Forbes is out with their list of the most overpriced cars in America. Of course, they’re all American cars (God forbid you do some research and throw a foreign car in or two). One of them really caught my eye, though.
What’s so special about the Trailblazer?
Well nothing, unless you consider the fact that they stopped making it a year ago! And not for nothing, but this paragraph particularly made me barf.
Those three models, in particular, tell the story of the most overpriced autos currently on the market: Our entire list is comprised of vehicles manufactured by Detroit’s Big Three. No foreign brands make the list, as those automakers’ cars tend to be priced fairly when considering supply and demand as well as their high rankings on consumer-satisfaction surveys.
Really? Has anyone read Consumer Reports’ opinion of the much-touted Honda Insight?
Consumer Reports really dislikes the 2010 hybrid Honda Insight. It blasted the vehicle for its “ride quality, handling, interior noise, acceleration, rear-seat, access, and visibility,” and ranked it 21 out of 22 among tested small hatchbacks and wagons. Only the Dodge Caliber got worse marks. The Insight was the only vehicle not “Recommended” in the Consumer Reports study. Consumer Reports said it is “the most disappointing Honda Consumer Reports has tested in a long time.”
Or maybe you would rather read the best review of a car ever written…
So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.
So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.
The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).
It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.
And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.
So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.
The Insight also gets dinged in numerous reviews for its “cheap” build quality, plasticky feel, and overall ickiness of the interior. That’s not surprising because despite Honda’s stellar reputation and untouchable status as the kings of automobiles, no one ever mentions their horrible interiors. The Accord’s interior is one of the worst I’ve ever seen with a driver’s seat so close to the pedals that my 6′1″ legs can’t press the pedal without being bent as if I’m riding a bicycle.
Considering the overall crap that is the Insight, it’s hard for me to believe that all import cars were taken into consideration when this crap list was made and yet none of them were so bad as to make the list. I just don’t buy it. There’s plenty of import crap out there, but its become fashionable over the past few years to just continuously (and often unfairly) rip into American vehicles for things that haven’t been true in about 5 years.
