Cars I'm thankful to be able to hate

On Thursday, I brought you the first batch of cars I don't like very much, and listed the reasons I didn't quite care for them. My line of "hatred" continues, this time spread to vehicles that aren't necessarily being discontinued. Thursday's post was directed at Chrysler, and some of this post will be as well. Despite rapidly improving since Fiat took helm, there is still some much-needed work to do in revamping the lineup. By now, readers should be familiar with my loathing of newer Dodges, and even though I ridiculed the biggest offenders, there's one particular Dodge product that I haven't forgotten about.


From the side profile, this SUV certainly looks cheesy. Slab sides, exaggerated fender flares, chunky door handles, cliched fender "vents", and nondescript taillights. What more could an SUV buyer want? Oh yeah. It has to have some sense of sport right? Of course it does! On base models, the unpainted plastic trim is supposed to give off "tough" vibe, but in reality all it does is make it look like it wasn't fully painted before it was whisked onto a delivery truck for transport to the nearest dealer. Want a Nitro that doesn't look cheap?Fear not, Dodge has laden the upper-most model with a set of blingin' 20" wheels that wouldn't look out of place on a candy painted Caprice. And with those big wheels comes a sporty ride. Not in the sense of darty steering and precise handling. Here, sporty is a terrible excuse for the term buckboard. I did ride in a Nitro R/T (like the one pictured here) once courtesy of a family member's rental vehicle. Gah. Remember that Tahoe I rode in last winter? Yeah, the Nitro made that seem like a Town Car. Granted, it had the biggest wheels this truck was available with, but still. Add that to a plethora of body roll and brakes that seemed to act as a sponge rather than stop the vehicle. Awesome engineering, if I do say so.




As with Chrysler Corp, Mitsubishi is supposedly re-inventing itself, too. With slow sales, drab cars, and quite possibly one of the worst dealer networks in the US, they need at least something to entice people to even stop in. The Outlander could use some polish, the Outlander Sport is.. well... there's nothing sporty about it, and.. honestly I forgot what other vehicles they make. Oh yeah, the Lancer. How could I forget? Oh wait. Probably because for every Lancer I see, I see 12 or 13 Subaru Imprezas. And then, there's the Eclipse "sports car"....


Back in 1989, when the Eclipse made its debut, it was on the cutting edge of a new trend; import performance. In addition to the base model GS, there was a hoot-to-drive AWD GSX model. In 1990, it had 195 horses via a turbo 4. Other models made due with a 92 horse 1.8 (in the base model and GS), while upper level cars got a 135 horse 4G63A. Top-spec GST (FWD) and GSX (AWD) got the much-loved 4G63. Over the years, the Eclipse strayed away from its roots a relatively cheap performance bargain. The biggest change from this came in 2000, when the demise of AWD was announced. The new for 2000 car was only available in FWD, and had a 3.0L V6 instead of a turbo four cylinder. The styling, too, left something to be desired it catered to the "rib" styling that was ever so prevalent at the time (nee Pontiac Grand Am). In 2006, at the Eclipses' last major redesign, it was rendered (by me and the auto industry alike) a total flop. It was bigger, much heavier, but still packed roughly the same power. This time, the V6 grow to 3.8L, which is seen by many as generic displacement for a V6. While it was quick in a straight line, the car suffered from immense torque steer, and many magazines called it "the worst FWD 'performance' car they've ever driven. As seen above, you can get the "performance goodies" on a four cylinder car now, too, rendering the Eclipse as a car with "way more look than cook" as Car and Driver's buyer's guide said. Oh yeah, and gone is the relatively good gas mileage of the first and second gen cars. This newest incarnation struggles to break 17 MPG mixed driving. Progress? Not quite.


The final car in this installment of the series is Mitsubishi' bread and butter Galant. While it isn't really a bad car per se, it's not really a very relevant car. Like the much loathed Chevy Impala, the Galant hasn't had a major redo for at least six years now, and it shows. It's not really a very strong seller, and with hardly any dealer network, it doesn't need to be. But unlike the Chevy Impala, Mitsubishi for some reason or another decided this car needs a four cylinder as well as a six. That's a decent move, I suppose, but its direct competition doesn't offer a four. Mitsubishi says this car competes with Toyota Camry,Honda Accord, and Nissan Altima, but I beg to differ. All three of this cars have been recently redesigned, or least heavily updated since the Galant was last so. Think twice about which large car your next $30k goes to.