3 ms·
I was on travel a lot this summer, so I had a chance to rent and try many cars. I was universally unimpressed with every American car I drove, pleasantly surpr
by gamache 14y ago
I was on travel a lot this summer, so I had a chance to rent and try many cars. I was universally unimpressed with every American car I drove, pleasantly surprised by every Korean car, and unsurprised by the quality of the Japanese makes.
The domestics didn't piss me off because they were unreliable, but because they each were designed somewhat poorly -- as an example, one featured a HUGE miles-per-gallon readout in the center of the driver's console... and you had to move one of your hands to see either the speedometer or the tachometer. Crap like that, bad decisions.
So I don't think the "crappy domestic cars" bit is worn out.
EDIT: someone's gonna ask. IIRC the Americans I drove were a Ford Focus, a Chevy Aveo, and a Ford Escape.
- natrius 14y agoThe Chevy Aveo is actually a Korean car. It's a rebranded Daewoo Kalos.
- mpyne 14y agoI actually liked the Aveo (used to own one), but to pile on I'll say that in the past few years I've rented a Kia compact, a Mitsubishi Mirage, and a Ford Focus and the Ford was definitely the nicest overall, which I found very surprising.
- gamache 14y agoHuh, I didn't know that. The Aveo was the best of the "American" bunch but I did notice a lot of slop in the clutch response when starting from rest. It'd rev too long, then grab suddenly. Shouldn't feel that on a new vehicle, and pedal finesse didn't seem to help.
- 3amOpsGuy 14y agoThe Daewoo Kalos wasn't Korean, it was an American (GM) parts-bin-special. Daewoo went to the wall, with a few projects in the drawing board, what would become the Aveo was one of them. GM bought them out, then set to work homogenising the assembly of the Aveo with wider GM techniques and parts. There is undoubtedly some Korean influence remaining I'm sure, but it's predominantly a GM car - they were quite vocal about all the improvements they introduced.
- stcredzero 14y agoI like the Focus and Escape. Aveo is meh.