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Cars that should ask the Israelis for forgiveness - voila! vehicle

2022-10-04T06:43:58.893Z


The transmissions of the Toyota Corolla and the Ford Focus, when they tried to sell us a bad Korean with the Chevy emblem, the BX shock absorbers and the Dacia that so many Israelis trashed


Cars that should ask the Israelis for forgiveness

Everyone had that cursed car, the one after which they swore they would never buy another car from X. But there were a few who really set a new standard and should ask us for forgiveness

Kenan Cohen

04/10/2022

Tuesday, 04 October 2022, 09:10 Updated: 09:33

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There were others, but this time I'll give it to the center (photo: manufacturer's website)

After in the previous years we examined what sins we commit on the road, who are the drivers who should ask us for forgiveness, for what developments the car manufacturers pushed us they should ask us for forgiveness, this year we turn to examine the cars that made our lives miserable, that caused so much anger towards them and became a symbol.

And the truth is that the fact that Israel was a country that parked cars for decades spared us some of the worst atrocities experienced by the gentiles in many countries.

There were no Austin Allegros, no Yugos, no second generation Ford Mustangs, and the Chevy Shebat and a bunch of Merein Bishin were spared from us.



And yet, a few cars managed to sneak in here, which nevertheless took a good shot at Mr. Israeli, who has a long memory.

Not all of them entered, although there were some that were really close and deserved it - see the Hummer H3 and H2 entry, two vehicles that defined what vulgarity is and make the video of the bride with Omar Adam look like a recital night at the Vienna Philharmonic.

Here are some of them, you will add the rest in the comments.

Dacia Delta, thousands of Israelis fell into the trap (photo: manufacturer's website)

Dacia Delta: you too can eat it in '88

Even before it became an arm of the Renault Nissan concern and offered simple cars at attractive prices, Dacia was another Eastern European manufacturer.

An auto industry whose main specialty was taking mediocre cars and making them poorly.

The Delta was a re-production of the Renault 12, and did its "romance" in Israel in three rounds, the first in 1978, the second in 1982 (and you thought the Lebanon war was the worst thing that year...) and the third and last time in 1988.



Beyond the fact that the vehicle itself was outdated, of poor design, low quality, and a shocking level of construction, that the prototypes that arrived in Israel failed the standard tests and were rejected by the Technion experts hired by the Ministry of Transportation, beyond the fact that the reliability of the car was terrible - the most terrible experience Delta customers had was the fact The basic thing is that they came out suckers in a way that redefines this word.

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Renewed and bad production of Renault 12 (photo: manufacturer's website)

And the beginning was promising, 6,500 orders in 3 weeks, an aggressive advertising campaign, an attractive price, but when the cars hit the road, the road tests and the impressions of the first customers made it clear that it was automotive garbage.

Whether the fault was with the car or with the conduct of the importer "Capris" which also imported Alfa Romeo at the time - the result was dismal.

Huge debts, irregularities, bankruptcy of the importer, people who lost their money or at best only the down payment or those who received the car and suffered even more.

Citroen BX, for a moment it knocked out Subaru (photo: manufacturer's website)

Citroen BX: bestseller and depressing

We are in 1985 and then, and when you said "family" in Israel you meant Subaru Leona, which even received the new and fourth generation that year.

And the one that lands in Israel that year and about three years after it was introduced is the Citroen BX.

The car was a sensation, advanced design, sophisticated planning, rare space in the passenger compartment and the highlight - hydro-pneumatic suspensions that allowed the body to be raised and lowered and its gas and liquid compression system allowed for wonderful driving comfort and outstanding road grip.

But it would only take two years before the BX really jumped to the fore, and the change came with the revision of the tax benefit that raised the threshold from an engine volume of 1,300 to 1,600 - at which time the dam was broken and the price of the BX was lower than that of competitors such as Opel Ascona or family cars Others like the Ford Escort, alongside the praises showered on it, made the Israelis rush to the showrooms.

For a short period of time, what today sounds like a wild fantasy happened - Citroën sold more than Subaru, it's as if today the C5 Aircourse will overtake the Kia Picanto.

The peak of sophistication of the eighties in a family home (photo: manufacturer's website)

But along with the success of the years 1987-1988, the squeaks that would turn into a glorious crash of the car also began.

Initially, these were the automatic transmissions, sometimes preventive maintenance, sometimes component replacement and in some cases the "complete" transmission replacement (in a new car, yes?).

The sophisticated shock absorber system suffered from gas and fluid leaks, sticking the BX in a variety of height positions without being able to change them.

The passenger cabins did not cope with the Israeli heat and began to crack, and also the extensive use of plastic in the body parts and the rear side windows began to show incompatibility with the weather when they faded, lost color and the windows became cloudy until the importer had to replace them with glass ones.



The BX did not recover from these upheavals, and from fantastic sales numbers it dropped significantly throughout the rest of its marketing years between 1989 and 1994, when the Israeli market said goodbye to it about a decade after it was born.

Renault Megane, say a fault, it probably had it (photo: manufacturer's website)

Renault Megane and Scenic: a very unpleasant pair

Another French manufacturer that was an iron sheep asset in Israel was Renault.

Every family will have the uncle who will tell everyone that 5 people went down to Sinai on a fully equipped Renault 4 that swallowed the road without blinking.

But over the years, something there started to go wrong.

At first it was completely ignored, until in 2002, after the union with Nissan, came the fat to the brim and energetic manager Carlos Gohan who had just finished miraculously healing Nissan, summoned the heads of the manufacturer and gave them a heads up.

The instruction to 11 thousand engineers, development people and managers was to see how it is done at Nissan and do it too, buy from the same suppliers, work with the same procedures and standards - but it didn't work.

"Do you see someone who will come to rescue us?" (Photo: Manufacturer's website)

Renault Megane and Renault Scenic were two excellent cars that sat on a common basis.

However, as far as reliability is concerned, they suffered from a long series of failures.

Starting with high wear of assemblies, engine overheating problems, an unreasonable amount of faults in the automatic transmission, various electrical faults, unimpressive assembly quality and what not.


A year later Renault's first improvement plan was presented and in 2005 the strategic plan for quality improvement continued.

And it did bring about change, which was slow, not without ups and downs (including the well-known "Do not see a garage" campaign).



But for that generation of Renault Megane or Scenic owners, including the sub-champions who received it as a side car, it will take a long time before they gave the Renault product another chance.

Chevrolet's Korean adventure (photo: manufacturer's website)

Chevrolet Epica: Do you know Dayholt?

The economic crisis that hit the Asian markets in the late 1990s also dealt a fatal blow to the giant Daewoo concern, whose car manufacturing was just one of its many businesses that spread from communications to electronic products to guns.

After it was on the shelf and its purchase was also considered by Ford, General Motors decided to get its hands on it.

And while in the home market Daewoo cars continued to be sold under the manufacturer's logo (until it was finally eliminated in 2011, a decade after the purchase), outside of South Korea they were replaced by Chevrolet's golden tie logo.



In the eyes of the manufacturer, there was logic in this process, here we are entering the Asian private car market with minimal investment, maybe we will finally be able to produce an answer to the Japanese, when on the front will be emblazoned an established American symbol that conveys success - Chevrolet.

So everything is fine and dandy except that the one who had to carry it was the apika, a large family sitting on an old-fashioned plan that was probably originally drawn on papyrus.

Fast or good, she didn't drive... (Photo: Manufacturer's website)

Beyond a large engine in relation to the category and an unusual configuration (2.5 liters, 6 cylinders in a column), the car was a wonderful combination of everything that brought Daewoo cars to bear a bad image combined with an attempt to make it more American than a Diner.



But what those who bought it will probably carry with them forever, is the experience of a decrease in value compared to which a kamikaze attack looks like a bar mitzvah flight in the skies of Israel.

From a price of NIS 151,000 as new, people who sold it after 4-5 years were happy if they managed to get about a third of the price of the car as new.

One of the few cracks in the armor of the Corolla's image (photo: manufacturer's website)

Toyota Corolla: the big shakeup

For decades and since 1966, you said Toyota Corolla - you said conservatism.

People who bought this car bought mainly there, a safe stock, they bought the knowledge that this product will do exactly what the previous generation did and the one before it and the one before it and so on.



Well, that really wasn't the case with the tenth generation sold here starting in 2008, the reason being Toyota's attempt to switch to a single-clutch automatic-robotic transmission.

On paper, such a box should combine the best of both worlds, be as economical as a manual box and maintain the ease of operation offered by an automatic box.

But there was a problem, the use of a single clutch and relatively slow action meant that every gear change would jolt the car unpleasantly.

It felt like a driving student is responsible for shifting gears, but he doesn't progress past the second lesson.

She broke up with the chalk at the first opportunity (photo: manufacturer's website)

It would tend to deteriorate at the start of a drive if you were on an incline, which resulted in many Corollas routinely turning around with dimples in the rear after kissing a car from behind or a hard bone parked in front of it.

The fact that the gearbox did not have a P position that drivers were used to also contributed to this, and those who did not make sure to lift the handbrake all the way sometimes discovered it a meter or two too late.



After about two turbulent years and after the importer tried to teach the customers to "live" with this box, only when it threatens to make names in the car's name and leads to a decrease in value that made Alfa owners feel good about themselves, its marketing is stopped and it is replaced by a planetary automatic transmission.

The queen of leasing who has fallen from her greatness (Photo: Nir Ben Tovim)

Ford Focus: The dot com crisis

After two generations that became the favorites of high-tech companies and also the choice of the family driver who liked to drive, after the car that returned Ford to the blue symbol after the last two generations of the Escort which were a great horror - in 2011 the third generation of Ford Focus arrived.

At the beginning of her journey, the compliments flowed.

It was modern, pleasant, a little less fun to drive than before, but hey, it's family and you have to remember what went around here at the time.

And along with the compliments, the checks poured in and it was sold in huge numbers to the leasing companies who knew the model from its two previous generations.



To improve one of its historical weak points, fuel consumption, Ford made a switch to a dual-clutch robotic transmission called PowerShift on its face an excellent choice and following the path of the Volkswagen Group.

However, not long after, it was discovered that the box brought something else with it, an endless series of malfunctions that made life miserable for the car owners and later turned into a class action lawsuit against the importer that ended with compensation paid by the company to its customers.

Repeated software updates and replacement of components in the boxes improved the situation, but it was too little too late for its name, extending the warranty to 5 and 7 years and the gear computers to 10 years did not help either.

In addition to these, the car also suffered from a low finish quality where its most recognizable feature was door rubbers whose glue "gets tired" and they fall off and hang outside the door like a small tail for the car.

The slow recovery continues to this day (Photo: Nir Ben Tovim)

Ford realized there was a problem and at some point threw the gearbox into the trash can, and two years later, in the facelift of the Focus, they implanted a planetary gearbox in it (along with an excellent 1.5 liter turbo engine), but in Israel it was too little too late, precisely when the car offered the version At its best, the public has already marked it with a big X, fleet managers and leasing company CEOs would wake up drenched in sweat at night when they dreamed they were running in lots full of robotic third-generation Focuses that they had to sell.

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  • Chevrolet

  • Renault

  • Dacia

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  • Citroen

Source: walla

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