What one thing do you absolutely hate about your car?

JG Pasterjak wrote:

RexSeven wrote: Mazdaspeed3: Aside from the aforementioned cupholders and skid plate, I would like to add the battleship-like turning radius and the thinnest, weakest paint I have ever encountered on a car. Sometimes I wonder if I should just get the whole damn car repainted because of all the scratches, pits, and wear spots in the paint.

Cupholders: Hmm. I guess my stubby arms don't interfere so much. Never really noticed this. Skid plate hole non lining up: +1. Yeah. WTF? First time I changed the oil I totally thought I was doing something wrong. Turning radius: Indeed. She feels nimble until you try to pull a quick U-ey when the light turn yellow. Paint: Mine's (red '08) holding up great, and it's not often garaged (like, hardly ever). What year? What color? jg

on the turning radius, i found that with a bit of power it would tuck the nose in a little better than without, and probably reduced the radius by a few feet, still pretty wide, but probably because of the big 18" wheels.

mine was sunlight silver, and while the paint looked great when washed/claybarred/polished/waxed, it was only a mm or two thick, and developed a lot of rock chips not just in the front of the hood, but on top and on the a-pillar as well.

JG Pasterjak wrote: Paint: Mine's (red '08) holding up great, and it's not often garaged (like, hardly ever). What year? What color?

It seems to be a common complaint. No problems so far with mine though ('08 grey). OK, so the paint cracked rolling the fender on one side for wider wheels, but I'd be hard pressed to blame that on the paint.

Strizzo wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote:

RexSeven wrote: Mazdaspeed3: Aside from the aforementioned cupholders and skid plate, I would like to add the battleship-like turning radius and the thinnest, weakest paint I have ever encountered on a car. Sometimes I wonder if I should just get the whole damn car repainted because of all the scratches, pits, and wear spots in the paint.

Cupholders: Hmm. I guess my stubby arms don't interfere so much. Never really noticed this. Skid plate hole non lining up: +1. Yeah. WTF? First time I changed the oil I totally thought I was doing something wrong. Turning radius: Indeed. She feels nimble until you try to pull a quick U-ey when the light turn yellow. Paint: Mine's (red '08) holding up great, and it's not often garaged (like, hardly ever). What year? What color? jg

on the turning radius, i found that with a bit of power it would tuck the nose in a little better than without, and probably reduced the radius by a few feet, still pretty wide, but probably because of the big 18" wheels. mine was sunlight silver, and while the paint looked great when washed/claybarred/polished/waxed, it was only a mm or two thick, and developed a lot of rock chips not just in the front of the hood, but on top and on the a-pillar as well.

My car is also Sunlight Silver, and I've found it gets scratched and pitted easily. Some Canadian Mazda3/MS3 owners have also complained that the thin paint leads to rust problems.

As for the turning radius, it also has to do with the transmission. On FWD/AWD cars with transverse-mount (east-west) engine/transmissions, the transmission's width takes up space, which limits how far the wheels can turn.

07 Fit: berkeleying armrests. They constantly pop out of their clips, and are designed so that your elbow rests EXACTLY where the hollowed out door pull is

95 Ram 3500: Apparently Chrysler's 4 speed transmission (yes, the one they've been using for decades now) can't handle 900 ft/lbs

Bad rear suspension design. And the flexy body, but the latter could be fixed with a cage, so bad rear suspension design. Who thought wild toe changes was a good idea? It teaches you not to lift though, if you survive the first time.

Four pages into this thread and all I have to add is:

Why aren't GRM'ers working together to fix the problems or just dumping the damn heaps?

oldsaw wrote: Four pages into this thread and all I have to add is: Why aren't GRM'ers working together to fix the problems or just dumping the damn heaps?

(Horse)Power forgives many a sin

Javelin wrote:

oldsaw wrote: Four pages into this thread and all I have to add is: Why aren't GRM'ers working together to fix the problems or just dumping the damn heaps?

(Horse)Power forgives many a sin

So true.

I thought of one more for my WRX!

The Paint.

Subaru insists on letting cars leave the factory with the thinnest, least chip-resistant paint used on any type of vehicle. The $79 Walmart-special mountain bikes that are always on sale leave their factories with better paint than my WRX. My front bumper is completely trashed and my hood is starting to rust already. Mind you, this thing is a 2009.

Actually I need to change what I hate about the BMW. The fact that I can't have the widows cracked during rain, or while using the windshield washers unless I want a nice waterfall on my arm.

Sunlight silver here as well and the whole hood is marred all to hell.

Another thing with the SAAB is the Off the wall climate control system that can never really decide what in the hell it ever wants to do and it comes on when it feels like it.

A lot of gripes with the MS3 from people though, kinda waiting for the "problem" of torque steer to come up (i just look it as a daily work out)

Ram: Not running. I can't think of anything I hate other than that glaring issue, but that's not a factory problem.