Weekend Head Scratcher: Which Car Is Underrated?
After the amount of replies by the B&B, spitting venom at the cars they loathed with a passion, I decided to inject some needed positivity to TTAC. We’re often accused of being negative and downbeat, so here goes my attempt at being positive.
When I asked “ what car do you think is overrated”, you all had plenty to say. Now let’s see if you’re all just as gobby for the same question, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. Which car do you think is underrated?
Which car do you think gets a lot of stick but unfairly? Maybe you think the Volkswagen Golf is actually a good reliable car? Or that the Corolla’s handling isn’t as bad as others think? Or maybe the Chevy Aveo isn’t all that bad? Come on! Let’s see some positivity, people! I want TTAC to be flowing with positive energy this Sunday!
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chrysler crossfire. not that bad, and pretty fast too in srt-6 trim. corvette. everyone likes to make fun of it, but until you've driven one, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Agree with the people that said Olds Aurora, Buick Park Avenue, Suzuki SX-4, Kia Sedona, Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback, Volvo C30. Some that I didn't see mentioned: Kia Rondo and Mazda5 (seems to be a segment buyers don't often think of), Mitsubishi Galant (very solid mechanicals, fugly sheetmetal, great used buy), Ford Explorer, Ford Focus (I've rented several, and like them better than almost any other like-sized rental car I've driven for the features, durability, price), Mitsubishi Diamante (I owned one, but I searched for two years for one before I found a good one - excellent features, distinctive styling, great mechanical and build quality), and shockingly the Geo Tracker (one of the best off-road vehicles you can buy short of a Wrangler, superb mechanical quality, cheap as all get out on the used market, economical, very practical to live with in 5-door form). There are probably more, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I'd also like to talk about over-rated cars for a minute, and not ones that usually get mentioned. Much as I love them, the Olds Intrigue comes to mind (press fawned over them when new, even though they really didn't drive much better than any other W-Body, and the mechanical quality really hasn't withstood the test of time, unlike the Aurora), the Saturn Aura and second-gen Vue (Aura had very poor build quality and cheap parts, and really wasn't a mechanically reliable car in my rental experience, while the Vue felt good piece-by-piece when new but had disastrous reliability and basically fell apart around 10,000 miles), and I feel that the related Impala is thought of as exactly what it is (a large, cheaply made, unsophisticated vehicle with lots of old-school luxury options, with an overpriced MSRP but massive rebates and the resultant low resale), this from somebody who has driven something like five hundred different Impalas in the past 4.5 years of working in rental cars.
New mention: The outgoing Mercury Milan. Same guts as the great '10 Fusion, but with classier sheet metal and a nice dual-tone interior. Also, it could be had in a Manual. Also, I'll add my vote to the Impala. I live in SoCal, and a couple of my neighbors own recent models. Living here (despite the nice weather) requires a fair amount of "hard-driving" -- heavy traffic in the cities as well as long stretches of desert scrub land. You need a durable car that hauls good air, can withstand accidents, and also hit high speeds on the open road. For those inclined to big American sedans, the Impalas, Chargers, and 300s of the world fit this bill.
I'd say the v8 Taurus SHO. it was slower than the v6, but it was incredibly comfortable, and in between its slow shifts it pulled pretty hard too and sounded awesome, IMO.