Thanks to our Question of the Day series, we've had a myriad of discussions here lately about manufacturers who have "lost their way" and whatnot as of late. My contention is that every large-scale manufacturer on the market today does things exceptionally well—the market is too competitive for them not to. Any OEM that doesn't have a claim to at least one niche is doomed to failure (cue the BAILOUT discussions). However, each company also has some things that they do badly—and some have things at which they are complete failures.
In preparation for this week's New York International Auto Show, let's take a look at what each player in the market does very well, does moderately well, and, frankly, doesn't do well at all. This first installment will focus on the smaller volume competitors.
In reverse order of market share thus far in 2015:
DAIMLER
The Good:
Mercedes continues to be the leader in the Luxury Flagship category. The S-Class is not only the consistent volume leader in its segment, it's the benchmark for any luxobarge that wants to try to compete. The S-Class generally outsells the A8 and the 7-Series combined in any given month.
The E-Class is Daimler's bread-and-butter car. A friend of mine had been lusting after an M5 for literally years, but when he had finally completed his residency and was ready to buy one, he decided to go in a different direction. "The E63 AMG was just better," he told me (I'm still bugging him to do a Reader Ride Review). And while the performance version of the E-Class has become an absolute beast, the regular old E350 is still the "I've made it" car in most office parks around flyover country. It, too, outsells the competition by a 2:1 ratio most months.
The Not-as-Good:
Merc has never seemed to be able to get the whole SUV thing down. My pops had an ML class up until about a year ago when it was stolen from his gym's parking lot. He was actually pretty relieved—he replaced it with a Grand Cherokee and has been much happier ever since. For whatever reason, the GL and the M just don't have the panache of the X3 and X5. Mercedes' SUV/CUV offerings aren't bad, but they shout "stay-at-home Mom" much more than the offerings from the other Germans do. Since personal anecdotes are clearly the most important thing when ranking vehicles, I'll just point that a colleague of mine nearly jumped out of his shoes to tell me that the GL he was driving the other day was his wife's car, not his.
How do you solve a problem like the C-Class? No matter what Daimler does with it, it continuously lives in the shadow of the 3-Series. Back when I was doing a little entry-level German performance sedan shopping a few years back, I cross-shopped the C 300, the 335i, and the A4/S4. My friend who was tagging along made the following comment: "Everything about the C-Class just feels…old." While there's plenty to like about the C-Class, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to pick it over the competition unless you're a Mercedes brand junkie.
The Ugly:
The CLA. The CLA. God, the CLA. Have you ever seen another car that screams, "Hi, I'm an idiot!" on the road like the CLA 250 does? The BMW 320i and the Audi A3 can be defended as choices—particularly the A3. The CLA is a perfect car for a Delta Delta Delta whose daddy is footing the lease bill. For everybody else, it's a wretched choice. And if you're going to come back at me with "What about the CLA45?" then I can only assume you've never heard of something we in America like to call the MUSTANG GT.
MAZDA
The Good:
MX-5. It's an icon, and I don't think that I really need to expand much on one of the three most popular cars at TTAC. No matter what they've done with the newest generation, it's guaranteed to be good.
The CX-5 is the only car that you can recommend to virtually anybody and be assured that they'll like it. Younger people like the sportiness. Families like the versatility. Older people like the size and the ride height. Everybody likes the price. It's the best car vehicle in its segment. Doesn't sell like it, though.
The Mazda6 wins every comparison test it enters. Seriously. It's the undisputed champion of the mid-sized sedan segment. It's the best-looking, the best-driving, and the only car in CamCordima land that lets people know that you actually cared about your vehicle choice. Yet nobody, and I mean, nobody actually buys it. Every other vehicle in the segment outsells it by at least 5:1.
The Not-as-Good:
Somebody get our Managing Editor some Tums for this one, because I'm gonna have to put the Mazda3 here. Is it a very good car? Absolutely. Does it deserve to be priced the way it is? Absolutely not. While the 3's base price is competitive, once options start being added, it gets very expensive, very quickly. For example, to move up from 155 HP to the 184 HP 2.5 liter engine with an automatic transmission, you're looking at an MSRP of $27,415. That's kinda insane. It's hard to find a trim level of the 3 where the Focus, Elantra, Cruze, or Civic don't make a little more sense. If it's driving dynamics you're after, I can see why you'd go for the base manual transmission car, though. Cut the price by a grand on each trim (and real-world pricing is close to that), and it goes back up to the "good" category. [No disagreement here. In Canada, it is priced much more aggressively than in the United States. My car is equivalent to a 2.oi Touring, which goes for $21k USD. I paid the equivalent of $16k USD.-DK]
The Ugly:
Mazda does everything well, save one thing: marketing. They have the worst dealer network in America—many of them are leftovers from the Ford partnership, and you can guess how many Ford stores focus on selling Mazdas nowadays. Their advertising strategy can be flat out baffling. I got my Mazda CX-7 back in 2008 because they advertised a $199 a month with zero down 36 month lease. I have no idea what a CX-5 leases for today, and neither does anybody else because Mazda never advertises it. I'm not sure how Mia Hamm or Penn and Teller help Mazda sell cars, but by the tumbleweed blowing through Mazda dealerships lately, I don't think anybody else knows, either.
VOLKSWAGEN AUTO GROUP
I'm going to differentiate between Vee Dub, Porsche, and Audi here.
VOLKSWAGEN
The Good:
The GTI is pure wizardry. It's like VW took all of its R&D budget and just decided, "Screw it—let's make at least ONE good car." The new GTI is Volkswagen at its purest—a small (for today's standards), affordable (again, for today's standards) car that at least makes one question whether or not the Fiesta ST is the best smiles-per-dollar value. It's good that the GTI is so good, because…
The Not-as-Good:
Not only do I not have anything else to put in the "Good" category, I don't have anything for the "Not-as-Good" category either. I could probably put the Golf R somewhere in this category, but I haven't driven one, so I can't say. I also suspect it will be rendered moot by the arrival of the Focus RS in the States.
The Ugly:
Volkswagen has made some truly bizarre decisions regarding its lineup for the US market. I don't even consider any of the VWs in the rental aisle, anymore. The Passat, Jetta, and Golf are so far behind their competition that I honestly don't know how VW stores are keeping the lights on. Why is it that the interior quality is so good in the GTI and so abysmal in the Jetta? I had a 1994 MK III Jetta once—I believe it might have been the first one sold in Ohio in 1993. It wasn't a fast car. It had roll-up windows. It had wheel covers. But at least it had character. Volkswagen has managed to do the impossible—along with all of the other decontenting, it has removed all of the fun and personality from its cars.
AUDI
The Good:
Audi seems to be doing the "entry-level luxury" thing better than anybody else. The A3, while it shares the MQB platform with the rather drab Golf, shines in comparison with the 320i and the CLA 250, perhaps because it seems truer to the Audi brand than either of its main competitors do to their own. If I were in the market for such a vehicle, there's no doubt that the A3 would be the pick.
Along those same lines, the S3 are RS7 are both compelling choices in their respective categories. In fact, if I could buy any car on sale in America right now, I would likely choose the RS7 ( I even made it the star of a short story once).
The Not-as-Good
The Audi Q line has always struck me as a bit…odd. I get the feeling that the folks at Audi know that they need a CUV/SUV line for America, but that their hearts just aren't in it. I like the vehicle, overall. They drive well, they're well assembled—I even knew a guy once who used a Q5 to tow his S2000 to autocrosses. I'm just not sure who the audience is for these things.
The Bad
The A4 isn't what it once was—well, actually, that's not true. It's exactly what it once was. The A4 seems like it's stuck in a time warp, riding on a platform that is going on seven years old. The only reason to choose the A4 over a 328i or C300 is price, and I think Audi knows it.
PORSCHE
The Good:
I haven't driven a Porsche in aggression since about 2008 (except for when I drove David Walton's GT3 for about five miles and missed third gear every. single. time.), so I might be a bit out of date here. That being said, I have heard nothing about the Cayman GT4 that doesn't make it seem like it's the second coming. So that's good.
I trust the guys at R&T when they say that the 991 is the best new Performance Car for 2015, too.
The Not-as-Good:
The Cayenne is probably the vehicle most responsible for the shark-jumping of the luxury SUV craze. Once Porsche did it over a decade ago, it no longer seemed (quite as) strange for manufacturers like Lamborghini, Bentley, and others to make a crossover. It's still Porsche's best selling model, even if it doesn't seem as ubiquitous as it once did—certainly it has lost some sales to its own internal competition, which leads me to…
The Ugly:
The Macan is just a straight-up cash grab by a manufacturer whose nameplate used to actually mean something. I find it hard to believe that Porsche is willing to sully its once-proud name for 600 units a month of Macan sales, but apparently, they are.
But even the Macan makes the Panamera look bad. Panameras are really only sold in three parts of the country—LA, NYC, and Atlanta (to Porsche executives). With the exception of a mild facelift in 2013, the Panamera has been essentially the same since launch, making it look old and tired in comparison to cars like the RS7, the BMW M6 Gran Coupe, or the CLS63 AMG. And in order to get a Panamera that will compete with those cars on the track, you'll need to step up to the Panamera Turbo, which means you'll have spent enough money to buy almost two RS7s.
See? It's not that easy to simply exclude a manufacturer. It will get even harder in the coming days, as we move into some higher-volume automakers. Next up: A trio of Japanese companies (Nissan, Honda, and Subaru) as well as the Korean conglomerate of Hyundai/Kia.
The post Bark's Bites: The Good, The Not-as-Good, and the Ugly: Part One appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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