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Reddit Poll Reveals the Most Hated Cars, and a Few Beloved Ones

Scott Huntington December 8, 2014 All Things Hoon 75 Comments

most-hated

When it comes to cars, everyone has a favorite. You can probably name yours right now, along with anyone else reading this content. Some of the models folks might mention are to be expected, whether that’s because they look fantastic, perform exceptionally or provide an experience that’s entirely unique and enjoyable. Vehicles like the Tesla Model S, Ferrari 458, McLaren F1 and Audi RS4 come to mind. Favorite cars are a dime-a-dozen though, what about the most hated cars?

Did you know that in the United States, the two most hated vehicles are the PT Cruiser and Toyota Prius? The PT Cruiser is also hated just as much in the UK, England, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia and many more countries.

CJ Pony Parts polled the r/cars sub-Reddit to identify the most hated and loved vehicles of all time. Considering the sub-Reddit has garnered over 135,000 subscribers, it’s the perfect place to collect such information from people who are obsessed with cars. While these findings indicate how redditors in each country and state feel about these vehicles, it’s not indicative of how the majority of each country or state’s residents truly feel. Still, it’s fun to look at.

The Most Hated Cars

According to the poll, twenty-five out of the fifty U.S. states absolutely loathe the Chrysler PT Cruiser. They have plenty reason to, especially when you take a look at some of the horror stories out there that have been shared by previous or current owners. It turns out, one of the most common ways to acquire a PT Cruiser is after one is inherited from a grandparent.

1 - 9qkxXkS

The runner up is the Toyota Prius, hated in more than fifteen of the fifty U.S. states. It makes you wonder if it’s the car itself that people hate, or the drivers inside them?

Interestingly enough, this pattern isn’t confined to the U.S. alone. A global poll shows that many other countries hate the PT Cruiser, or a comparable car to the Prius. In seven other countries, the most hated vehicle is the compact Fiat Multipla. Wonder who hates it? That would be Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, and Great Britain.

2 - OB2XCEs

While vehicles like the PT Cruiser and Toyota Prius stand out — just do a simple Google Search and you’ll find plenty of fuel for all the hate — there are a few that definitely warrant some head scratching. For example, I’d love to know why the Redditors from Idaho hate the Neon.

Which car do you hate the most? Did it make the list? Let us know in the comments!

  • I'm currently driving a (borrowed) 2006 PT Cruiser because both my 900 and 245 are undriveable.

    Every picosecond I spend in that thing makes me wish harder for one of my cars back.

    • Maxichamp

      My friend's Italian in-laws drive a PT Cruiser convertible IN ITALY. I can't even fathom it.

      • buzzboy7

        The turning radius.. how?

        • Maxichamp

          Other than the car, they are the coolest, classiest, most cosmopolitan people.

          I justify it by thinking it's the equivalent of a cool couple in America driving a Citroen.

  • LEROOOY

    Every time I see a Prius on these lists I'm saddened by people's failure to distinguish a machine from its operators. All the toils of competent engineers and designers, sullied by the reckless opinions of America's vast wealth of white 17-year-olds.

    • Preludacris

      I agree, the Prius seems to be a fundamentally good car (not that I've driven one) owned mostly by people who aren't driving enthusiasts, and that's what garners the loud expressions of hate. I'm sure there's also something of a mob mentality thing going on where people know it's not cool to like the Prius.

      I'd like to submit that Canada's favorite car is actually the 3rd gen Honda Prelude, and its most hated car is the Toyota Corolla, because this morning one caused an accident just before my exit and caused me to be late to work.

      • Devin

        I will agree on the corolla. Specifially one painted silver. A silver Corolla is almost always driven by someone elderly and confused by basic driving tasks like signals, acceleration and brakes.

        • Preludacris

          I don't actually dislike the Corolla (my parents drive a high-miles one that has been faultless).

          It was the operator again. In this case, two men standing next to a wrecked one, making no apparent effort to move it out of the left lane onto the shoulder. I think they were in some shock (looked like a hard hit) but to me that seems dumb. Monday, 8 AM, a major highway: get your junk out of the way!

          *goes off to research if it's ok in BC to move your car before the police get there*

          • Devin

            It's not so much that I dislike the Corolla is that I've learned to give them a wide berth.

        • pj134

          Or "Champagne"

          <img src="http://www.wheelmela.com/uploads/11_220.jpg&quot; width=500>

          • Preludacris

            Oh yes. That is identical to my parents' car. The width of berth I'd give it depends which parent is driving.

      • Maymar

        I'd agree with the Toyota Corolla hate, but I find most BMWs to be more infuriating these days. Around here, they're usually just as incompetent behind the wheel, but they infuriatingly seem to have more money than me despite failing to prove their usefulness.

        • Preludacris

          We tend to forget people can be useful at things other than driving, don't we?

          Like my wonderful girlfriend, may she not read this ever.

          • Maymar

            On one hand, I know, on the other hand, I assume everyone with money is Gordon Gekko and entirely undeserving of it, and their unwillingness to meet adequacy at operating a motor vehicle can be infuriating.

            I have issues.

      • quattrovalvole

        Any beige or silver Corolla is just a red flag for me. It's more about the driver than the car, because I have this feeling that most people who drive one doesn't care about driving at all. I remember this one time a late model Corolla drove by and it sounded like a diesel (engine probably had no oil at all).

    • CABEZAGRANDE

      Having driven one quite a bit recently (drove my friends '11 on two long road trips), I understand the hate when viewed through the lens of an enthusiast. I think this is a problem with polling r/cars, is that they are basically all enthusiasts, and that's going to skew their viewpoint. To me as an enthusiast, the Prius is maybe the most singularly boring driving experience imaginable. Completely uncommunicative steering. Handling designed to be as boring as possible. An impossibly boring interior. Power that can best be described as adequate and unresponsive. It's all very competent, but it doesn't do anything, good or bad, that's even slightly interesting. And that's why enthusiasts hate it. Most of us will take an outright bad car before a boring one, because it's at least interesting in its badness.

      • Sjalabais

        It reads like a manifest and I approve it. My pretty side has had a Corolla and currently drives a Camry. Both do everything we need them to do outstandingly. What I want them to do – spice up the commute, essentially – doesn't happen.

      • Agreed. I own a 2007 Touring. My loves it. I respect it, but really don't like it. I respect that so much tech is packed into a package that is so darn reliable. I respect the 40+ MPG. I respect how much I can cram in it. But I hate to drive it. Slow and numb.

        I'd also maintain that a Prius makes an average driver worse. The low power, numb steering and constant MPG readout beg for you to slow down and block traffic and take every turn at 7 MPH. Every car has a sweet spot where it feels comfortable, the Prius' is much slower than most.. That puts the Prius driver as the slowest on the highway, the slowest around the corner and smack in the way much of the time.

  • Massachusetts (my home state) still thinks the Countach is the bee's knees, huh? In the whole wide world, the Countach? To the best of my knowledge, there were about three of them in the whole of New England. Maybe they've just never heard of anything else since? It's not like they have people like Ezra Dyer and Kamil Kaluski to educa… what's that? They're from Massachusetts? I'm at a loss then.

    • Alff

      Ya, I'll count yer ass, bro. Another ass that I kicked. You like apples?

    • Manic_King

      People (or 1 person) of war ravaged Iraq have chosen most obscure answer there is: Lambo Veneno.

  • CJinSD

    Croatia is nutty.

    • Alff

      DX vs. Si?

    • Preludacris

      Sample size: 2

      Or 1… wild and crazy guy.

  • JayP2112

    I truly do not get the hate-fest on the Cruiser. I bought one for my mother-in-law and I'd put a few thousand miles on it myself. I had to borrow it to drive to the east coast… why? Because I was driving an Audi which leaked oil like a MF'er and a non-functional AC.

    The Cruiser was the poster-car for reliability compared to the A4. If I had a nit to pick was the PT Cruiser didn't have cruise control.

    My ex took ownership of the Cruiser, traded it in for a Prius.

    • Alff

      Maybe it's because it looked cooler than it drove, or because, as a result of its novelty, EVERYBODY bought one for their MIL. My only beef with them are the guys to raid the bargain bin at Pep Boys to "dress them up". Certainly not my most hated car. That's reserved for the Toyota Corolla S. S stands for "Speed limit in left lane".

    • ptschett

      I don't get it either. I test-drove an '01 5-speed PT wagon many years ago, and liked it well enough for what it was. I was on the lookout for a 5-speed PT GT wagon for a while, till my interests finally gelled toward a powerful RWD coupe about 8 months before I bought the Challenger.

      • HTWHLS

        I agree; I don't get the hate. We bought a new '02 PT and we love it. It's a great dog hauler with comfortable seats, great Chrysler a/c and decent mileage to a tank of gas. My only gripes are it's heavy and it does go thru brakes at 25-30K. Ours has aged well and my wife loves it. Hell, I love it. We've driven it on 2500 mile road trips and its been very comfortable.

        The only mod I've done is a strut tower brace and while I don't think it really improved the handling, I do believe it has saved the front end as my struts are doing great; so is the wheel alignment.

        Ditto the Pep Boys/JC Whitney phenomenom…UGH!

        • RegalRegalia

          But have you ever LOOKED at it?

          • HTWHLS

            I have..and while now admittedly biased, I still think the first gen looks best. Those silly "Mercedes Benz rip-off" headlights were atrocious and the quality seemed to go downhill by that version.

    • Maymar

      It's a Chrysler, which, well, it's cool to hate on the Big 3, but Chrysler especially. It's retro-styled, and kept that same styling in place for a little too long, so it got stale. They feel kind of cheap. And they funnelled a ton of them into fleets, which meant there were soon a hefty number of them for sale for $14,995, which meant they got bought by just a whole bunch of sort of uncool, really enthusiastic old people, I assume the same kind that have a bunch of Elvis collector plates.

      That said, I like the PT just fine for what it is (a Neon wagon), and I had a friend who bought one for its guitar hauling ability, and he loved the thing.

    • quattrovalvole

      I didn't hate the PT Cruiser either, probably because it was a very rare car back when I grew up in SE Asia. People who bought one were not confused grandmas, unlike what I suspect happened in the US or Canada.

    • CABEZAGRANDE

      A lot of it was the automatic transmission, which was impossibly failure prone. My dad's coworker bought one new, a non-turbo. Her first transmission failed at 30k miles. The next failed 7000 miles later (that one may have been installed wrong). By the time she sold it at 97k miles, it was on it's FIFTH transmission, all installed by the dealership. The manual wasn't bad, and the turbo got a stronger and less failure prone automatic, but the non-turbo automatic was by far the biggest seller, and the transmission was utter garbage. The GT manual was actually a fairly fun little car, and I always thought they looked OK, but the base models are hateful little penalty boxes likely to spit a transmission at the drop of a hat.

  • Joe Btfsplk

    How many Lamborghini Diablos do you think there are in the Faroe Islands?

    • Number_Six

      And why do they hate the Yaris – it's perfect canned transportation for places where road-trips don't last more than 30 minutes.

      • karonetwentyc

        Having had to put up with one of these (admittedly, about seven or eight years ago) as a rental in Ireland, I can understand exactly why nobody likes them: get them out of the city and they're completely out of their element. On a back road, they just don't have the chassis or steering to be useful, and God help you if you're on anything other than a perfectly-smooth road.

        And that's without getting into how unremittingly dull they are. In a world where everyone seems to be cranking out the exact same cars in almost every class of car, Toyota managed to come up with something so generic that you could be forgiven for thinking it was just about anything else.

        • Preludacris

          I kind of like the hatchback, of the generation pictured below. I'm sure it's dull as dishwater to drive, but I like how its appearance is almost intentionally plain. It's not trying to be a sports car. And because of that, it's not gouge-your-eyeballs ugly like most of the current subcompacts.
          <img src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01244/cacPANDA0_1244823c.jpg"&gt;

        • crank_case

          Pretty much what karonetwentyc said, and when it comes to hatchbacks we have so many better alternatives. Fiesta, Polo, Skoda Fabia, Renault Clio, Fiat Punto, all of which offer something the Yaris doesn't, be it driver enjoyment, ride quality or even style. I suspect Yaris hatred has less to do with the car though and more that it's associated with old people and learner drivers holding you up. Hell it's not even unkillable like toyota starlet was, which is still a favorite for "autotest" events (sort of like Gymkhana/autocross but nerdier and with more wooly hats)

          <img src="http://www.tdcireland.com/phpBB2/AD_Folder/IMRC_MVAT_2011/DanielB_Punchestown_2012.jpg&quot; width="600">

    • Alff

      Just one. That guy is F***ing COOL!

  • stigshift

    I hate the Prius. I have unfortunately driven one, but my hatred of them stems from the fact that they are driven with the same level of pomposity as Hummer H2s. Rarely do I see one using a turn signal. It's also like driving an appliance. Sheer misery. I wanted to scour myself with steel wool after driving it, lest there be any Prius detritus left on me.

  • Drzhivago138

    You forgot to post the correct model of Fiat Multipla. One look at it and you'll understand how a compact MPV with 6(!)-passenger seating could still be reviled.

    <img src="http://www.carstyling.ru/resources/classic/1999-2001_Fiat_Multipla_02.jpg&quot; width="600">

  • karonetwentyc

    Just curious: why are England, Great Britain, and the UK shown as three separate entries on the list? England is part of Great Britain and the UK, the latter two being effectively the same thing.

    (Yes, I realise the list is from an external source – just wondering why they didn't get that part of it right, or that Mexico is not part of the United States.)

    As for the Prius loathing in the US, I note that much of it is concentrated is areas where their numbers are highest. Living in Los Angeles (which is positively saturated with them), I can fully understand this: they are typically the worst-driven cars that I encounter in traffic.

    • That's a little strange. I'd say it was due to self-identifying, but then you'd expect to see Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales represented. Did they file all the Scots and Welsh under GB and the Northern Irish under UK?

  • wunno sev

    but the PT Cruiser is so fast

    [youtube 17XBW5OZdOM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17XBW5OZdOM youtube]

  • Alff

    Confirmed: Reddit is only marginally relevant to my interests. Bulgaria, on the other hand…

  • skitter

    There are a few mild head-scratchers in the American favorites, but not a whole lot of imagination. Chile and Portugal, on the other hand, might be the most interesting countries… in the world. Love the Boss 302 and F40? Hate the Z4 and Citroen AX? That's a conversation. And I either Croatia is trolling us, or has ridiculously strict import laws.

    • BlackIce_GTS

      "Hon dosciv ic" is Croatian for "Sorry, I don't understand you".

  • sporty88au

    Does anyone else wonder about the sample size of some of these surveys? Also, since when is Mexico part of the United States?

    • ptschett

      Well, there was that speech by President Obama a few weeks ago on the subject of immigrationThis generally non-political part of the Intertubes may not be able to answer the 2nd question.

      • Vairship

        Well played.

  • danleym

    I don't know what's wrong with Rhode Island. I know the GTR has people with strong opinions on both sides of the aisle, but that's the most hated?

    I'm guessing since Rhode Island is roughly the size of my backyard, there is one dude with a GTR who drives like a gigantic asshole, and pissed off the other 8 residents.

    • RegalRegalia

      By the stereotypes in my head it's all the old money people being really upset with the new money supercar driven by some molly dropping, techno blaring, jelled hair raver type asshole like he's the most special prince in the whole Island.
      (I know it's not an island)

    • Vairship

      Rhode Island is too small to get the GTR out of second gear…
      so it keeps getting overtaken by a little Nash Rambler.

  • 2cver

    The Ford Mustang. As exotic as it's gets in Kentucky. Even though we build the Corvette.

    • A little more affordable though.

      • RegalRegalia

        I misread this as a little more adorable though. I'm sticking with that.

  • Maymar

    This just in – Redditors like cliches.

    Also, Dodge Intrepid? I know the 2.7 was just…the terrible-est, and they don't age well, but they were great cars in a bunch of ways.

    But Iceland is alright by me.

    • nanoop

      Oh, that Norwegians like 911s and Germans Aston Martins best is really out-of-the-box to me: the cliche would have been Tesla S and.. well, something German. I wouldn't plan my next ex-pat stint based on that chart.

  • BlackIce_GTS

    Nuts to you, Arkansas!
    [youtube roBYZlPQD08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBYZlPQD08 youtube]

  • CABEZAGRANDE

    As others have said, I really want to see their sample sizes for each state/country. Most beloved car is a 300SL? A great, but unconventional, choice that leads me to believe the sample size there is one person or two friends who share a love of old SLs.

  • marmer01

    Yeah, I don't even get this. Every Prius and PT Cruiser owner I've ever known bought them by choice, is not clueless behind the wheel, and loves their vehicle. Sure, they won't win any awards for interior materials, but find me an American or Asian car for less than $30K that will. The Prius I can kind of understand because it's the poster car for at least thinking about environmental impact and the people who have a political problem with that seem really offended by them (cf. the "rolling coal" phenomenon.) And judging from how many I see of them, the answer for "most loved" in the US should probably be either the Ford F-150, the Chevrolet Silverado, the RAM truck, or the BMW 3-series, depending on how urban your area is.

  • IGotNothin

    Saudi Arabia's most hated car is the Chrysler 300c SRT? Not the base level 300 or any of the other truly terrible cars out there? I'd drive the 300c in a heartbeat, that goes double for the SRT.

    And, why do they specifically love the 2015 Aston Martin? Odd.

    • CABEZAGRANDE

      My guess is that's one of the places with a sample size of 1 guy who has an odd hatred for the 300C.

  • NotJustDucky

    This is giving a lot of credence to a "poll" of a largely anonymous website whose userbase is largely made up of suburban teens and twentysomethings.

  • MattC

    The PT Cruiser must have an award for the public turning on it. When it was introduced, it sold extremely well. Chrysler in its financial pickle and infinite wisdom let it languish as it wore off its welcome. It went from popular to popular to hate in no time (basically becoming a lame duck model on the Neon chassis just ripe fro fleet markets). As an aside, my old next door neighbor had a burnt orange PT Cruiser Turbo that broke down with surprising regularity.

    I think the Prius hate is not really even directed at the engineering that went into that car. It is super reliable, efficient and has created its own niche in the Toyota lineup. For its intended purpose, the Prius excels. It is really directed at the self gloating of some of the buyers.

    As far as Idaho hating the Neon, I totally concur. I had a first gen Neon Sport (5sp/SOHC). While it actually handled quite well, it ate (like literally destroyed the clutch into a billion pieces at 60K. My mechanics brought me back to show me because he had never seen something like that). Mine did not have the head gasket problems but started developing the paint separation issued on the roof. It squeaked and groaned from new. Not DC's finest hour. I couldn't wait to get rid of it.





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