Plastic interiors
Author
Discussion

entropy

Original Poster:

6,441 posts

233 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Why do people make a fuss/critical of the quality of plastics?

vtecyo

2,122 posts

159 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Because for the amount of time you spend in a car, most people would rather it is a nice place to be rather than sitting in a bin bag full of milk tray inserts.

HTH.

GroundEffect

13,864 posts

186 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
The same reason you'd make a fuss about the quality of the finish on the exterior? Or the interior of your house?

soad

34,701 posts

206 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Some look really bad/dated.


R2T2

4,089 posts

152 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
vtecyo said:
Because for the amount of time you spend in a car, most people would rather it is a nice place to be rather than sitting in a bin bag full of milk tray inserts.

HTH.
+1.

Although according to Autocar, my car was "poor quality because of the "flimsy headlining" Who touches up headlining whilst driving?! It's attached, isn't 50 shades of grime and does it's intended roll. I suppose, as it's not German and quilted with half a tonne of cows arse it gets knocked down for it. Which frankly doesn't bother me.

JDMDrifter

4,064 posts

195 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Because Citroen C1, it is horrendous quality.


soad

34,701 posts

206 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
entropy said:
Why do people make a fuss/critical of the quality of plastics?
Cheap-looking plastics on the dash. wink

thatguy11

658 posts

153 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
JDMDrifter said:
Because Citroen C1, it is horrendous quality.

The entire car is horrendous quality, feels like driving around in a paper bag

Captain Muppet

8,540 posts

295 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
I did a thread on this once

I'm not really any wiser, although the satnav cover on my 350Z definitely feels cheap in a way the the vac formed dash insert on my Elise doesn't, despite almost certainly being much more expensive.

It's only important to dash fingering fanatics. I only noticed 996 911s have terrible interiors after I had to sit in one for hours because it was broken - when you're driving you look out of the windows and only touch the wheel, gear knob and handbrake lever. Maybe you touch the switches too, but not in a 996 911 because it won't be where you think it will be.

kambites

71,573 posts

251 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
I've always found this a bit odd.

If I cared about my car's interior I wouldn't want exposed plastic at all, any more than I want plastic obviously on display in my living room. The difference between cheap plastic and expensive plastic is trivial - exposed plastic is generally just horrible (with a few exceptions like exposed structural carbon fibre).

Edited by kambites on Friday 19th December 14:50

Mouse1903

839 posts

183 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
The hard wearing but really cheap feeling stuff is what I dislike. Hyundai i10 I had as a courtesy car was a perfect example of this. Different shades of dark grey plastic everywhere, hideous!

Jasandjules

72,628 posts

259 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
A reason why we changed our Ford for a VW...

shake n bake

2,221 posts

237 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
So far two cheap to buy cars have been criticised for being cheap. Shocker.

powerstroke

10,283 posts

190 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
Most of the euro interiors are dull and drab cheap plastic
Audi and BMW included but the public gets what the public wants ie grey car with black or grey interior as soon as someone trys a color or something out of the ordinary it gets slaged off and the sheeple agree, for resale value init!!

Edited by powerstroke on Thursday 25th December 16:00

ferrariF50lover

1,834 posts

256 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
Nothing more ironic than generically criticising Audi and BMW, then referring to others as "sheeple".

The reason people dislike cheap interior plastics is exactly the same reason that people dislike anything cheap. Cheap, suits look awful, cheap TVs break after 15 minutes, cheap food tastes nasty, cheap hookers give you disease, cheap crack is made mostly of rat poison. Cheap is cheap for a reason. It's not nice. At least, it's not as nice as the expensive stuff. It's a bit of a weird question, if I'm honest.

I drive an awful lot of different cars and, without doubt, you get what you pay for. There are some exceptions, the new Seat Leon is a really good car and, in 1.6TDi form, it'll return insane MPG without being anything like slow. It's also extremely well priced and a perfectly nice place to spend a couple of hours. The equivalent Astra is a dreadful thing and, in truth, the Insignia upgrade doesn't help in the slightest. Hop out of that and into my DD Jaguar or an Evoke or even a C-Class, and it's very, very apparent where the difference lies between cheap and not so cheap.

Simon.

Ari

19,826 posts

245 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
powerstroke said:
...the public gets what the public wants ie grey car with black or grey interior as soon as someone trys a color or something out of the ordinary it gets slaged off and the sheeple agree, for resale value init!!
Irony overload! biggrin

ChocolateFrog

34,954 posts

203 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
JDMDrifter said:
Because Citroen C1, it is horrendous quality.

Rubbish. A car that could be had for £5500 new in 2005. Ours is 10 years old with 150k on it and the interior looks like new.

Don't confuse 'quality' or lack thereof with hard plastics, they're not related.

ChocolateFrog

34,954 posts

203 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
The so called premium brands, Audi being the worst that ive seen where they cover all the touch points in a rubberised plastic that wears away after a couple of years leaving the base plastic showing through. Looks awful IMHO but because they feel soft it must be good quality.

itcaptainslow

4,792 posts

166 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
JDMDrifter said:
Because Citroen C1, it is horrendous quality.

Wtf, you expect soft touch plastics on a brand new car for that price?

The C1/107/Aygo is one of the most robust small cars around. The only things that really fail are water pumps and clutches (although this could also have some correlation with them being predominantly town cars).

vikingaero

13,451 posts

199 months

Thursday 25th December 2014
quotequote all
Problem is that most Journos are seduced by the Audi plastics and make every comment on car interiors in reference to the Audi interior as the base or index. But they are too stupid to consider price in that segment because everything is handed to them on a plate with every option specced and quadruple checked by the fleet departments.

One thing that really grates me about them is the denigration of Japanese interiors. Beige and sometimes a bit st but they work and are reliable. Function or style?