Night road - bad cars are a thing of the past

The decline in print media sales is often attributed to the Internet. While this certainly played a role, it is not as decisive as one might imagine. In the automotive press, a crucial element has gradually taken hold, which largely explains why we buy fewer car magazines than before: there are no more bad cars.

And this, for more than twenty years. In fact, for two good decades all new models hold the road well, brake properly, provide effective protection against shocks and no longer rust. So many elements that cannot be assessed during a static examination at the corner concession.

I would put the tipping point at 2000, when the dreadful Opel Corsa B left production. This is a very uncertain city car dynamically, especially on bad roads, not very comfortable, and some engines, including the 1.4 l 16V, could break like glass following the premature breakage of their timing belt. Admittedly, it was at the time of the advent of DTI engines, which sometimes consumed more oil than diesel and ended up breaking, too, for lack of lubricant, sometimes even before having reached 10,000 km.

As Opel often refused pick-ups, customers fled and never really returned. Salvation – relative – came from Fiat, which provided Opel with its excellent, reliable JTDs. When I think that the Blitz later used “deutsche qualität” as a slogan…

Just before these dreadful machines, the horrible Ford Escort launched in 1990 had serious flaws with uncommon mastery. Ah, it looked good in the showroom. Then, when we bought it, we noticed the mediocrity of its road behavior, and the almost total anemia of its 1.8 l diesel engine whose belt, supposed to be changed at 60,000 km, broke at 50,000 km. , with the damage one imagines. Finally, after 4 – 5 years, it began to rust, sometimes copiously. The trap ! Ford has rectified the situation magnificently with the Focus, except in terms of corrosion… You will tell me, unreliable engines still exist, but when a car comes out, the specialized press cannot guess it.

Remember the Mercedes A-Class scandal in 1997? Swedish journalists determined that she turned around during certain evasive maneuvers. And this, when the manufacturer put it on the road after a long teasing campaign. Disaster ! He had to stop production, recall the cars sold and modify them, hardening the suspension and installing an ESP at no extra charge.

The Peugeot 206 and 607 as well as the Renault Mégane 1 have also been criticized by some fussy journalists for the sometimes surprising reactions of their rear axle in certain circumstances, again requiring factory rectifications.

As a journalist, the last really objectively indefensible new car that I tried was the Dodge Nitro, in 2007. This American SUV with ancient technology was both totally overwhelmed by its road behavior, inefficient off-road, badly finished, greedy in V6 and noisy in diesel. Come to think of it, the Chevrolet Aveo, from the same era, was a hell of a dung too. But neither of these two unsuccessful models was dangerous or unreliable. The Dodge also retains a surprisingly high value, given its skills.

Recently I came across an old issue of Automobile Magazine (from 1990) which crashed in collaboration with Auto Motor und Sport several large touring cars to check how they protected their passengers. A staggered impact: half of the front end struck an undeformable obstacle at 55 km/h.

In the Fiat Croma, Honda Legend, Opel Omega and Renault 25, the danger was deemed to be “deadly” for the driver. Since the EuroNcap was created, passive safety has become as strong a selling point as CO2 emissions today and cars have become much, much safer.

In 2003, ABS became mandatory on newly homologated cars in Europe, ESP followed in 2011, all of which helped save many lives.

There are no more pitfalls today in the cars on offer. No more dangerous chassis, evanescent brakes, shells as rigid as chewing gum, wafer-like sheet metal after a few years (even upon delivery in the case of certain R5s and Alfasud in the 70s and 80s).

This does not mean that we journalists no longer have a role to play. If cars are no longer dangerous, they are constantly becoming more expensive and almost never keep their promises in terms of consumption, especially plug-in hybrids.

Not to mention their often whimsical ergonomics, their ridiculous habitability and their sometimes surprising finish. As the purchase becomes more and more dematerialized, our role, as journalists, remains central. And, we promise, no manufacturer will buy us!