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Overated rides, any thoughts?

3K views 46 replies 21 participants last post by  orconn 
#1 ·
I don't know about you, but over the years, I have driven many cars much touted by the automotive press that have turned out to be really over rated.

When I think of cars that enjoyed much praise in the car press and among buyers, the car that always comes to mind first is the 1970's thru '80's Mercedes 450SL. It wasn't as anemic as its' predecessors the '50's 190SL or the "60's 280SL, but it was not particularly quick either. It was strictly a "boulevardier" and like later Mercedes iterations on the same theme really was a let down when driven in a spirited manner. The power steering was dead, the ride was harsh (but the car didn't handle either) and the seats so hard this car started the fad for shearling seat covers. But Mercedes sold a ton of these cars, especially in Beverly Hills. The quality of construction was good but the materials were only marginally better that cars that cost half its' price. I had relatives who succumbed to the Mercedes 450SL's siren song, and I drove these cars on a regular basis, so became very familiar with them. I will say that owners held on to them for very long times, probably couldn't afford to sell after paying ridiculous prices for maintenance and repairs.
 
#43 ·
I find it to be pleasant but boring to drive. It feels like a large domestic car and it looks like a suppository. Painfully anonymous.



The modern Porsche 911 is overrated. Versions of the Corvette have encroached on its performance and Porsche's own Cayman and Boxster are far more balanced and enjoyable to drive.

The air cooled 911, however, is a truly special automobile.
 
#3 ·
It's a huge improvement over the previous model, even though I could do without the bustleback Seville look... However -- I'd still rather have a W140, even if it's at minimum 12 years old...
 
#5 ·
The king of overrated cars - Nissan GT-R. Nissan has become like the little know-it-all kid in sixth grade. LOOK AT WHAT I MADE!! IT'S BETTER THAN YOURS!!! HEY EVERYBODY LOOK!!

Honorable mentions:

Toyota Camry - Not really the car's fault so much as it is the fault of all the hype made over this car for like 15 years now. It may be reliable, but it couldn't be more bland and cheap feeling.

VW Toureg - It pulled a 747 a distance of six inches in like one minute. Wow, the Silverado HD and F250's are really scared now! :bigroll:

Subaru - Ok, there's nothing wrong with Subaru...it's a perfectly fine car. But if you talk to the company and it's fans, you'll learn that not having AWD is what will eventually lead to the downfall of civilization. Yeah ok. :thumbsup:

There's definitely more, but that's what I can think of for now.
 
#6 ·
DEFINITELY agree on the GT-R comment above. It's not to say I don't like it, but I DO NOT see 80,000.00 worth of car there, not by a LONGSHOT. MAYBE 50-60k MAX. To call that Japanese pocket organizer on steroids an exotic is probably the most egregious example of over-hyping that thing. The Lexus LF-A is in danger of entering this territory but it's much closer to a street legal Formula 1 race car.

Much as I hate to say it... Throw almost any and ALL current BMWs into the over-hyped list *right now*. BMW has completely and utterly lost its direction. Read a review for ANY of the existing sedans and you will see a disturbing trend citing lack of steering feel and communication... the BEST PART of a BMW in the first place! Right now, the best vehicles BMW offers ironically aren't cars at all... the X6, X5 and the newly redesigned X3, which finally lost all of that silly Scandinavian minimalism and black plastic cladding. I do like the E90 3 Series coupe, but to my surprise, even the normally all roses and sunshine Motorweek reported the 335is's steering to suffer from this lack of communication. BMW needs to refocus and understand their place in the automotive marketplace, because if a BMW stops being a BMW, the domino effect on the rest of the industry could be disastrous.

As for the W221 S Class, it may not be the best looking thing around, but it is such a quantum leap over the W220 there's absolutely no comparison. Once prices start to come down on these, I'd love to own one. I've been in my friend's on numerous occasions and found that Mercedes finally addressed all of the disturbingly shitty qualities of the W220. Since I don't sit in the back, I don't much care what happens back there.
 
#8 ·
I hope what you are saying about BMW steering is not true! In the U.S. market BMW has had a justified reutation for outstanding driving and handing cars, if those two attributes were lost there would be no point to BMW. Their 7 series cars have always been nothing to get excited about, but the 5 and 3 series cars have set the standard for sports sedans in this country. I personally wouldn't pay the premium ask for a BMW for the marginally better build quality that are present in these cars.
 
#11 ·
Most any Toyota product, but they took a massive fall from grace after their recalls this last year.
Most of the late model Volkswagens, as they look nice and drive nice, but are terribly expensive to own and not very reliable
I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I think most late model Corvettes. They were fast and handled great, but rode poorly and their interiors were embarrassing for America's best sports car.
 
#13 ·
I've driven 70s and 80s M-B's and some early 90s models. One in particular was a 500 SEL sedan. I was getting trounced off of red lights by retirees in Lincoln Town Cars, all the controls had a heavy handed feel to them, and nothing about it seemed to make it worth the princely sum it cost its owner.

The only thing that I can honestly say impressed me was the paint job.

I drove a 1st gen LS400. It was "ok" had a nice build, but felt like an appliance. Had a tremendous amount of torque steer and its powertrain didn't feel as silky as they make it out to be. Radio and controls looked and felt cheap. Interior furnishings were way too much like mainline toyotas which isn't "bad" but not in a car that costs 3x as much.

I drove a BMW 325 convert. Was underpowered off the line, and had a plastic rear window that deteriorated like crazy. The soft trim was rotting away and the car was less than two years old.
 
#14 ·
Radio and controls looked and felt cheap. Interior furnishings were way too much like mainline toyotas which isn't "bad" but not in a car that costs 3x as much.
LOL, because that ubiquitous Delco/Bose Gold Headunit of the same timeframe was the height of precision and luxury...

And, I'm just guessing here, but a top of the line Toyota Cressida had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000.00, so the LS400 at 38k was hardly three times as much.

LS400... No. LS460 definitely.

EDIT: I stand corrected, the BASE price of a 1990 Cressida was $21,498.00.
 
#15 ·
I feel the current Honda Accord is an extremely overrated car compared to the competition that has finally caught up with it, namely the Hyundai Sonata and Ford Fusion. It's quite unfortunate because I'm a fan of past Honda cars, but the new ones have a cheap feel to them and everything just feels of lower quality than Honda's of the 90's and early '00's. The same can be said for the Toyota Camry, and I believe Toyota stopped making decent Camry's in '01 and really good Camry's in '96.

I have always felt that BMW's were overrated in some form or another, but not because they are bad cars. I just don't get the infatuation with them, and there are so many fanboy's out there that are quick to defend them and shoot down anybody with a different opinion of that. The only thing worse than BMW fanboys... Apple fanboys. No wonder the two kind of go hand in hand...
 
#20 ·
Spend a few hours over at E46fanatics.com and you'll almost have to shower afterwards.

That said, I am a definite BMW and Apple guy, but I appreciate a lot of other brands. I have Apple, Windows AND Android devices and there is of course my love of Cadillacs and certain Lexii.
 
#18 ·
Hey just because a car has an overzealous fan club doesn't make the car overrated. I do feel cars like the last few generations of Hondas were overrated as used cars and their used prices reflected an unrealistic assessment of their real reliability and quality. Hondas weren't bad when fairly priced new, but commanded ridiculous prices in the used marketplace.

I have always felt "superior German engineering" was a figment of the company's U.S. advertising company as opposed to any basis in fact. Having had experience with Mercedes cars since the 1950's I can say until recently they were over weight under powered slugs that drove with a minimum of road feel. In order to buy a Mercedes that was actually a good performing car a buyer had to pay through the nose for one of their over priced hotrods costing well over $100,000. Mercedes service reps attitude of "Vhat did you do to our car?" when their over engineered piece of crap had, once again, failed to perform.
 
G
#22 ·
I have owned several Mercedes and loved them. You can go to the junkyard and find the most rusted, clapped out Benz and open and shut one if it's doors and it still has that solid "thunk" that all Mercedes have. I don't agree that they are "crap". I am a fan of Mercedes products. Some years and models less than others but still a fan.
 
#25 ·
I agree, the W210 E Class, the 1st gen ML, and in many respects the W220 S Class were all just absolute trash. The W211 E Class didn't FEEL like garbage but it was still horridly unreliable. The C Class was merely passable, and the G500 and G55 were the only glaring exception to this rule, but that chassis was older than Methuselah anyway and isn't really a modern MB product
 
#24 ·
Ford Superduty pickups, especially those with the 6.0 and 6.4 liter powerstroke diesel(the old 7.3liter model was a good motor). Talk about unreliable pieces of junk, I don't know why they still sell so well. I'm also amazed at the number of these things put into fleet use, I guess they sell them for $200 less than Chevy or Dodge and automatically get the bid. I'm sure the maintenance/repair costs are a lot higher than if they had gone with a Chevy or Dodge to start with.


Toyota Camry, boring, ugly, and not really that well made anymore.

Jaguar- great looking, very luxurious, unreliable pieces of junk in the finest British tradition.

Nissan cars- Just plain ugly, CVT transmission is annoying and prone to failure, and generally feel cheaply made IMO. I still like their truck line and Infiniti though.

I also agree that used Hondas are priced in the stratosphere. $3000(your basic college student budget) gets you a clapped out 92 Accord with 200k miles on it.
 
G
#27 ·
I would call anything with the "Northstar sytem" overrated. The hype when the "system" was introduced was off the hook. The automotive press absolutely loved it and it was going to be the end all be all. Too bad it never lived up to it's promise but at least it was designed to run without coolant. :thepan:
 
#28 ·
Definitely a case of "over-promise and under-deliver" for probably the first 10 years (although its performance targets WERE impressive for the day), but the RWD, and RWD Supercharged version finally seem to be delivering on "what might have been". Of course, in traditional GM fashion, this is right at the end of the engine's lifespan.
 
#29 ·
I agree with Nick and Ian. Mercedes are usually some of the best built and best engineered cars out there, especially their older models, but once about 2000 rolled around, almost their entire product line that was imported to the US was cheaply built, cheaply engineered and very problematic. It all started in 1996, when the W210 (googly eyed E-Class) was rolled out and just went downhill from there. The models that were already in existance during that period still had fantastic build quality and attention to detail (my '99 S320 was an example of that), but once the various model was replaced with the new line, it went downhill and fast. The problem started to get better around 2004 and 2005, when the next generations of the various models hit the showrooms.

I hope that makes sense. I wish I could draw it out on a graph, it would be a lot easier to see.
 
#32 ·
Overrated:

1967-1969 Camaro

I grow weary of the worship of these cars. There were better muscle cars in the period, and there are better ones today. Meh.

I say this as I look at a pair of '69s in front of my office, a '68 in the back shop, and another '69 coming in tomorrow. Not to mention the '67 and the '69 we sold last month.

Meh I say, meh.
 
#39 ·
Overrated:

1967-1969 Camaro

I grow weary of the worship of these cars. There were better muscle cars in the period, and there are better ones today. Meh.

I say this as I look at a pair of '69s in front of my office, a '68 in the back shop, and another '69 coming in tomorrow. Not to mention the '67 and the '69 we sold last month.

Meh I say, meh.
Yup, i'd take 1970-71 Barracuda over a 67-69 Camaro any day
 
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