What’s the worst car on sale today in the UK?
Discussion
There’s lots of good cars which are good at everything you expect of them, but are there genuinely any really awful cars and what’s the worst one?
Some people may say something like a Citroen c1 is awful, but is it really? They might be underpowered and noisy on the motorway, but they are designed as city cars which is where they aren’t awful, small, cheap, easy to park etc
Some people may say a base Dacia Sandero is awful because it’s interior is a bit plasticky, but in truth, it’s designed to be cheap, no frills motoring, which is fulfils perfectly
Others may think a MG HS is the worst car you can buy, but again, designed to be relatively cheap suv with lots of kit to tempt people away from Kia and the lower brands, which it’s doing very well, not the best to drive, but people buying them don’t care, they have a long warranty and decent dealers
Some may say the Audi A6 is awful because they don’t like the lane keeping assist or the status it projects, or that the steering is lifeless, but in reality, it’s a very good car for carrying people up and down motorways and was never designed to be a dynamic sports car
Some might say the BMW X7, but again, it does what it’s designed to do perfectly, be a MPV/SUV to carry the family and dog in luxury.
My conclusion is the worst car you can buy if the fiat tipo. It’s a golf sized car, and all it’s rivals in this class have a decent interior, plenty of kit, and can sit on the motorway in silence, the tipo I had as a hire car did none of these things, it’s not even very cheap, doesn’t look very good and I think it’s the worst car on sale today.
I think another rival for worst car is the Honda E - it’s very expensive which a city car shouldn’t be, it costs more than cars in the class above (it’s £1500 more than a Peugeot 208e or corsa e) has a much smaller range than either of those, can’t really carry passengers as it’s 3 doors and is a bit too big to be a city car really. A range of about 160 miles before it’s cold or raining isn’t enough when other cars in the price range get 200+
Plus it looks daft, bet those door cameras aren’t cheap when they get knocked off by a moped
Some people may say something like a Citroen c1 is awful, but is it really? They might be underpowered and noisy on the motorway, but they are designed as city cars which is where they aren’t awful, small, cheap, easy to park etc
Some people may say a base Dacia Sandero is awful because it’s interior is a bit plasticky, but in truth, it’s designed to be cheap, no frills motoring, which is fulfils perfectly
Others may think a MG HS is the worst car you can buy, but again, designed to be relatively cheap suv with lots of kit to tempt people away from Kia and the lower brands, which it’s doing very well, not the best to drive, but people buying them don’t care, they have a long warranty and decent dealers
Some may say the Audi A6 is awful because they don’t like the lane keeping assist or the status it projects, or that the steering is lifeless, but in reality, it’s a very good car for carrying people up and down motorways and was never designed to be a dynamic sports car
Some might say the BMW X7, but again, it does what it’s designed to do perfectly, be a MPV/SUV to carry the family and dog in luxury.
My conclusion is the worst car you can buy if the fiat tipo. It’s a golf sized car, and all it’s rivals in this class have a decent interior, plenty of kit, and can sit on the motorway in silence, the tipo I had as a hire car did none of these things, it’s not even very cheap, doesn’t look very good and I think it’s the worst car on sale today.
I think another rival for worst car is the Honda E - it’s very expensive which a city car shouldn’t be, it costs more than cars in the class above (it’s £1500 more than a Peugeot 208e or corsa e) has a much smaller range than either of those, can’t really carry passengers as it’s 3 doors and is a bit too big to be a city car really. A range of about 160 miles before it’s cold or raining isn’t enough when other cars in the price range get 200+
Plus it looks daft, bet those door cameras aren’t cheap when they get knocked off by a moped
Edited by Nickbrapp on Thursday 14th July 16:51
Nickbrapp said:
My conclusion is the worst car you can buy if the fiat tipo. It’s a golf sized car, and all it’s rivals in this class have a decent interior, plenty of kit, and can sit on the motorway in silence, the tipo I had as a hire car did none of these things, it’s not even very cheap, doesn’t look very good and I think it’s the worst car on sale today.
Never driven the tipo, but if it has any similarity to the 500L, then yes, it could compete for the worst car on the market I always judge a car by it's 'spirit' for want of a better word. I am often in hire cars, and so get to try lots of things. It's a very hard thing to define, but I either like or hate. Very rarely indifferent, because if indifferent it gets hated!
Examples...Vauxhall Grand Cross thing, Vauxhall Corsa. Yuk. Dacia Duster...loved it. Suzuki Swift. Loved it. Fiesta...loved it.
Particular hate - Toyota Corolla Hybrid estate....stupid CVT. Nanny state/Early Learning Centre interior. Hateful car. Took it back immediately and swapped for a Skoda which was HUGELY preferable.
I don't think there's any such thing as a bad car these days. But for people who care, there are certainly cars that are so unmentionable/drab/dull as to be un-required.
Examples...Vauxhall Grand Cross thing, Vauxhall Corsa. Yuk. Dacia Duster...loved it. Suzuki Swift. Loved it. Fiesta...loved it.
Particular hate - Toyota Corolla Hybrid estate....stupid CVT. Nanny state/Early Learning Centre interior. Hateful car. Took it back immediately and swapped for a Skoda which was HUGELY preferable.
I don't think there's any such thing as a bad car these days. But for people who care, there are certainly cars that are so unmentionable/drab/dull as to be un-required.
AlexIT said:
Nickbrapp said:
My conclusion is the worst car you can buy if the fiat tipo. It’s a golf sized car, and all it’s rivals in this class have a decent interior, plenty of kit, and can sit on the motorway in silence, the tipo I had as a hire car did none of these things, it’s not even very cheap, doesn’t look very good and I think it’s the worst car on sale today.
Never driven the tipo, but if it has any similarity to the 500L, then yes, it could compete for the worst car on the market That new Kia car, I assume it's an electric. It looks like how they envisaged futuristic cars to be back in the 80's. It's such a horrid looking car I don't even want to look up the name of thing but I'm sure you know which one I'm thinking of 
To be fair, of late Kia have a few decent lookers... but not this one.
To be fair, of late Kia have a few decent lookers... but not this one.AlexIT said:
Never driven the tipo, but if it has any similarity to the 500L, then yes, it could compete for the worst car on the market
Depends on how you define worst. For me, the kind of car where you'd have to haveanother car to complete 90% of the motoring duties.
Something that's good at one narrow small part of motoring and useless at everything else.
Any of the Caterfields, for example. Only two seats, rubbish luggage capacity, useless in
any sort of bad weather, low range, so you aren't going far anyway.
Perfect as a Sunday afternoon toy, limited to less than 50 miles a week. Terrible at any
other sort of motoring.
Something like a Porsche 911 does similar, at vastly increased cost. But some of them do have roofs
and reasonable sized petrol tanks, so doesn't quite get the award.
In comparison, something like an MX5, Lotus Elise or Toyota MR2 looks quite sensible.
dcb said:
AlexIT said:
Never driven the tipo, but if it has any similarity to the 500L, then yes, it could compete for the worst car on the market
Depends on how you define worst. For me, the kind of car where you'd have to haveanother car to complete 90% of the motoring duties.
Something that's good at one narrow small part of motoring and useless at everything else.
Any of the Caterfields, for example. Only two seats, rubbish luggage capacity, useless in
any sort of bad weather, low range, so you aren't going far anyway.
Perfect as a Sunday afternoon toy, limited to less than 50 miles a week. Terrible at any
other sort of motoring.
Something like a Porsche 911 does similar, at vastly increased cost. But some of them do have roofs
and reasonable sized petrol tanks, so doesn't quite get the award.
In comparison, something like an MX5, Lotus Elise or Toyota MR2 looks quite sensible.
- at motorway speeds (noisy)
- in town (it's as big as the latest Golf)
- to drive for fun (my dishwasher would probably have better dynamics)
- to sit in (it looks and feels cheap)
- to look at
So I still need to find a single reason why anyone should get one, as it's also expensive starting at over 22.000 € over here. It doesn't have any more appeal than a Dacia Sandero Stepway which is 50% cheaper (and looks better built anyway).
If you need to go from A to B no matter how, then it might be ok, but there are other propositions on the market which can do the same and fulfil at least one pleasing criteria.
Baser on hire cars I've had recently, which us usually a good place to find some fairly hateful cars, I'd nominate the Vauxhall Crossland, in particular the base model one with the non-turbo 1.2.
Objectively nothing was that wrong with it, but nothing was nice about it either. It went (albeit rather slowly and noisly) up to legal speeds at a rate which didn't delay traffic, it had room in it for 5 people to sit (in fairly uncomfortable seats), there was enough space for a few bags in the boot, but for the external size of the car there should have been more room etc.
I don't like that type of car anyway, but the likes of the Nissan Juke, Renault Captur, VW T-Cross etc are all significantly better.
Objectively nothing was that wrong with it, but nothing was nice about it either. It went (albeit rather slowly and noisly) up to legal speeds at a rate which didn't delay traffic, it had room in it for 5 people to sit (in fairly uncomfortable seats), there was enough space for a few bags in the boot, but for the external size of the car there should have been more room etc.
I don't like that type of car anyway, but the likes of the Nissan Juke, Renault Captur, VW T-Cross etc are all significantly better.
Twig62 said:
How long till this thread turns into the usual PH Vauxhall bashing (mostly by people who have never actually owned or driven one - but Jeremy Clarkson says) ?
Already begun, further up.Worst car? Probably a MEV City. You can argue it's a quadricycle or whatever all you want but it's clearly a car. A quoted 105 miles range (soooo 45..) a max speed of a heady 50mph if you pick the mighty "City 3" model (although range tops out on the spec sheet at 90 miles so it's lost 15 miles by the time I've typed a sentence) or 30mph if you pick the "City 1" atrocity, it looks like a G-Wiz someone ordered from Wish and lists "Driver/Auxiliary Driver safety belt" as interior features. It's a bad car that will no doubt be produced badly. Also, the advert says it's a car and ideal for taking 2 children to school despite it only having 2 seats and a teenager says the best thing about it is that she can connect her phone.
Nickbrapp said:
... but are there genuinely any really awful cars ...?
Any really awful cars on sale today? Assuming you mean new ones, I couldn't specifically say as I haven't experienced them all.However, if you were to allow a generalisation I would say any super/hyper car. Too wide for most roads, too low for decent visibility, too impractical, too expensive to run, too uncomfortable, too difficult to ingress/egress/park, etc.
All based on my (very limited) experience, motoring needs and biases naturally.
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