most to answer for.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      Agreed about the BMW 2. Before I bought my Honda Stream, I read an English review that called it “the only sporty minivan”. I chuckled, but when I tried, I understood. I’m convinced there’s a market for it, and BMW has convinced the art of making people pay for everything. Yet they are cashing in on a brand that is being watered down until there is no taste left. Who’s going to take BMW’s spot though?

  7. Car_Door Avatar
    Car_Door

    The Toyota Solara. They sold a fair amount of them, and they have two doors, but I still think that they have no soul. The design meeting for this thing must have been like “The people want a two door an a convertible eh…” “lets just remove some doors from the camry and chop the roof”. “dont forget to make the rear end very bulbous and ugly too, because thats what the people want”.

  8. countersteer Avatar
    countersteer

    This! It doesn’t do anything right… Nothing…

    1. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      If you’ve ever lived somewhere with no onsite parking, the smart makes a whole bunch more sense.
      Also, as much as it’s flawed, a French-built rear-engined coupe that clocks in under a ton and is one of he cheapest cars on the market is sort of neat.

  9. Pdq Avatar
    Pdq

    How about the Mini Coupe? Did the designer that created that mess have cataracts? That roofline with the protruding lip looks like it has a backwards ball cap on, or perhaps like the Jolly Green Giant sat on it

  10. mr smee Avatar
    mr smee

    The entire CUV contingent. That crap ruined the market for proper wagons, let alone sport-wagons