I honestly had no idea how bad these were until I had a 2017 Focus hatch as a rental in October 2018. It shuddered and shook and slipped in and out of gear every time I accelerated. It was noticeable enough that my wife even asked me if something was wrong with the car. Granted, this was a rental and may or may not…

I looked into these briefly when I was shopping for a car recently, and a few things stood in the way.

Relax, lol. Comments sections are for opinions. You’ll be ok. 

Yeah the exterior materials just look... Cheap. It's like a defining Corvette characteristic.

Yesssss. Another article where a bunch of people angry that they’ll never be able to afford a Corvette tell us all the faults of the new Corvette before it’s actually released!

Front looks better than the rear. Material quality will still be the same as a happy meal toy though.

They bet right on hybrids, but bet horribly wrong on hydrogen. However, whatever Toyota does, they do it quite conservatively, so even when they bet wrong they do fine. For example the hydrogen investment is still a pittance compared to the rest of their R&D spending.

I’m absolutely with you on having an appropriate amount of sidewall. Still, there’s something to be said for having an extra inch or so of actual undercarriage height where I don’t have to fear for my oil pan when trying to get to the grocery store.

+1

I see your point, but can’t help but feel 90% of this problem would be fixed by just bringing back some sweet, sweet sidewall.

You mean 18 of us!

Can we just get performance wagons back please?  17 of us should dictate the market! 

He meant various bland / ugly body styles barely distinguishable from one another.

They never went back to anything, they just never moved past where Bangle left them. 

Ugly kidney grills wasn’t what gave them marketshare... so I’m guessing you mean bland cars?

Maybe 17 different body styles on your base platform (4-door coupe crossover?!) and excessively overpriced and over complicated enthusiast models isn’t the best strategy. Also, if you can certify yet another body on a platform, you can certify a manual.

100% agree. They made their cars more conservative, barely changed the exteriors from one generation to the next, and fell way behind on the interior game. Sitting in an equivalently priced BMW, Audi, and Mercedes, and BMW is easily the worst.

1000% agree. The designs are bulbous and the driving dynamics suck. They are so far from where they were in the late 90s/early 2000s it’s depressing. 

BMW took the lead in the Luxury market during the Bangle era, when everyone not buying their cars were complaining about the design direction.

Maybe just building bland cars with massively unhealthy kidney grilles wasn't a good plan