I was in a $50,000 luxury car the other day. Don’t worry about the manufacturer because it seems to be all the same these days. There was cheap plastic chrome that surrounded the air vents, the buttons on the dashboard, the cupholders. Even a smattering on the door panels and steering wheel.
Was it always this way? Of course not! Back in the good old days of the Clinton Era we had plenty of fake wood to choose from as well. Diamantes, Roadmasters, Town & Countrys… even Camrys were sometimes given the drop dead phony wood treatment throughout the interior if the dealer wanted it so.
Some looked nice. Others were cheap enough to flake into a near confetti state as time wore on. Either way, wood was the thing to have back in the day.
But then the world of near-luxury changed. Euros and Yens became more expensive, and the domestics had been given carte blanche to cheap out even their flagships models. This was due in part to the strong profits of SUV’s and pickup’s that had always lagged behind in luxury with their non-truck conuterparts. But also the popularity of decontented models of the time, such as the Toyota Camry and the redesigned Mercedes models of the late 90’s, played an equal if not greater role when it came to the declining quality of interior adornments.
Hard plastic which had started underneath the glovebox and driver’s footwell, soon made it’s way to the top of the dashboard and the door panels. Not even armrests, the last refuge of relaxation on long drives, were fully immune from the onslaught of penurious plentitude. Those were given hard plastics as well with only a slither full of padding for the elbow.
Leather and high quality vinyl treatments disappeared from the door panels. This cost containment was followed by eliminating polished wood on the steering wheel and plush fabrics on the floor.
Wooden accents were replaced with cheap chrome like plastics in the small storage compartments that were between the front seats. The type you can scratch with your fingernail and leave an enduring mark for all future owners and passengers to see.
Luxury was going downscale in a way that reflected a McMansion mentality. As long as you had bigness on the inside and power under the hood, the materials were secondary.
Like a virus with Midas like properties, the cheap chrome plating, along with it’s nickel and dime cronies, soon covered nearly everything that was touched by the driver. Steering wheel controls? Check! Transmission handle? Check! Doors? Multiple checks on both sides.
Then one day I noticed something strange. Luxury no longer exists. At least not in the visual sense of it until you get past the $50k mark. Sure the Genesis sedan has more power than a Viper did a generation ago and grandma’s Avalon can spit out horsepower like an old Acura NSX. But the interiors have become knock on plastic cheap.
Which brings me to today’s question: Is cheap chrome the new fake wood? You already know my bent on this question. What do you think?
I believe that Passat is trying to achieve a brushed aluminum look. Chrome doesn’t look like that, it should look shiny.
The official name for it in GMspeak was “Satin-Nickel”, at least a few years ago. They may have “thought-fountained” up a new name for it by now. I’m glad other people have decided its overdone. I’ve disliked it for years.
What is missing is ELEGANCE.
Luxury cars are NOT ELEGANT anymore.
Look at the most expensive sedans and coupes, not sports cars. What do you see in them? That is what is considered elegant. Leather. Wood. Chrome. Unexpected classy touches. Exceeding expectations. Pleasant surprises. Tactile surfaces. Good feeling stuff! Luxury interiors are supposed to pamper your senses.
This has gotten lost.
Today’s luxury brands are not elegant.
Can’t agree more. Style, proportions, quality materials and sound engineering – all gone in all at least remotely affordable brands.
I’ve sat in a Mercedes and a Jag from the 2000’s, neither felt as luxurious as a Volvo 240 or even a Maliese era Toronado.
As long as a material doesn’t peel or break and looks OK, what’s the problem?
Carbon Fiber is quickly replacing wood and chrome trim in “sports” cars and for the most part, how many of us really know the difference between Carbon Fiber in a Veyron, Carbon Fiber in a Mercedes S550 and Hyundai’s “3D Carbon”?
Chrome is the same way. As long as the formula doesn’t chip or crack who cares?
I smiled a few nights ago while looking online at wedding bands for my upcoming nuptials. You can get a ring in titanium and carbon fiber as a wedding band.
Maybe look into machine-turned aluminum? See 1963-64 Impala SS side trim to see what I mean…;]
That would be a unique look!
No reason to smile. You’ll be getting whatever your betrothed wants….
I agree, to a point. As long as it’s tastefully done. My 2012 Focus has a healthy smattering on the steering wheel in particular. I’d rather look at (and have something smooth and shiny to rub my hands down while I’m at a red light) some shiny silver colored plastic than black, oddly textured neoprene. ;)
I don’t have a problem with so-called cheap chrome, as long as it’s tastefully done. What does irk me is a “premium” car with imitation leather such as MB-Tex or Leatherette. Now, THAT is horrible crap to have in a luxury vehicle.
German engineers should be flown to Houston in August and be forced to drive the cars they design with black plastic seating surfaces. The burns will eventually heal, but hopefully stories of the pain they experienced will told and retold so that the development team learns to offer real leather in lighter colors.
I absolutely hate the look of chrome plated plastic. If real aluminum is cheap enough to use for soda cans, why can’t I have a veneer of real brushed aluminum on interior trim pieces?
“If real aluminum is cheap enough to use for soda cans, why can’t I have a veneer of real brushed aluminum on interior trim pieces?”
Ding, ding, ding! You just asked the $50,000 question!
Is this inspired by the BMW air conditioner story? I believe it was when BMW started selling 7-series cars in the US. The dealers insisted that the German A/C was inadequate garbage and was holding back luxury sales. The home office insisted their A/C was fantastic, that some days it wasn’t even needed. Eventually the Germans found themselves driving a 7 series with disabled power windows in the desert during one of their US visits. After that, they were willing to reverse engineer a GM A/C installation.
Yeah, why is it that GM cars have such incredible AC units? But the imports don’t?
A long time ago I had a 72 Riviera that would crank out such cold air, in the 110 degree New Mexico desert, that my bones would literally feel chilled. Often times, I’d have to turn the AC off in that car.
The Toyota that replaced it, while its AC was somewhat adequate, was not even in the same category. And my latest Toyota product has weak AC as well. Which I’m comparing to the AC in the work Impala I recently took on a 6 hour round trip.
I guess when GM does something right, they really do it right. LS motors, and AC…
@ George B
Even the light tan stuff is awful. I know what I’m talking about; my wife drives a 2008 Mercedes ML550 with that horrid MB-Tex seating, and I drive a 2011 Grand Cherokee with real leather interior. On a hot sunny day, getting into the Benz is unbearable.
>>Is this inspired by the BMW air conditioner story? I believe it was when BMW started selling 7-series cars in the US. The dealers insisted that the German A/C was inadequate garbage and was holding back luxury sales. The home office insisted their A/C was fantastic, that some days it wasn’t even needed. Eventually the Germans found themselves driving a 7 series with disabled power windows in the desert during one of their US visits. After that, they were willing to reverse engineer a GM A/C installation.
I heard that story directly from a BMW parts rep back in the early 1980’s. Told me it was guys at the Texas (if I remember correctly) regional BMW office. In the version I heard. the U.S. guys removed the fuses from the power window system, and the gave the Germans a “tour” with only the factory A/C available for ventilation.
My G37x has real aluminum veneering, but I don’t like the looks of it. Easy to scratch too.
I think auto companies look for sneaky ways to reduce cost, because they think people won’t notice. They are sorely mistaken.
I cannot stand cheap interior materials, dead-switches, toy-like buttons or instrumentation – the cheapified interiors must go!
SACRILEGE! MB-Tex is AMAZING, and I prefer it to leather for aggressive, sportier seats.
But yeah, any time I see someone’s newest Letherette (or whatever…) in a car that is designed to be a highway cocoon, I cry a little.
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again.
MB-Tex is the fake boobs of car seats, sure it looks like the real thing, maybe even too perfect. But when you get up close and spend an extended amount of time on it, there is really no comparison.
Leather is the way to go, MBTEX is just petrolium.
They’re both made of dead animals, but the animals from which vinyl is made weren’t taken out by a bolt gun.
My mom finds it funny that people used to pay extra for cloth because vinyl was so godawful hot during the summer, but now people pay extra for vinyl because cloth is for the plebs.
I will say that leather smells better warm.
MB-Tex is about the most durable substance known to man. It will outlast leather 50:1. The seats in the ’79 MB300TD I recently sold looked like new. Surely longevity is a luxury all its own?
>>MB-Tex is about the most durable substance known to man. It will outlast leather 50:1. The seats in the ’79 MB300TD I recently sold looked like new. Surely longevity is a luxury all its own?
If MB still made vehicles that would last like that era’s TD’s it would be. Alas, today they’re just another trouble-prone European brand.
Yes its the new fake wood or now your second option. Would you like the fake wood option or hard chrome plastic option sir. Honestly, where is the black option? I can’t stand all this chrome crap. How about fake carbon fiber, at least I get that the stuff is still expensive so it should be fake. In the end I will take the chrome any day over the fake wood finish. I guess thats where I get mad, you cheapen the car at every possible point yet dont offer the customer more options on color and finishing, but expect us to love the car as is.
Cheep plastic on rear lights bothers me more than the fake chrome inside.
Even the new Lexis RX with what used to be bothersome enough on the Altima has taken over!
I don’t care what they say…it looks cheep to me.
How long with this last in the sun?
So is White the New Red…?
To answer your question directly… YES
I still miss the fake wood. I’ll likely buy one of those wood trim kits for whatever car I put my hands on next. It isn’t about being classy or thinking I’m somehow hoity toity. It is about personalization (and still more tasteful than fake portholes/vents/or scoops on the outside of the car.)
“…and still more tasteful than fake portholes/vents/or scoops on the outside of the car.”
Thank you.
If the Geneva Motorshow was anything to go by, nasty, shiny, fingerprint-grabbing plastic is the current trend for car interiors.
Sort of related to this, does anyone know why some manufacturers use a plastic fuel door? My 2004 Infiniti FX had this in addition to my current 2010 VW CC. Is it cost cutting or does it serve another purpose?
The engineers who read here should tell us if the plastic collects MORE or LESS static electricity. That’s what I’d be wondering about with fuel involved.
Either way, how many gas stations and cars have exploded due to this problem? I don’t recall ever having a problem with this.
Plastic doors are often one-piece injection molded. Actually a pretty savvy way of doing it. It avoids several spot-welded metal pieces.
Penurius Plenitude? Are you folks having a contest or something?
I like the brushed metal look myself.
Is this a rerun of post from five years ago Steve? I’ve seen nothing but a decline in hard plastics in cars over the last several years. In the 90’s and early oughts, everything was littered with hard plastic, even the dash. Now most every car, even non-luxury brands, has soft touch plastic in all the right places. The interiors in the Cruze, Focus, and everything made by Chrysler, are vastly nicer than what came before. I doubt that Chrysler products have had interiors this nice in my lifetime.
Yeah, my impression was that at least in the last few years there’s been an improvement in interior quality. Well, maybe not so much with some of the Japanese brands…
One of the car magazines asked the question “how much extra can quality plastic actually cost?”
And they proposed that if the quality plastic cost $100 extra, then charge for it.
My 2002 Olds Alero had everything padded above the knee. Even the glovebox door was padded. I gave that car a lot of crap, but you know what? I kind of miss it. I honestly GM was trying in 2002. Maybe a misguided effort, but I really do think they were trying.
It is like the stainless steel of appliances. You gotta have it!
I personally have no issue one way or the other with plastichrome. It’s there.
The only thing that always gets on my nerves is that chrome strip the seems to adorn many trunk lids right and the point where you grab the lid and have tons of finger prints pretty much all the time, until it gets washed. I see this most often on the current Impala. Four little strips of fingerprint smudge on a car that is otherwise decent looking. I’d go into a caniption if that was on my trunk.
There is no problem with synthetic materials if they were tastefully done, and had some tangible benefit over the ‘real’ thing. Fake wood-grained plastic was easier to manufacture and a lot cheaper than crafting dashboards out of burl walnut. Fabrics like MB-tex provide most of the benefits of leather, but are much easier to maintain over the years. So if plastic ‘chrome’ or ‘brushed Aluminium’ is the trend-du-jour, I don’t take issue with that. However, I don’t think bright, shiny surfaces in a car are a good idea because they cause glare and reflections in the windshield, which is a safety issue.
As an aside, there used to be a time when $50K would buy you a luxury car. However, after a couple of decades of monetary irresponsibility, 50000 bernanke-bucks isn’t worth all that much anymore – so I wonder what kind of ‘luxury’ automobile you got for that sum. As far as I can tell, the entry point for luxury is about double that price these days, give or take a Panerai.
“As far as I can tell, the entry point for luxury is about double that price these days, give or take a Panerai.”
It’s always been at that price point. If you take a late 70s / early 80s Mercedes (MSRP $35k-$40k back then?) and adjust for inflation, you’re at around $100k in today’s dollars. Like air travel, it was never intended in the beginning for the non-elite.
We are saying more or less the same thing. Just that you express it as a Merc S-class is worth 100K in today’s dollars and 50K about 20 years ago. And I see it as today’s dollar is worth 1/100,000 of a Merc S-class, down from 1/50,000 of one back then. Either way, the Federal Reserve has stolen 50% of purchasing power from the American public.
A 2012 $50,000 car may not have the luxury cachet, but is likely more powerful, better handling, quieter, safer, have better electronic systems, smoother, more reliable, etc, etc, etc than a 1970s $50,000 luxury car. But, no, you’re probably not getting real wood, chrome and leather. You might even get a magical in-dash map system and a stereo hi-fi setup capable of storing and playing 1000s of LPs which were unimaginable in the 70s.
@jellodyne, why can’t we have both? Power and reliability combined with true luxury touches? Oh wait we can but then we have to buy a $75,000 to $100,000 plus car…
My ’11 BMW has faux nothing inside for rather less $50K. Real wood, real leather. Could have had real aluminium trim, that is a no-cost option, but I prefer tree. Nice plastics everywhere too. Real metal chrome doorhandles. Even a very nice woven cloth headliner, no nasty rat fur like the Americans and Japanese seem to prefer. You get what you pay for, cheap cars are cheap inside – surprise!!
Designers can choose finishes as they please. The buyers will decide how successful their decisions are.
What I don’t like with examples…
-are non-durable finishes….acres of silver painted plastic that mars or scratches easily
-shiny chrome around the instruments….the instruments are for easy view ability rather than reflections from the sun
-uncomfortable surfaces…hard arm rests or console/door places where your knee is likely to rest
*Beancounters* can choose finishes as they please.
There, fixed that for you. The designer might make recommendations, but ultimately it’s the product manager and the engineers who ultimately choose the finishes based on a cost model that needs to be achieved.
Unfortunately, it’s still the designers who are often the ones to be blamed based on the buyer’s reception (or lack thereof) of the materials and surface finishes.
This widespread curse of the crappy interior is why, IMHO, there isn’t much difference between the $25K offerings and the $40K “near luxury” autos. This coupled with the downsizing of engines to provide no torque in city driving, will limit me to the lower end of the price spectrum for my next ride.
here’s the deal: no one cares. To be honest, if the car is more reliable than the older model (generally true in trend) the car is more powerful than the old model (pretty much universally true for all models) and it just simply works (handles/accelerates/comfort) better than the old model, you can keep the metal of yore and replace them with foil coated plastic and I won’t care.
I’m probably one of the few around here old enough to remember cardboard glovebox liners, pneumatic power windows, and fancy chome bits made of made of the allegedly coveted ferrous material that were actually cheap, crap pot metal with jagged flasing seams that pitted after only three years of ownership. Gimmie more plastic, please. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who covets the nigh indestructable plastic M-B tex vinyl upholstry over leather.
“I’m probably one of the few around here old enough to remember cardboard glovebox liners, pneumatic power windows, and fancy chome bits made of made of the allegedly coveted ferrous material that were actually cheap, crap pot metal with jagged flasing seams that pitted after only three years of ownership.”
On no, you’re not!
You have to admit, though, that the chromed pot metal was at least, well…metal. Those cardboard glove box liners – they were flocked, so that’s something. Sunshades were also cardboard, vinyl-wrapped strip around edges and stitched. Chrysler’s perforated headliners really got to me, though!
I really got into walnut-grained, adhesive-backed contact paper. I could work wonders with that stuff. Fake wood? You bet!
My 1967 Thunderbird has a cardboard glovebox liner. It also has fake wood on the instrament panel, inside door panels and steering wheel. Almost all of the brightwork on the dash (and there is a lot of it) is either chrome plated pot metal, aluminum, or brushed stainless steel. The fake wood is still in great shape. The few pieces of fake crome on the steering wheel and switchgear have not held up nearly as well as the real metal.
What is really amazing about 1950’s and 1960’s era cars is the complexity of the metal trim on both the interior and exterior. Today a section of trim will be one peice where it once would have assembled from several peices. This simplification of the brightwork is obviously a cost saving measure. Still you can’t help but admire the attention to detail in the design and construction of mid-century cars.
For a brief period in the ’50s my Dad was a mechanic for a Nash dealership. I well remember him cursing hydro-electric windows. When the hydraulic tubing in the doors developed leaks (and slamming those heavy doors and other normal wear and tear produced problems pretty quickly), not only would the windows slow down and fail, but the corrosive fluid would stain the door sills, requiring repair/replacement of the fluid lines and repainting of the damaged areas. I’ve had four Japanese cars, a couple of which were 10+years old when traded in, with no problems with the power windows. Hurray for modern technology.
I quite like the brushed aluminum, good quality plastics, and leather seating surfaces in my Infiniti G37, all of which have held up extremely well in the first year and a half of ownership. If you shop around, there are still some brands/models that offer quite a lot of quality for the money.
During the 1960’s and 1970’s Ford used vacuum operated windshield wipers, HVAC vents, power door locks and headlight doors. This was a fairly simple solution which provided smooth, silent operation. The problem was, as the cars aged the rubber vacuum lines developed leaks and these systems stopped working. This is why you see so many old Fords with the headlight doors stuck open. Checking and replacing the vacuum lines is not as easy at sounds. They are routed inside the dash and body panels and sometimes under the carpeting making them difficult to access. Fortunately Ford did use electric motors for their power windows.
The direct answer is yes. But to me the problem is less with the material and more with the interior colors. There is high and low quality metallic trim just like there is high and low quality “plood”.
The ubiquitous black interiors with aluminum trim are so dark and cold. At least the wood trim adds some warmth and organic tones.
There’s chromey looking stuff on the center console of my ’06 Impreza. It is scratched up a bit and looks kind of chintzy, but the only time it bothers me is when the sun hits it just right and it glares like a lens flare effect in Photoshop.
Can’t wait for the new S-Class!
As long as it is durable, I’m okay with it. That black rubberized coating used by BMW and others in the mid 2000s hasn’t aged well by peeling and scratching and looks shabby. I don’t think fake chrome bothers anyone because it isn’t real metal. It’s quite obvious that it is plastic. As long as it stays shiny and isn’t a fingerprint magnet, it is just fine.
Bleh to fake chrome, though it’s okay in small doses like on buttons, but not okay when it’s used as panels. What I object to is the narrative of big chrome strips inside the cabin. It’s trying to mimic real metal, a material that was removed decades ago because it’s less safe in an accident…fake chrome mimics something that is actually undesirable.
There’s nothing wrong with plastic, it’s how you execute it. Car guys could take a lesson from the camera makers. If you pick up low and high end Nikons, you can see how each is tailored for it’s price point, but also that there is still a family resemblance.
Why is this an issue? When we were shopping for our $30k-$40k entry-lux vehicle recently, it seems like every make gives you the option of wood vs brushed aluminum.
Finally settled for the brushed aluminum. We’re in our early 30s and the wood just feels too country club good ole boys.
“just feels too country club good ole boys.”
I think you mixed some metaphors there. Not many good ol’ boys (a phrase that Tom Wolfe introduced to the written word in his seminal piece on Junior Johnson, The Last American Hero and he certainly wasn’t talking about the country club set) are members of Augusta National.
I recall a time when we demanded hard plastic interiors vs. the ’80s padded vinyl dashes, door panels and arm rests along with fabric decor inserts that with sun exposure and normal wear, left a car looking like hell in no time. I thankfully haven’t had to purchase or deal with DashToppers sliding off or flapping in the wind in decades. As it is, the plastic panels inside my F-150 are too easily scratched and I’d rather they be harder. What’s wrong with guys nowadays and their delicate hands? Now it’s gotta be pretty too???
Soft touch panels? Shut up and keep both your hands on the wheel. Actually, there’s a spot where my knee rests against the door panel that I Velcro’d a small rubber pad to. Now I just need a metal surface to stick my magnetic LED flashlight. Probably won’t find a place under the hood either.
I really don’t understand auto journalists recent obsession with soft touch points on the dash either. Why does it need to be soft anyway? To what benefit does the dash being “soft” serve to anybody in real world driving scenarios?
I can’t recall the last time I fondled the interior of a car wishing it was softer.
grzydj –
My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that this became a meme among auto journalists because there really aren’t any truly crappy cars, mechanically speaking anyway, and there has to be a reason to say one car is better than another.
I don’t care if my car has soft touch plastics or not as long as things don’t fall apart. I’m with the DenverMike with the F-150 in that I wish the plastics in my car were a little less likely to scratch and just a touch harder.
I recently upgraded my speakers and had to remove the door panels. In doing so I had to remove the window cranks, which were near to impossible, and got all sort of nicks from the tools I used. Made me cross I tell you.
I think they are referring to the surface texture of parts, not that the parts are actually soft like pillows or padding. The texture of “soft” plastic is smooth and silky to the touch, much like saddle leather, almost waxy. Matte surfaces for the larger interior parts are preferred, and should impart a feeling of softness, with minimal reflectivity. Powder coating in metal finishes comes to mind as a comparison.
As to the bolstered components, which are parts upholstered in padding and leather or leather-like fabrics, they convey a feeling of sitting in a fine leather club chair. A long-standing ideal of luxury.
The benefits, other than aesthetics and pleasing tactile feedback, is that these surfaces absorb sound (make the cabin quiet), improve safety (less likely to cut or gouge during a collision), and they absorb light (less glare).
Tell me that a dashboard covered with real leather does not impart a more luxurious subjective experience than one with a high density polystyrene molded with leather grain. Humans are proprioceptive, our feet can tell just how hard the soil, asphalt or cement beneath our feet is. In general, for furnishings and clothing, people seem to prefer soft and inviting to hard and austere. I work with leather in my day job, and I can show you real Napa grade leather that has a wonderful “hand” and drapes very nicely, while I can also show you cheap Chinese or Indian made pigskin that almost crinkles like wax paper. You’d notice the difference immediately and you’d say that the Napa leather was more “luxurious”.
A dash board isn’t something you sit on, wear and rarely need to touch. I don’t ever think about it or wish it was covered in hand stitched anything. It just needs to cover unsightly wires, brackets, ducts and whatnot. If it was leather, then don’t I need a DashTopper to protect it, thereby defeating its purpose or look. Not having to think about it is that I call “luxurious”.
Reply to Denvermike below: a leather dash doesn’t need a DashTopper, just like a $400 smartphone doesn’t need a ginormous case to spoil its sleek proportions. The leather dash just needs a bit of lotion.
@bryanska… Yes. Nothing galls me more than people with leather interiors that don’t take care of them. I think my next car will have leather and I’ll likely be more obsessive about the inside than the outside.
OK, a dashboard covered with real leather does not impart a more lucurious subjective experience to me in any way. The only parts of my interior that I want to be soft are the parts my hands, knees, or elbows are going to touch. For the rest I just want it to avoid getting scratched and requiring too much maintenance.
Short answer, yes, yes it is. But, I don’t think its entirely down to decontenting. The Germans and Scandinavians have always moved more toward the minimalist aesthetic and moving from wood to chrome or brushed metal is just a logical progression of the sleek, industrial look. Since the Germans especially determine what’s cool or in-style for the luxury market, the rest of the world is compelled to follow them.
Even the British, who were more attached to their warm woods and sumptious leathers and wools than anybody, have been forced to play catch-up. The new Jaguars tone down those elements a lot for a more Germanic style.
At any rate, the decontenting epidemic started way earlier than the late 90s, look at the materials quality in a 1971 Cadillac versus a 1966 model. It just took a while to infect the rest of the world.
“…look at the materials quality in a 1971 Cadillac versus a 1966 model.”
Exhibit A: A friend’s 1995 Cadillac Seville.
A wonderful, reasonably powerful car he keeps in pristine condition. From the outside it looks splendid. Get in. Seats are very comfortable. Door panels – nice. Dashboard & knobs…wait a minute…same cheap, bland satin-flat-black, plastic, plain as the average Cavalier.
No excuse. I believe the dashboard in our 1990 Acclaim we owned back at that time looked as nice, if not better.
@Zachman, I got to ask… How is his Northstar holding up? DTS and Lucernes with the V8 are so cheap on the used market they tempt me but the possible Northstar issues have always held me up.
@Dan
My understanding is the Northstar got its issues sorted out in 2005, but is still an utter gas pig.
If you are seriously looking at snapping up a used DTS or Lucerne in the market its Northstar V8 or forget it. The Lucerne with the 3.8L V6 was one of the worst rental cars I have ever driven. Hopelessly under powered – 197 HP just isn’t enough to pull that car around.
@Educator_Dan:
I’ll see him tomorrow and will ask. I’d like to know myself, now that you posed the question. It sure does run nice.
@APaGtth, I have driven a Lucerene with the 3.8 my reaction was also “meh.” A colleague has a 2005 Deville he inherited from an uncle who passed on. The car has the fake top and everything. The colleague is 50 but certainly does not drive like “an old man” and although the grille has started to chip the engine on his is good also. He likes to tease me and popped her into neutral one morning in the parking lot to “goose” the engine at me. That was one sweet sound as that DOHC V8 hit the upper rev ranges.
I was in a late model Toyota the other day and the shiny painted on silver was already wearing off the steering wheel and glove box knob!
This crap should only be going in non wear places. I have never been in a car with worn fake wood. The biggest area I have a real hard time with on today’s garbage interiors in the total lack of available color. I’m sick to death of black lung, light tan and gray. And now we have carbon black, piano black and fake painted silver to add the already depressing dreariness of the interior.
A proper luxury interior to me consists of real wood accents, padded doors and center console, high quality proper fitting materials and some color like maroon, blue, brown, light green etc. Leave the black on black and silver trim for the cheap cars and sporty vehicles.
I disagree on the colors. Neutral colors are the best at hiding dirt.
I think if I had a car with a maroon interior, I would actually go crazy. I am glad those are not in style anymore.
I do miss doors with the bottom carpeted, it seems like in the past few years those went away.
Pip Pip! I agree. In my parking lot is a stunning 10-year-old Jaguar XJ6 Vanden Plas. It’s royal blue with a melt-in-your-mouth cream leather interior. The burlwood panels nestle in their own puffy leather ovals. The carpets are just this shade of bone, lending a bit of depth. Of course, the Jag logo in the shifter looks 100 years old, like an herloom signet ring.
Drooling yet?
Counterpoint, sort of: Last year, I was shopping with my dad for a used Z4. We test drove one, and noticed that the (real aluminum) center console trim was horribly scuffed. I’m guessing that the previous owner had a metal-strap watch.
I’m sure plastichrome would’ve looked even worse. But the real point is to use the right material for each application. Touchpoints should resist smudges/scratches (i.e., padded vinyl or thick leather). With the rest, anything is fine as long as it looks right. Just remember that touchpoints include a lot more than the steering wheel and gear shift.
I often wonder why we’re so limited in car “decor.” Nothing but wood, leather, or metal. Why not a slab (well, veneer) of marble? Or frosted glass? Or an interesting pattern of cloth (either exposed or under a piece of glass/plastic)?
Agreed, what happened to decent cloth interiors of various colors?
My old Passat had “soft touch” tan plastic and it peeled and chipped like crazy. Our current Volvo has the aluminum waterfall console in it and sure enough its scratches and dings very easily, when new I’m sure it looked awesome (bought used). Volvo offered various interior options including a light blonde wood that was real wood and looked really nice, upscale and very Euro. My 350Z has real aluminum in it (I was shocked) along with plastic painted to look like metal (no shock there) as well as some odd plastic textures that are near impossible to keep clean. However the Z has nice leather, so its a mis-mash interior. I had an Eclipse that had the cheapest leather ever, it was completely worn within only two years, so the material itself is only part of the problem. Oddly the best interior of recent vehicles I’ve owned is my ’02 Dodge Dakota! It has hard plastic everywhere, but it holds up great, plus soft fabric on the touch points (arm rests, doors & center console) it cleans easily and shows almost no wear.
David42,
One of the ultra luxury marques, I think it was Maybach, has offered stone veneers like granite and marble as part of their personalization marketing. It’s expensive, because you can’t wrap metal with stone the way you can get leather or thin wood veneer to take a shape.
I think that one of the things driving this addiction to plastic is weight savings. Manufacturers are always looking to cut out weight in non-essential areas to improve mileage and performance; it’s much easier to replace the chrome trim with plastic than it is to re-engineer the frame or mechanical components. Aluminum is expensive, but relative to HDPE it’s also very heavy. Manufacturers have realized that very few people care about the materials used in interiors, so long as they’re attractive and can withstand years of use without deteriorating.
And that brings me to my second point, about the soft-touch stuff: it just isn’t durable enough. Sit in any Volkswagen from a decade or so ago and you’ll see what I mean. The sun kills vinyl and anything treated with bisphenols, because the chemical compound just isn’t stable enough to deal with protracted heat and light exposure. That’s why 80’s car interiors always smell awful on a hot day. It’s all that vinyl and puffy plastic outgassing.
Well…. a decade-old VW is probably not the best example of durability (materials or otherwise)! My parents’ 1992 Camry had almost Lexus-like dash vinyl, and it was still pristine after 9 years.
Ronnie, thanks for the explanation about stone surfacing.
The fake chrome particularly became popular in near-luxury brands and family transportation that wanted to fend off its stodgy image. Some it did well (BMW makes some really nice fake chrome that they sprinkle in with the real stuff) but most did it badly (Cadillac and VW come to mind). Either way with wood or chrome – there right and wrong ways to do it.
Next stop fake carbon fiber.
First Alex’s story on his old V70R got me regretting selling mine. The V70R was luxurious in ways that all the other “luxury” brands weren’t. Real leather, lots of it and not the plasticized crap in most cars today. Real, untreated, leather. In the door panels, the entire seats (not just the seating surface, steering wheel, top of the instrument panel, shifter, ebrake boot etc. The metal triim was….metal.
The chromy front grill on the new Impala looks the tits, if you want to know. However, I am reminded that most of us have poor taste.
I forget where I heard the term, but the “democratization of luxury” is a real phenomenon. Back in the day the difference between a Camry and a Benz were obvious. Now, depending on models and trims, not so much.
“A slither full of padding for the elbow”!? A slither?
A little fake chrome done right can be a good thing. When I rented a Calibre, I found it’s only redeeming feature to be the HVAC controls, knurled rubber knobs with chrome accents. They looked and felt way too nice for that car.
This is a big annoyance for me because I care way more about the interior I will be sitting in every day than the exterior of the car. Every manufacturer now has ditched nice, solid materials for fake chrome and brushed aluminum that looks sporty. The only car I can say still has a GREAT interior is a Jaguar. Plenty of real wood and leather to go around.
IMO brushed aluminum is always a bad choice for a car. Even real aluminum is so lit and thin that it feels like plastic, so it mig as well be.
And one more thing about those knurled knobs…
I sat in a new Audi Q5 recently, just to get a feel of the interior. Disappointments came quickly- gone were the lovely walnut accents of my ’03 allroad, which sold new for the same $44K price. Those swooshes of wood make me feel richer just to see them, (though, of course, the used car is rapidly making me poorer). The Q5 borrows many details from the older S6 interior. The adjustment wheels for the air vents look exactly the same, but the 2003 version has a strip of rubber inlaid, just to soften the touch of your fingertip. That was a surprise-and-delight moment for me, but the Q5 just offered the cold, hard touch, and a prickly diamond knurling pattern that irritates instead of delights. How many shopped will sit in there long enough to notice?
The feel of an interior does a lot to elevate or lower my driving pleasure. But it’s the look of a dashboard that really matters. Too much clutter, flash, bling … it’s dangerous, folks! Our eyes and brains are evolved to notice strong patterns and contrasts. If too much eye candy is inside the car, drivers will have less attention left over to spot you, me and every other hazard or victim on the outside. Driving is a visual sport. Look. Outside. The Car. That’s the primary rule, because nothing behind the windshield is going to run you flat or conk you into a ditch.
Too bad SAAB took their “Black Panel” instrumentation with them to Great White Beyond. Gauges don’t matter much, most of the time … and don’t get me started about video display panels in cars, billboards, etc. Most of my cars have seen work with black electrical tape to obscure shiny trim rings and a high-beam light bright enough that it shuts down my night vision, making the brights futile. On my VW New Beetle, that’s a simple job, because it’s simple and black. I’d probably need a whole tub of spackle and black paint to tame the frantic dash of a Ford Focus.
Have to agree on the older Audi interiors. In my view, the interior on my old 1998 A6 was almost perfect, and I think set the standard for years. I think it was similar to your Allroad. All the little touches: Quality leather everywhere (not just where you touch), a little horizontal bar embedded on surfaces meant for touch, the same gentle push to open everything that opened, dampeners on anything that moved like the glove box, console opening, side pockets, retracting radio cover, and even the clothes hooks, rubber inserts as you mention to soften the touch, and finally a great balance of colors including woods, metals and quality plastics. Just a great place to spend time.
FWIW I dropped my lady’s Pontiac Vibe off at the dealer today and borrowed a 2008 Taurus SEL with all of 51000 miles on it off of the used car lot. That was an interior that Ford got right on the look and tone of the fake wood as well as the utilization of space. Wood was nice and warm. You know it is not real looking at it but it doesn’t scream “FAKE!” at me like my 1987 Oldsmobile used to.
I’ll take real aluminum or even the fake aluminum if it is done well (new Subaru Legacy/Outback) over the real or fake shiny wood trim. I swear BMW does their best to make real wood trim look fake. The real wood trim in the new Volvo’s with the matte finish is absolutely gorgeous and is how wood trim should look.
Back in the “good old Clinton daze” you mean where he worked harder than ever, but HAD to raise our taxes, when he shook his finger and the nation and bold faced lied to us, when it was a new scandal every other week, when he did a bomb drop on Kosovo to take heat off the scandals, Charlie Trie and Chinese Money, the Bimbo Squads, “The Blue Dress”… good “depends on what the definition of “is” ‘is’. Oh don’t forget Al Gore soliciting hundreds of thousands of “donations” from Buddhist Monks who took a vow of poverty…. the crap from those daze is an endless river. The only good about that era was when the GOP took the Congress for the 1st time in 40 years, as the nation had had it with that clown after only 2 years.
The other thing was the W124 Mercedes, perhaps the finest car ever made. Mine’s a 1995.
Did you mean to send this to some other blog? I’ve heard what you’re saying, but I didn’t hear the question and I don’t see the connection. Here we talk mostly about cars, and life. When we make claims, we offer enough rationale to start a worthwhile discussion. I know some folks have to polarize every issue, but I don’t even know the Left-Right ideology on fake chrome.
The question that I have is why do cars need brightwork in the first place? We don’t have a lot of shiny chrome trim in our home furnishings. I’m guessing that a 1950s vintage kitchen had way more chrome on handles and trim than we’d see today but outside of the kitchen, even in the ’50s and ’60s, there wasn’t that much chrome in our homes.
I’m guessing that it all dates to the brass motorcar era, when everything that wasn’t painted or cast iron was brass. Brass needs to be polished (urethane clearcoats were not to be invented for many decades). My guess is that, like paint, nickel and chrome plating started out more to protect from corrosion than for decoration. Nickel was used into the 1920s. The 1928 Oldsmobile, if memory serves me well, was the first car with a chromium plated radiator shell.
My feelings about brightwork on cars is the same as with jewelry on people, it should accent style and beauty, not overwhelm it.
The satin nickle or brushed aluminum look isn’t exactly new, my 03 Mazda Protege5 has it on the center stack, from the center dash vents down to the shifter, stopping just before the handbrake area, which is all black plastic. There are 2 small areas of the same on the front doors, perhaps the back ones too for the window switches.
It’s fake, painted on to mimic as such as there are a couple of scratches on the gearshift surround (auto) and along the edge by the hand brake where it’s been rubbed down to the bare black plastic substrate in two small spots, the rest looks fine still.
Along the sides of the stack for contrast are 2 bands of obviously carbon fiber look molded plastic elements for a design detail, it’s attractive enough and I think they began using it as early as 1999, if not 2000 or so.
The use of chrome isn’t new at all, there WAS a time when REAL chrome was used on a dash. I had a ’68 Chrysler Newport that had real brushed chrome finish on actual metal substrates for the actual facing surfaces. I know as I tried cutting out the radio faceplate in mine for an aftermarket install of a cheap used 8track/AM radio head unit back in 1982.
I’d say fake wood is still alive and well, particularly in new Chevys like the Malibu and Impala, which seem to be trying extremely hard to make said wood as fake-looking as possible (as opposed to, say, Chrysler, which is now using real, unfinished, and beautiful wood in its 300 Executive).
Cheap chrome, and those cheap little black inserts at the ends of bumpers that’re meant to look like intakes for the brakes.
Fake aluminum and chrome, while still really nasty, are not as horrendous as fake wood. Aluminum and chrome are are highly processed and essentially man-made. A synthetic designed to mimic the look of another synthetic is not as bad as a plastic wood that’s designed to fool the customer into thinking that it’s a natural material that’s readily available. Often as we see with front grilles, fake chrome is used because of the weight or safety qualities. Fake wood is only used because it’s a cheap surface. Because it’s so inauthentic, it makes the customer (me) wonder about the other ways the automaker cut corners.
I prefer everything to be authentic. But fake woodgrain in any car is a deal kill for me. More so than fake metals. Oddly for me, the one exception is a 1991 Grand Wagoneer. I’ll take one of those any day.
Aluminum and Chromium are both chemical elements. Saying they are man made or “synthetic” is like saying gold or carbon is man made.
Aluminum is light and useful, it’s a horrible metal to use in an interior though because it’s a great conductor of heat so it will either burn your skin or freeze it depending on the weather.
Not to mention what it will do to you in an accident. Metal bits and pieces in general are frowned upon in car interiors, they turn into spears, knives and clubs in accidents.
I don’t have a problem with fake anything in a car, but a lot of newer interiors are really busy looking and not particularly functional. Just because they can put plasticy chrome bits on everything doesn’t mean they should, show some restraint.
Auto makers also don’t seem to be able to leave the poor steering wheel or shifter knobs alone, turning them into stylized abortions that look nasty and feel worse. Doors are also covered in swoopy plastic bits that bite into a persons arm or leg, whatever happened to a big old flat door panel with a nice padded arm rest jutting out of it?
As I remember the ultimate was a small dash badge on my father’s late 80’s higher end GM car which had fake wood rimmed in fake chrome which said Mark of Excellence – and was installed about 10 degrees off plum. Pretty much said all there was to say about the whole vehicle – self documented. I think the slide began around then.
2 things, I was in for a big surprise when I drove a European Focus to notice that the brushed aluminum on the steering wheel had not even one scratch on it, this is in a car with 20k rental miles on it.
The other thing, I do spend some time in a 2009 300c here in the US as a passenger, I can’t stop noticing how the car is coming apart, lots of noise from interior parts and recently, an annoying whine that sound like coming from the drive system, the steering wheel buttons lost all of their markings, Mercedes refuse to fix it, this is a car with 50k miles, warranty is over.
alcantara al fucking cant ara. is worse than cheap chrome. I can hardly wait for a all white version to come out, with faux chrome as an option of course.
Really hope for the day when on demand 3d printing becomes available, then the dealership can give a buyer infinite options, al a Porsche just with a low base price. Want the 3.0 version plastic, check. want a soft armrest, check. Then you can cheap out where you want to, cardboard glove box, with and spend for the soft plastic bits.
But hey, I am the type where roll up windows are just fine.
ehh i can see people crying about cutting down trees for massed produced vehicles, (although I don’t see plastic as being any better)
I’d be happy to see Bamboo as the new trim, when done right and even when done poorly it usually looks pretty good.
So why not use Bamboo? This one has me confused.
Aston Martin offers bamboo as a trim. It’s very hard to work with, but it does look rather nice with the right interior color. It’s one of three woods, plus brushed aluminum (in the case of A-M, it’s real alloy) and piano black that you can get in the Vantage.
“Be different with the unique look of bamboo, each veneer layer picked to show the beauty and contrast of this natural finish. Can be supplied with or without matching door cappings.”
One thing about the “soft touch” plastics used for auto interiors is that they tend not to squeak as much as the cheaper hard plastics, resulting in a quieter car. I’ve seen a lot of cars where both the fake wood and the fake chrome have worn off in areas where they were frequently rubbed or touched by hands.
Finally, I would like to add that, if you don’t like the fake wood or the fake chrome I have discovered that it can be easily removed using common household cleaners such as Formula 409. Fake chrome usually becomes translucent milky white.
Fake wood seems to usually be manufactured using a sort of layering system of different colored plastics. It becomes whatever color plastic was used as the base layer, sometimes black, sometimes white, sometimes a sort of pale orange.
These same household cleaners cause soft touch plastic to warp and turn white, although the color can be restored somewhat using shoe polish.
My 1979 Mercedes 300SD, aka the Teutonic Tank and the Silver Bullet has just 2 negatives: the world’s worst AC system … which luckily can be replaced for ~$600 … and get this, chrome filmed plastic accents just on the doors. These are the only things that are bad on the vehicle.
On the plus side (and there are too many to list, so I will just list the top 3): German leather & mb-tex seats that look & feel amazing + zebrano wood that looks & feels like upscale furniture and legendary diesel engine life.
Comparo: there’s a 1990 Honda Accord in the same picture as my Benz (http://www.flickr.com/photos/76267949@N08/6897647936/in/photostream/lightbox/) on a beautiful spring day.
While the Accord gets 23 mpg and my Benz gets only 22, you be the judge … which would you rather drive?
I have to ask you WHY you have fitted those horrid black rims on your Mercedes? They look juvenile, and detract from the timeless classic design of the 300SD. Please remove them and replace with the original wheels as soon as possible!
Ten quick reasons for the upgrade to the vintage 16″ AMG (correct for the period and correct for the Mercedes W116 series) rims you opine “horrid”:
10. 16″ rims permit high speed Michelin Pilot performance tires comfortable at ~150mph
9. Original 14″ and 15″ rims permit a narrow supply of tires rated under 90 mph
8. 16″ wheels + H&R TÜV-certified sport springs improve handling
7. The original Mercedes ride can kindly be described as “wallowing”, especially around corners
6. The Mercedes C111-II Diesel supercar used the 5 cylinder turbo-charged diesel engine … inspired by the C111-II Diesel, my 300SD is in the process of upgrading to similar components (electric fuel pumps, upgraded injectors, etc). High speed tires need 16″ wheels
5. Going fast in a biodiesel-powered vintage Mercedes is fun
4. Going faster than most other gasoline-powered sleds is more fun
3. Auto-crossing “competitively” in a 14″ wheeled 300SD maybe is fun for the Prius die-hards
2. Auto-crossing “competitively” in a 16″ wheeled 300SD is fun for me and all those on the bench
1. Without the wheels, my radar detector is useless ;-)
in case you’re wondering from my earlier post, “what is the Mercedes-Benz C111-IID?” …
inspiration … super-car … turbo … diesel … 1970s … can these words all fit together on one line?
http://www.supercars.net/cars/3018.html
by the magic of the interweb’s copy & paste feature:
“In the fall of 1973, a boycott of the oil-producing countries brought about the so-called oil crisis and crude oil, hitherto an inexpensive commodity, became a precious resource. In 1976 engineers installed low-consumption diesel engine with five cylinders in the C 111-II for the first tests. In the car, now called C 111-IID, the OM 617 LA engine developed as much as 190 hp, thanks to turbocharging and intercooling.
With this powerful diesel engine under the bonnet of a spectacularly styled gull-wing model, painted in bright orange, Mercedes-Benz was soon geared up for some record-breaking drives. The C 111-II D powered its way to some sensational records at the Nardo circuit in southern Italy in 1976. For a whole hour, for example, it circled the high-speed track at anaverage speed of 253.770 km/h. It went on to collect further records in all categories – over distances of 10 to 10,000 kilometres and over periods of 6 to 24 hours.
No one had previously thought a diesel vehicle capable of such performance.”
Read more at http://www.supercars.net/cars/3018.html
All excellent reasons, however, they are still black :)
just as the only good looking Rolex is the black faced Deep Sea … i’m yet-to-be-convinced that anything but black wheels look best.
Silver wheels? Bling Bling Teutonia.
… not to mention, brake dust after a few minutes makes silver+ wheels look like dirty panda bears … while black wheels continue to look fantastic after many miles of driving.