QOTD: What's the Most Overpriced Non-luxury Vehicle in 2019?

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

Though much of the luxury vehicle segment is immune from the depressingly practical concept of “good value,” the less aspirational vehicles of the proletariat are not so fortunate.

Today we discuss overpriced non-luxury vehicles for sale in 2019.

We’re only concerned with brand new vehicles; those offered for the 2019 model year. Perhaps another day we can consider overpriced vehicles of the Seventies or Eighties and have a couple of time warp editions of this question.

Think about value, entry-level pricing, features and equipment, and quality for the money. How does your selection hold up against its competitors in the segment? Today’s suggestions should be lacking in some pretty key areas. I can tell you’re ready for an example.

Here it is, the Ford Ranger. This new (to North America) midsize truck starts at $24,000, and asks over $38,000 for a fully loaded example. All Rangers have the same 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine, with varying levels of gingerbread on top. Adding options to the base model raises the stakes rather quickly, and you’ll spend over $28,000 for four-wheel drive in the smaller Super Cab style. For the price, the interior does not impress — which makes more sense when one considers the T6 Ranger has been on sale around the world since 2011. Talk around the TTAC Slack room regularly brings the Ranger to the surface as one of the worst values in the pickup segment. The comparative lack of incentives on the Ranger means it’s into full-size truck pricing pretty quickly. The rent is too damn high.

Let’s hear your selections for overpriced vehicles hailing from basic brands. Are any other new offerings priced like the Ranger?

[Images: VW, Ford]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

More by Corey Lewis

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 145 comments
  • Bumpy ii Bumpy ii on Mar 06, 2019

    Lol that we got this war without a #EverythingTeslaMakes. The trolls must have slept in late today.

  • JohnTaurus JohnTaurus on Mar 13, 2019

    So, since the Ranger is priced very near the Toyota Tacoma, yet offers more power, capability and fuel mileage, its overpriced.

  • FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?
  • Bill Wade I was driving a new Subaru a few weeks ago on I-10 near Tucson and it suddenly decided to slam on the brakes from a tumbleweed blowing across the highway. I just about had a heart attack while it nearly threw my mom through the windshield and dumped our grocery bags all over the place. It seems like a bad idea to me, the tech isn't ready.
  • FreedMike I don't get the business case for these plug-in hybrid Jeep off roaders. They're a LOT more expensive (almost fourteen grand for the four-door Wrangler) and still get lousy MPG. They're certainly quick, but the last thing the Wrangler - one of the most obtuse-handling vehicles you can buy - needs is MOOOAAAARRRR POWER. In my neck of the woods, where off-road vehicles are big, the only 4Xe models I see of the wrangler wear fleet (rental) plates. What's the point? Wrangler sales have taken a massive plunge the last few years - why doesn't Jeep focus on affordability and value versus tech that only a very small part of its' buyer base would appreciate?
  • Bill Wade I think about my dealer who was clueless about uConnect updates and still can't fix station presets disappearing and the manufacturers want me to trust them and their dealers to address any self driving concerns when they can't fix a simple radio?Right.
  • FreedMike I don't think they work very well, so yeah...I'm afraid of them. And as many have pointed out, human drivers tend to be so bad that they are also worthy of being feared; that's true, but if that's the case, why add one more layer of bad drivers into the mix?
Next