The Year’s Poorest-Performing Cars
Whether it’s the tried-and-true Butterball, the more enigmatic Tofurkey or pricey “pastured” birds, turkey is simply what many of us ate for Thanksgiving. But we’ve come to know another type of turkey — vehicles that, for some reason or another, have been problematic or simply haven’t found their place in the market. Most have make-or-break issues with shoppers: recalls, reliability, resale value and safety. In compiling our fourth annual list of “Automotive Turkeys,” we looked at four factors, all pertaining to 2007 model-year vehicles: number of recalls to date, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) database; reliability ratings from Consumer Reports; depreciation, in the form of Automotive Leasing Guide’s (ALG) star ratings; and safety, from NHTSA and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash-test ratings…. Topping the list: The Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Nitro, Jeep Liberty, Dodge Caliber and Dodge Magnum.
And we wonder why GM is such a thoroughly f—-ed-up mess….
Let’s face reality, shall we? How about we finally admit that the only reason that GM is still in business is that, as one of the behemoths of the American economy, a failure of a company the size of General Motors would be a catastrophic blow to our economy. Basically, this means that normal market forces don’t apply to General Motors, because they’re so damn big we can’t afford to let them go belly up…not that GM doesn’t richly deserve it.
So what does it say about General Motors when the top five worst-performing vehicles this year are all GM products? It would be bad enough the bad news ended there, but the parade of ineptitude, inefficiency, and just plain sloppiness and poor workmanshop only gets worse. It’s too bad, really, because I really like some of GM’s latest designs, but great design only makes a vehicle look good. It can’t disguise poor workmanship and inadequate manufacturing processes.
If GM wants to survive long-term, perhaps it needs to take care of it’s business. After all, if Toyota and Nissan can produce high-quality, well-made vehicles, you’d think GM would be able to figure out a way to do the same thing.
