What car maker are you most angry with?

[nouseferaname90]

A lot of car makers have done some stupid stuff in the past 10 or more years...things ranging from creating new categories of stupid cars to making sub par products to decreased reliability to diluting brands to....and so on

what car maker are you most angry with in the present day? I personally don't really have one that I'm the most angry with, just some that I think, "What the hell are they thinking?"...

Feel free to post more than one.

 

[LeVeL]

GM and Chrysler for obvious reasons.
Ferrari and Mercedes for not offering a manual transmission option.

 

[Cobol74]

Mercedes for putting together crapo cars in the 1990s/2000s - once my favourite car manufacturer.
Toyota for loosing the plot.
Lexus for making loads of stupid Hybreds.
Rover, but more TVR for going bankrupt.
Perodua for, well existing.
Ferrari F1 team for being too well connected. And Massa do not forget Alonso is faster than you. ...

 

[Ilpav]

GM and Chrysler for obvious reasons.
Ferrari and Mercedes for not offering a manual transmission option.

The only Ferraris I can think of that weren't offered with a manual are the Enzo and the 458 Italia (and both of them would be slower with a manual).

 

[NecroJoe]

The only Ferraris I can think of that weren't offered with a manual are the Enzo and the 458 Italia (and both of them would be slower with a manual).

fast does not necessarily equal better. The non-manual line-up seems to be the go-forward for Ferrari.

 

[devil500]

GM and Chrysler for you know what, and Toyota for just being so freaking dull.

 

[argatoga]

None. I buy the cars I like regardless of brand.

 

[t3h r0x0rs]

GM and Chrysler for obvious reasons and Toyota for dropping the ball on quality and not making anything even remotely interesting, and Nissan for making the hideous Juke.

 

[GM_IV]

Toyota for taking their good reputation and decided profits and volume were more important than quality. Having Katsuaki Watanabe as their CEO was the worst thing to ever happen to the company, no exciting products came from him, no innovative products and worst of all lower quality products are a result of his cost cutting bean counter management style. I wouldn't buy a single car from their 2010 lineup, not a single one appeals to me. Yet even owning an older one has not been easy, Toyota does very very little to support its older cars considering at least 20+ year old cars to be obsolete.

I hope things change because Akio Toyoda now runs it. He identified everything that was wrong with the Watanabe era before becoming Toyota's top man, the recalls confirm the Watanabe management not only is bad for the company long term but bad when it came to managing safety issues. As a result I still like Toyota, I just don't recommend a Toyota vehicle released from 2005-2010, cars developed under Watanabe's penny pinching ways.

 

[p0w3r]

Honda.

I was actually chatting with my friend today about this. Honda used to have some of the more innovative technologies and cars in the market. They also had interesting and fun to drive cars and sports cars. But now there are few future prospects. The Civic Si is dated and some may argue it has fallen back against competition from other cars like Mazdaspeed 3s and such. They developed their new insight hybrid, and it is worse than Toyota's Prius...so they simply priced it lower. I cannot imagine Honda of yesteryear being willing to just take 2nd best.

Honda used to say it was a company of dreamers. Now its a company of bean counters. And it makes me sick.

 

[Hbriz]

Toyota for completley dropping the ball, getting carried away with profits and generally not trying to make good cars. The complete lack of anything vaguely inspired in their design since about the mid-90's onwards has been overwhelmingly disappointing. And for trying to overhaul their image here with the Rukus skip bin, a car marketed at the youth market and going up against the Kia Soul yet costing $10,000 more.

Honda for not making interesting cars when we know they have the ability to, with things like the S2000 and NSX gone south. Civic looked the part when it was new but is a bit dated now, and the way it drove never matched its appearance.

BMW for being the "ultimate driving machine", yet they have just taken away the manual option on all 3-series with the latest update here.

Holden for taking every good car they had in their range and quietly replacing them with horrid Korean snotboxes. And for trumpeting about the economy of the new 3.0 V6 Commodore when, in the real world, it is still less economical than the 4.0 I6 Falcon.

and finally Volvo, for silently chipping away at their Australian range until we are left with a single trim level and engine choice in the V70, and not many more choices on the S40 and V50, and for focusing too much on 4x4s when they should be doing wagons.

 

[CrzRsn]

At the moment.... Ford. For selling Volvo to the Chinese.

 

[2Billion]

Toyota for the reasons mentioned above but also having really awful customer service. If you have a recall, you should mention it to customers earlier than a month after it happens guys.

I don't hate Toyota cars as much as some - hell, I drive one, and am mostly happy with the car itself - but they've fucked shit up hardcore. When the time comes, I'm not getting another.

 

[LeMans GTR]

BMW

Love them, hate them, forever disappointed with them.

Hate them for straying so far away from what made them great.

 

[GerFix]

1. British Motor Corporation - This was the company whose inept management resulted in the need to form British Motor Holdings and then British Leyland. It was the mill stone around the neck of the British motor industry and oversaw its death.

2. Alfa Romeo - for no longer making rear wheel drive cars. In the 1960s and 1970s, Alfas were on a par with (or even superior to) BMWs in terms of handling and performance.

3. Volkswagen - for not bringing the Scirocco (or Corrado) to Australia.

4. Toyota - for the reasons others have mentioned here.

5. Great Wall - for threatening to fill our roads with the same cheap crap that fills the shelves of our shops nowadays.

6. Koenigsegg - for not taking over Saab.

7. Honda - for killing off the Prelude and CR-X and not offering any equivalent replacement models.

8. Hindustan Motors - for modernising the Ambassador.

 

[Backdraft]

I've thought about this (for all of 30 seconds), and I can really only be "angry" or "upset" at two parties.

Toyota: Not for the recent recall/quality issues, because honestly like most everyone else I wasn't aware of them until they came to light. However, I have been peeved at them for the general degradation and a certain "uniqueness" or individuality that can be attributed to the automobile and the driving experience, instead degenerating the roadways into a quasi-socialistic state where everyone drives the same bland, gray sedan-ish shape/blob. It's basically made the driving experience, especially on highways, a total bore, where instead of enthusiastically looking and admiring the different varieties of vehicles alongside you, you basically can't tell one car from the other. Although I'm sure there are other parties responsible for this in historical terms (Ford, GM, etc.), it just seems like Toyota really "popularized", and no doubt capitalized, on this notion of "one vehicle, under God, for all," and most everything else that came before was, if not a quality vehicle (and in many cases a deathtrap), at least had certain varying degrees of uniqueness or quirk to them.

DMV/Department of Transportation: For the lack and lowering of standards/education for driver licensees. Driving can be a potentially fatal activity, and should be treated as such. Instead you get a testing process where any schmuck with half a brain of common sense or maturity can pass. Yes, there are significant penalties and fines incurred by being an irresponsible and reckless driver, but those are dealt after an incident, not prior to them. What is being done with regards to driver skills/mannerisms training and qualifications in order to prevent these incidents from happening? It's of darn little use to impose punishment and fines onto drivers as deterrence method(s), and then fail to educate them on how to avoid them, instead only until after the costly mistakes have been made will the drivers learn the (harsh) lessons. I'll bet if only a fraction of the amount of revenues from all the various fines were spent on some serious seat-time at driving schools for all license applicants (combined with yearly/bi-yearly re-testing), it would have an immediate effect on the number of traffic incidents and/or general road behavior. But nope, that's how the politicians and organizations like it (when you line their pockets with green).

 

[Hibbleton]

Honda for killing the S2000 and failing to resurrect the NSX.

S2000
1999-2009
R.I.P

 

[argatoga]

1. British Motor Corporation - This was the company whose inept management resulted in the need to form British Motor Holdings and then British Leyland. It was the mill stone around the neck of the British motor industry and oversaw its death.

You can go further back than that. Austin did a half as'd take over of Morris which resulted in the redundancy and infighting. The biggest blow was BMC buying Pressed Steel. Leyland was a well run and profitable company before Stokes and the government thought merging was a good idea.

2. Alfa Romeo - for no longer making rear wheel drive cars. In the 1960s and 1970s, Alfas were on a par with (or even superior to) BMWs in terms of handling and performance.

Blame FIAT. They genericized Lancia as well.

6. Koenigsegg - for not taking over Saab.

Blame GM.

7. Honda - for killing off the Prelude and CR-X and not offering any equivalent replacement models.

In the last fiscal year Honda sold 3.5 million cars, over 5 million generators, and 10.3 million motorcycles. Not an excuse, but they do have other products to worry about.

 

[ninjacoco]

As others have said: GM and Chrysler for the obvious.

 

[Spectre]

Also, for Honda, the Insight is a placeholder until they can get the FCX Clarity technology mainstream.

Honda's other hybrids (like the Civic Hybrid) are conversely much *better* than their Toyota counterparts because they're cars first and hybrids second. So they're not terrible to drive.