@VDCdriver Kind of like the gas, electric, water, and cable utilities warnings. Call before you dig. In my generation this was common sense. Current generations. Not so much. If they drill into a gas tank or dig into any of the above they are a victim.
A little off the subject of gas tanks, but I remember when I was called to troubleshoot a point-of-sale printer that stopped working. The manager had decided that the network cable hanging down was ugly, so he stapled it to the wall in about 20 places with the staples going through the cable. It did look neat and tidy.
As I hear these stories, the “malign-ment” that most all of the cars of any previous era gets is well deserved. The new ones are not perfect, especially with such poor visibility out you need a plethora of cameras and mirrors to see things you used to be able to see by just turning your head, but survival in crashes, reliability, economy and overall performance.
@oblivion–Your manager stapling the network cable to the wall reminds of a former minister at the church I attend. The p.a. system in the church developed a bad hum. He called a company out to see what could be done. The company’s recommendation was that we needed a whole new system at the cost of $10,000. The $10,000 didn’t include the price of having a “clean” electrical line run from the circuit breaker panel. I was chairing the house committee and balked at the idea since we didn’t have the money. I took a look at what we had and eliminated the hum in less than a minute. The minister was a neat freak and had run the microphone cable along the power line and used ties to hold them together. I cut the ties, separated the power line from the microphone cable and there was no more hum.
The Pontiac Aztek is underservedly maligned in a way. Studies, surveys, etc always seem to rate the Aztek as “one of the worst cars ever built”.
That comes across as meaning mechanically unreliable and the cars were not bad mechanically. It’s the looks that were horrid; not the mechanicals.
In an appearance survey, I agree the Aztek is in the very top tier in the Ugly Class.
However, with the appearance of the Nissan Juke I’m often finding myself rating the Aztek a little more favorably. The Juke must have been designed after the work day was over about 1 in the morning at a local pub…
“The Juke must have been designed after the work day was over about 1 in the morning at a local pub.”
That’s why it is often referred to as the Nissan Joke!
;-))
I find the Buick Rendezvous to be decent looking, even though it’s clearly a kissing cousin of the Aztek
A relative of mine has a Juke. He thinks it looks great, but to me it looks like “Bug Eyes”
“I find the Buick Rendezvous to be decent looking, even though it’s clearly a kissing cousin of the Aztek.”
I agree that the Rendezvous is much better-looking than the mechanically identical Aztek.
However, did you ever take a look at the rear suspension of both of those vehicles?
The part of the chassis to which the rear suspension is attached is so low to the ground that there is only about 5 inches of ground clearance underneath it. Since this is in the exact center of the vehicle, it would be easier to “high center” those vehicles than it would be with many sedans.
What kind of AWD vehicle is that?
Yeah, I agree about the rear suspension . . .
I could envision trouble on a simple dirt road or a forest road
Awd pretenders are not just restricted to Buicks by GM. You look at a lot of previous gen Chevy, Gmc trucks and the under carriage gives you pause for doing anything with the 4 wd but driving through 2 inches of snow. With stamp steel shock mounts spot welded to the axle and hanging well below them, parking brake cable lines hanging as low as the pumpkin all give you pause as an off road truck. They are in name only and are often still maligned for pretending to be with their fancy logos. Off road to previous models was driving accross the lawn.
I have a feeling that some of these designs like the Aztec were submitted as a humorous response to a management directive and management was silly enough to take it seriously. Has no one else ever submitted a ridiculous proposal in jest, only to have an incompetent executive take it seriously?
If I needed a car and was offered a good Aztec at the right price, I would probably buy it. Back in the early 1950s, the 1949 through 1951 Nash Ambassador Airflytes with the inverted bathtub styling were considered ugly. However, the seven bearing overhead valve 6 was a very good engine. The cars were roomy, rode well, were reliable, had good power for the time and got good gas mileage for the time. Because they were considered ugly, they had a high depreciation rate which made them good buys as used cars.
The Aztecs have always looked like baby garbage trucks to me. But I’ve driven them and ridden in them. They drive just fine and have a proven power train and a lot of interior space with a good view. I had a Juke as a rental. It wasn’t a bad driving car, but the front legroom was terrible. I’m 6’3" and couldn’t get the seat back far enough by about 6". And ugly, yes it was pretty ugly. Even the rental guys called it “the frog”
The problem with the Aztec is not so much that it was hit with an ugly stick, but more that it ran into the ugly tree at about 110 M.P.H.!
And then the tree fell over ON the Aztec, to boot!
I have one, The Ford Tempo. They are boring cars, but they were everywhere and I seem to remember them being fairly reliable. There was even a few years you could get an AWD tempo, and there was a few years you could get a v-6 tempo with a stick.
I have never owned one but probably should have, I have driven several and they were ok.
There are still tempos running around here, plugging away.
Lets hear it for the Tempo!!
My boss is a former Ford master tech, and he doesn’t remember the Tempos as being good cars
In fact, he said the 4 banger versions were known for blowing out head gaskets and cracked cylinder heads
@WheresRick and @db4690–I owned a 1985 Ford Tempo which I purchased new. I had no problems with the car. There was a recall involving the engine block which was made in Mexico. Apparently, some of the blocks had cylinder bores that were too small and let to problems. However, the Tempo was the only car I have ever owned that we didn’t drive well past 100,000 miles. The car was noisy and my wife didn’t like the car. I traded it in 1988 for a Ford Taurus. I think I had about 40,000 miles on the Tempo when I traded it in. The body was tight, the engine used no oil and mine was reliable. The university where I was employed had Tempos in its fleet and apparently they did o.k. The institution also had Chevrolet Citations and the Chrysler K-cars in the fleet. After driving all three, I thought that the body fit on the Tempo was much better.
You undoubtedly took extremely good care of your Tempo
My boss probably saw the Tempos which were ridden hard and put up wet . . .
Some engines can take abuse . . . some can’t
@db4690–I didn’t put enough miles on the Tempo to see how it held up over the long haul. We were on a vacation and my wife made the comment “I hope we don’t have to run this car to 150,000 miles”. We traded the car within a month after we got back home. The lack of acceleration and the noise of the 4 cylinder engine didn’t make for real pleasant travel. After the Tempo my wife insists that she never wants another 4 cylinder car. The Tempo did have good traction in the winter as compared to the rear wheel drive car we had owned. The purchase of the Tempo was my mistake.
“After the Tempo my wife insists that she never wants another 4 cylinder car.”
Unfortunately a bad experience with a 4 cylinder Tempo can influence one purchasing a 4 cylinder Accord. IMO, for many, many years, the American auto industrie’s inability to make a competitive four cylinder really put them behind the foreign cars in the small car race. They resorted to everything from putting in junk motors to borrowing them from other makers to re badging cars to just giving up and sticking in a six cylinder instead to get the same performance and reliability at the expense of economy.
I was once given a Tempo to use for a week as a loaner. It seemed made from totally uncoordinated parts taken from a parts shelf. It’s like they send each part order out for low bid without a comprehensive plan in making a decent car. Fleet rental mentality.