BusinessWeek Slams Compass in Review
Date 2006/10/27 13:45:00 | Topic: Compass
| First off, who knew BusinessWeek.com did car reviews? Aren't they a business magazine? I don't see the connection. Well wait, I guess cars are a business, so that's a connection. Using that thinking, should I be finding crayon reviews in there as well?
Anywho, they think the Compass sucks. Big time. The Compass comes with one engine option, a 2.4-liter, 4-cylinder engine that pumps out 172 horses. On paper, that's better than similar offerings from Ford, Honda, and Toyota. But in practice it all feels unrefined and underpowered on the road, especially merging into fast-moving traffic or climbing steep grades. Neither the engine's sound (noisy, rickety) nor its pickup inspire much confidence.
...snip...
The Compass' cabin is a major downer, though. It's a disaster zone of ugly, hard-edged plastics, poorly-designed ergonomics, and chintzy dials and switches. In fact, the interior was to me immediately reminiscent of the Saturn models desperately being phased out by General Motors (GM) to resuscitate that brand. These days even budget cars can't afford to feel this, well, cheap.
We're not sure why it got such a low overall rating of 0.5 out of 5 stars, the reviewer actually had some nice things to say about it (good suspension, nice interior gadgets), but I think the low rating stems partly from the fact that the reviewer claims to have been raised offroading in a Jeep Wrangler - so he may have been a little biased going in.
|
|