Apparently it's backing away in China. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...wuhan-chinese-government-expert-idUSKBN20S02J --- Post updated --- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51813876
A small number of their older models are good. The F-150 with the 300 i6 is good, and their pushrod 3L V6 is ok. Someone I know has an old Mercury Mountaineer with a 5.0 V8, and it has taken all of the abuse thrown at it. The Crown Victorias are good because parts availability is the one of the best of any car here in the US. I personally don't like Fords, but a few of them aren't terrible and have served my friends well.
Ford is a bit like VW here some models are realiable as hell but then some other models are really unreliable like our Ford Escort back in the day because that had way too much problems for a new car
The highs and lows of the first 40 years (1951-1991) of Popular Mechanics' owner surveys. The reason why all the overall rating cars are from the 50s is because the overall rating category was abandoned in 1966.
Rented a 2020 VW Passat 2.0 turbo with the intentions of sliding it around some. Not a good car to pick for that. Very nice car, the 2.0 turbo I4 is torquey and the transmission is pretty responsive. Very smooth ride, perhaps slightly under-dampened. Leather interior, heated front seats, auto climate control, LED headlights, remote start. But I didn't rent it to cruise around in luxury. I rented it to sling the fuck out of it. I picked a bad car for that, because this Passat is anti-fun and anti-DIY every step of the way. There's no "TCS OFF" button, and the fuses aren't labelled anywhere in the fuse box or owners manual. To get the nannies to fuck off enough to even allow wheel spin I had to unplug a wheel speed sensor. I thought all was fine and dandy until I set off and discovered that the ABS being disabled put the engine and trans into an agonizing limp-home mode. It was hardly drivable. It was sickeningly slow; it had a top speed of about 55mph on flat ground and took at least a minute to get there. The turbo wasn't allowed to build any boost, the throttle was very limited, the transmission took ages to respond and would only use gears 1-3 of 6. All because of a single unplugged wheel speed sensor. Absolutely despicable. Couldn't imagine trying to keep one of these repulsively over-complex pieces of shit running in 15 years. It only cost me $19 for a day of rental. I got my moneys worth.
It's all necessary for safety. You're obviously reckless and selfish if you see anything wrong with any of that. (/s if it wasn't obvious.)
VWs are notorious for doing that also hooning a VW is rather hard tried to slide a Golf R once and it wouldnt do it i also tried corners way to fast but the car wouldnt step out or anything. Then i didnt even try to slide a WRX STI and its back went round.
I did and I still do, hence the sarc tag. But normal ABS, which can be worked around, is nothing compared to that utter garbagefest which gives no "official" way to even reduce the nannies' intervention and goes into a limp-in mode if you attempt to brute-force past the nannies. It's also a perfect example of the "slow = safe" brain disease; obviously the engineer who came up with that and the managers who signed off on it never bothered to think about the risk of getting stacked into from behind while in this mode. You'd think a company based in a country that has a Nurburgring and delimited freeways would think about that kind of thing, but I suppose the excuse is that anyone going fast enough to hit a "limping" mobile chicane is automatically selfish by default, just like with the cyclists.
That's fail-deadly or malicious software program. The ABS was and should be independent to other systems, a vehicle should be driven normally if a wheel sensor is disabled, the speedometer(and shiftlogic) is working according to the driveshaft RPM. The Passat behaved like that is to delibrately disturb the driver to pursuade the driver to repair the vehicle, less reliable, more repair profit. It's pretty sad that some modern vehicle is delibrately made less reliable to maximize repair profit, even by software means if hardwares are not unreliable enough. This was to make the car owners unable to repair the car themselves. If the car owners unable to repair the car, they would consult a "certified technician" and the repair price would be very high, compaired to DIY. BTW, fuck the DMCA. Not for safety, imagine you are driving at 35 mph downhill and a wheel sensor failed, and a runaway T-series is about to hit you at 55mph.
Back behind the wheel of an Optima. Pulled the ABS fuse and slung it around right proper, as you should be able to do. The COVID-19 pandemic has killed the demand for rental cars right as the agencies bulked up their fleets for travel season. Multi-billion dollar losses projected.
I've never driven a Golf but I'd imagine they're quite well planted, especially a Golf R with AWD. The Passat's dynamics were a bit different than any other midsize sedan I've attempted to slide. It's more rear heavy than, for instance, an Optima or Malibu. In limp mode, it was challenging to build up enough momentum to fling the rear end hard enough to do a forward 360. Both attempts I ended up sliding backwards towards the ditch. VWs are nice to drive, most of their cars have pretty composed handling in my opinion.
Yes they do drive nice my 20 year old VW golf still drives nicely even when i drive it at around 200 on the Motorway the car of my sister a relativly new Skoda Fabia doesnt like those high speeds. But for me the best cars to drive are the newer audis theyre super quite and handle really nice but they can be quite front heavy due to theyr engine layout.
VAG makes good cars in general. When they're new, at least. My mom has a 2013 Porsche Cayenne Turbo that had $15k+ of extended warranty work done in just 20,000 miles. It is, however, unbelievably fast and planted for its size. My sister drives a 2007 VW Beetle that handles pretty well besides being so slow. I think it has a fuel delivery issue. It needed a new heater core, which cost $1200 in parts and labor. Most new VAG cars handle nice and are very refined.
I've never been a fan of VAG vehicles personally. I've always found much better overall value for money out of similar American and Japanese offerings. I'd take a Fusion or a Camry over a Passat/Jetta every day of the week.
They're definitely the type of cars you want to lease. My praises are purely on initial quality and driving dynamics. They're plagued with over engineering and needlessly complex bullshit.
In america yes i wouldnt drive VAG either but here they are alot cheaper than a Camry or other cars like that you can get a A4 for the money of a Ford Mondeo sometimes if you can negotiare well enough. For example my Skoda Octavia was originally 40k but after some hagling i got it down to 33k the only car even close performance and kit wise was a Hyundai I30N wich did cost less but it doesnt have as much kit on it it also wasnt as nice to drive and didnt have that good of a ride like the Octavia (it did sound a hell of a lot better though).
