Who Makes The WORST Cars On The Road Today?

Land Rover

@Nostradamus

Right on the money!

Pretty bad list...They put the S550 on their because it is expensive own because it isn't fuel efficient, they said it is reliable...of course a car that costs 87k is going cost more to fuel just like it costs more to heat a larger home...the people that buy this car don't care they expect as much.

The person that wrote this article is definitely a tree hugging hippy

Sooo subjective. But if I were to say worst engineered...Chrysler. Worst Designs...Honda, without a doubt honda.

So sad too, their design house used to be the envy of all Japan, everyone wanted an NSX which brought ferrari looks to a corvette budget. Or the S2000 which filled a gap missing in the market for far too long, a FR convertible that one could afford...and WASN'T a Miata. I remember when the CRX first hit the market, everone drooled over it as they do even to this day (still a pretty hatch design, like the VW Corrado) And one doesn't even need to mention the 3rd generation Integra and 4th gen Prelude. With the Crosstour and the "New?" Civic they are failing at a rate to match our current housing market.

Poor Honda.

your post shows you can take a thread title and turn it into whatever you want.

Who makes the worst cars: Spectator says its Honda.

Correct.

The link gave a specific response to a Forbes poll of the market using technical data. The question 009 asked with his title was however very subjective. I decided to answer 009's question, because I thought it would definitely be more fun rather than playing the lets bash Domestics game.

I don't love Mercedes Benz, being that it's a Lexus competitor and everything, but come on. S-class as one of the worst cars on the road? Absolutely preposterous. They are one of the BEST cars on the road, and even I'll admit that. This guy's on acid.

so a $100k+ S550 made the list for no other reason than because it's expensive to own. I'm sure the people buying them are shocked and appalled to find out that a the costs associated with driving an abnormally expensive car are proportional to the cost of the car itself. Just absolutely shocked.

i HATE Mercedes, it's a brand that's made more dumb choices than Lindsay Lohan in the past 5 years

But this article must have been written by a blind monkey with Siphilis

really? the S-class and SL are still the benchmarks of their categories. and there are plenty of other great cars....from the GL to the AMG cars.

and mercedes still sells at a huge premium to all its mainstream competitors. by your account, the top 2% of american earners must just stupid. yeah....not.

I can name hundreds of cars that are expensive, have horrible fuel economy and high cost of ownership. With that criteria, shouldn't a Bugatti Veyron be on this list too?

The S class is arguably the most innovative, revolutionary vehicle for the past few decades, and this is coming from a BMW owner. IMO, more innovations have come from the S class than any other vehicle.

the article is on MSNBC.com, via Forbes magazine. Ironic, since I imagine many of the people who actually read Forbes probably have S-classes. Either way, it wasn't a Consumer Reports article, though I have no doubt the S-class doesn't fare well in their eyes either. You don't buy (or decide not to buy) $100k+ vehicles because of Consumer Reports.

and if you read further than the beginning of the article, you'd have seen: "We should note that the Mercedes S550 is the only vehicle that qualified for our list because of a high cost of ownership, low fuel efficiency and a low rating for overall value, not because of any problems with reliability, safety or performance, which affected every other vehicle in the top 10."

"Indeed, luxury vehicles like [the S550] and the Cadillac Escalade are arguably at a disadvantage on lists like this — their luxurious interior upgrades, high-quality trim and powerful engines work against them."

So basically the S550 wouldn't be on the list if it wasn't powerful and was cheaply built, presumably because those things would make the car cheaper and help the "value". Except then it wouldn't be an S550, it'd be a Cadillac DTS.

A family member tried to sell his mint condition 4 yr old S class with only 10,000 miles, U.S MB dealer was only offering $20,000. So he shipped it to a third world country and sold it for $65,000.

I'd expect Consumer Reports to be stunned at this. Normal people should then deduce that this is actually because there are a lot more 4-year-old S-Classes on the road in the US than there are in many third world countries. Thus depreciation must be much greater.

Many BMW and Land Rover models from a reliability and cost of ownership factor are horrible, yet there is no mention of these marques anywhere on this list, which shows this article definitely has a negative, biased slant toward American automobiles. Furthermore looking at how the data was compiled for this study is disingenuous at best.

American car manufactures are no more inferior in build quality and dependability than many of the heralded European makes in many cases.

I wasn't aware that Buick, Cadillac and Lincoln had something Competing with the A8. Your comparison is silly, it's like saying Benz is rubbish quality because it's not on par with that of a Bentley. Boy, you better keep on blazin and mind your own business before you open your mouth and let the stupid out.

@blazinboy

I think you may have had a little too much eggnog on Easter Sunday. How can you have TRULY have build quality of a car without dependability? You and the other blinded sheep get enthralled with shiny wood veneers, handcrafted stitched leather and all the other fancy accouterments which don't mean squat if the automobile won't start or is constantly in the shop with various issues every other month.

And speaking of the Audi A8, please tell me one luxury American RWD sedan that is similarly priced that one can make make an actual educated comparisons between? Furthermore, since you seem to be so fond of Audi lets discuss the parent company VW and their reputation for shoddy, mediocre build quality and spotty reliability.

I suggest that you find something else better to do with your time besides making yourself look stupid.

lol you're funny. Funny because you can spout such nonsense with a straight face, an s class equal to a bentley lol! Maybe if you're in a drug induced haze you wouldn't be able to tell which one is better, oop sorry. lol

Try telling your average millionaire/billionaire that they drive the worst cars on the road today, and they'll be laughing at you for the rest of your life.

@Joe_Limon

Great Minds think alike!

What a truly lame article. The reasons of why these cars are "bad" is completely debatable and subjective. If they think the S class has high maintenance costs then they should include every other car in its class as spare parts and above all FUEL COSTS are equally high amongst its rivals.

This article is a joke.

Hyundai smoke it back...

Take a ride in a new XF Jaguar and prepare to be shocked.

Seriously the article simply states "The Worst Cars On The Road" and over half of the vehicles they have chosen are truck or truck based. Sure they burn more fuel than other cars (plain elementary here) and cost more to maintain than smaller cars things like truck tires and oil changes cost more because tire sizes and engine capacities are larger. These guys at Forbes don't seam to bright on this one.

But most of the cars are on the LEAST RELIABLE and lowest scoring list as well....if it we're only running costs that count you wouldn't have the AVEO on the list.

Answering the question provided, nowadays you'll struggle to find many really bad cars brand new and upcoming. Even Chrysler, with their revolting PT Cruiser and Sebring is replacing them with much nicer versions. Look what Hyundai have done to their brand and image over the past 5 years. The worst I have ever seen in recent times, brand new, is 'Chery' and 'Geely'. They've just started importing this disgusting Chinese brand into Australia here and they are cheap, unsafe, ugly and very bad quality. No wonder the sales of early version W203 C-Classes and E46 3 Series have sky-rocketed. So, brands to beware of: Ssangyong, Chery, Proton, Geely, Great Wall.

In response to this article, I find it fairly pathetic. Of course more advanced and expensive European cars will have high costs of ownership and when something goes wrong it can be major and expensive repair, primarily because they are much more complex.

And to the whole W221 S-Class thing. Over the past 36 months I've had a pre-facelift S350 and a facelift S500. Anybody who says that these cars are gas guzzlers and not fuel efficient hasn't driven one. I can tell you that my current S500 V8 is far more fuel efficient and puts out less C02 than the BMW 3 Series 4-cylinder I had about 15 years ago, which didn't really consume that much either. Who knows - in a few years time the S600 probably will be as fuel efficient as the E36 320i I had.

GM Followed by Chrysler. But I can only speak for the area that I live in (the U.S). Oh yeah... Toyota seems to be building plenty of crap as well.