What Brands Have a Poor Reputation with Some, but a Great One with Others?
How many of us actively look forward to a trip to the nearby convenience store? How many of us would shine up our car for a gathering at such a retail establishment?
The answer might surprise you.
Hot dogs of questionable repute and sugary Slurpees do not apply here, as 7-Eleven has become a sensation with a younger generation of car enthusiasts for all the right reasons. It starts with the retailer’s well-deserved success in Japan, where premium quality food and beverages are readily available. One such Japanese 7-Eleven even has craft beer. The is why cars (especially modern Japanese classics) and 7-Eleven go together like peanut butter and jelly for enthusiasts of a younger class of classic.
It has come to the point that even die-cast car aficionados have their own 7-Eleven-themed building to make their own 7-Eleven dioramas. The yellow, green, and red signage of 7-Eleven is now synonymous with a specific generation, and a specific car culture.
At least among a certain subset of folks, things have certainly changed for this brand, one that used to be associated with low quality food, and sketchy activities in their lots. The 7-Eleven pivot might not have made it to your area yet, and the old reputation may still hold; a similar scenario likely holds true for several automotive and automotive-adjacent brands. So this is where you come in, as we want the Hagerty Community to answer this question for us:
What Brands Have A Poor Reputation With Some, But A Great One With Others?
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Nissan – we had one of the older “4 door sports car” Maximas and it was great! Last 10 years or so………..
Maxima is not a sports car.
Mr.Mehta- For the first time in, oh, let’s say ‘forever”, you have lost me. It seems to me that your net may have been cast too widely here. I believe any brand of anything will have equally-sized camps of lovers and haters. Toss in the “generational” factors,and the really random factor of a Japanese automobile sub-culture. and this topic and column gets even more muddled in my opinion.
A fair point, but I firmly believe that I wouldn’t get the diversity of feedback in these comments without a very wide net to cast.
But then again, his article connected with his reader base. I got this in my inbox just a couple of hours ago and there are already 4 pages of comments.
And I am extremely thankful for that!
Mercedes. I used to sell them, and my customers would tell me they were the best cars they’d ever owned (as they were bringing them in MONTHLY for “preventative maintenance” on a broken part.) My recommendation would be to never own a Mercedes out of warranty.
Odds are most of the owners of a Mercedes, BMW or Audi are a lease so they have some warranty to fall back on. Personally I’d never own one.
I’ve been driving Audis since 1982 and have never been stranded or have anything other than normal maintenance issues. My last count is over 26 with RS, S, TT, Q, SQ, 5000 and 200 models. I’ve never leased but I do regularly scheduled maintenance. Some people could drive a rock into pebbles so just saying.
I am on my second Audi, and I’m having similar experiences, the best cars that I have owned in my 75 years of life. I would still be driving the first one if my wife hadn’t totaled it by hitting a tree doing over 60. She walked away without a scratch so a very safe car as well.
My brother (who owned one) said that BWM stood for Bavrian Money Waster. Our Dutch tour guide in Germany claimed that it stood for Bayerishe Miste Werke (Bavarian Manure Works).
I used to work the graveyard shift in the 80s and by 3am lunch break vending machines are near empty. Me and a coworker went to a local 7/11 for food, notice 3 guys hanging out in parking lot. We go in get our food coworker pays and goes to my truck I am paying the 3 guys come in one leans over my shoulder sees all my money just got paid and they attempted to rob me right in front of the clerk. Well they got nothing but the clerk does nothing he had a phone right behind him but just stood there. I assumed he knew them. I left and came back with 5 coworkers but they were gone. Never set foot in a 7/11 again.
The 7 Eleven here are all in bad neighborhoods, not the kind of places where one would hang out with a nice car…unless you are heavily armed.
When I lived in western Ohio and Ibdy, there was a chain of filling stations and convenience stores called “Speedway”.
They were nice and I appreciated the name, nice tie-in with cars and local history.
Worst place ever, A filling station just off I-90 in SW Minnesota (North side of Interstate).
Big sign on door….no checks, no bathroom, no ice, no refills, etc, etc. The list was long, it took up much of the door.
I don’t know why they were in business.
Five years later, I went back, same signs.
MG, or really any British car. I drove my MGBGT for nearly 30 years as a daily driver and it now has 433,000 miles. I think it’s great and has been totally reliable until the head cracked. I can’t tell you how many people have told me how bad SU carbs are or how bad the electrical system is. Almost everyone that I’ve really talked to have admitted they never owned an MG and they are basing their opinion on what they’ve been told by other people who haven’t owned one.
I never was a Ford guy…I tried owning a brand new 2014 Focus , for the fuel mileage….It stranded me 6 times in 6 months , due to a faulty transmission..I gave up on it and went back to Chevrolet….expensive lesson learned..
I owned a towing company for 35 years; for many of those years, the Ford Tempo and Aerostar Vans paid my insurance premiums.
ANY hand tool that is not one of the Big 3, Snap-on, Mac, and Matco. This could include older made in USA Craftsman hand tools. The rest are complete junk. Waste of money to buy, unreliable, terrible fit that damages fasteners and knuckles. If you hate your car, buy the junk tools. But if your vehicle, your knuckles and sanity mean anything ( and customer vehicles for professionals) buy the best. They will last a lifetime and perform perfectly.
Depends. Had our share of junk cars from several brands. Our ’90 Cougar was a maintenance nightmare, but our ’93 T-bird was great. Both my S10’s were pretty good. We got lucky with ’08 Hyundai. Cheap reliable car until it wasn’t 12 years, 140,000 miles later. Parent’s ’53 Ford was great. Every car after was a pile (2 AMC/Ramblers, 2 MOPAR, one Pontiac. As for household stuff, I wouldn’t have any appliance produced today. Customer service is almost nonexistent these days for everything. I have yet to have good service from a car dealer, no matter the make, and that goes back 25 years. I have to fix my own stuff.
Toyota – corporate ethics of Satan!!
Tesla…the company that has had the most influence on the trend of making vehicles more like appliances than automobiles.
That would be Ford really… Once the automobile was in the hands of many and used for regular transportation it became an appliance. 18 million Model Ts had far more impact on people driving for convenience than any modern EV company ever will.
Get down to the core source and it was city planners who made automobiles into appliances. If the population did not *need* to drive everywhere then cars would just be for fun.
Tesla is polarizing for so many reasons besides Musk. Love the brand or hate it seems to be the consensus.
I decided to try a Model Y Dual Motor as a daily and it IS a bit of an appliance, albeit a torquey responsive one. I can’t say I’m emotionally attached to it like my Porsches (or even my pickup) but it’s an efficient driver for short distances.
Way back, when you needed a tool, Craftsman did the job. Over the years they have always honored the lifetime replacement. As a DIY’er those tools always worked for me
I’ve had many a regular socket that was used with an impact tool or six foot Johnson bar replaced. Now Snap-On is a whole different kettle of busted impact sockets broken with a 3/8 rachet.
Mopar. They made the best awful cars. Stellantis carries on the tradition proudly.
Me and my 2012 Challenger (210000 miles) would argue that. Except maybe the Stellantis part.
SU carburetors and Lucas electrical components. Often maligned by people that have no experience with either and are not qualified to even fix a sandwich.