Washington Auto Show impressions

[ifcar]

I recently went to the Washington Auto Show, and then went back a few days later with my wife. (In my opinion, her thoughts are more interesting than mine – it's hard for an impression to surprise me at the show, because I'm already familiar enough with most of the cars.) In addition to not being an auto expert in general, she's also only been living in the U.S. for a few months.

Generally speaking, Prisca's preference is for a high seating position – most importantly, an easy view over the dashboard for her 5'3''-ish height. She's especially picky about this: By her standards, a normal sedan is "very low." And she's a fan of tech, so once she was comfortable she was eager to play with the infotainment screens. For these two reasons, cars without full accessory power at the show were of reduced interest (sorry, Mercedes-Benz) and those with power seats that couldn't be adjusted were an instant "don't waste my time."

The two of us started in the Audi display, where the very first car she sat in was also her favorite in the show: the Audi Q3. She'd already commented favorably on one we'd seen on the street, saying it seemed like a good size/height and attractive-looking. Upon sitting in it, she confirmed that she liked the seating position and also raved about the interior build quality and the MMI setup.



When I was there earlier, I did look at and sit in the new Q5, which was as meh as others have been saying. Dull to look at – like an old Q3 front end stuck on the even older Q5 body, plus some awkward curves on the side – and a few areas inside where the cabin wasn't up to the usual Audi caliber (though not as bad as some critics had suggested). But the A5/S5 coupe and hatch were both nice, I thought, though certainly not as novel as when the coupe first came out.











As the first place we went, Audi got the hit for the "same sausage, different lengths" approach: I was mentioning something about some of the Audi sedans, and Prisca just got confused: "But aren't these all the same car?"



We next moved on to Lincoln, where an MKX elicited a "meh" except for a dashboard button that opened the glovebox onto my knee. She said it generally didn't look very expensive, push-button shifting seemed annoying, and the screen wasn't as crisp. A radio tuning knob was appreciated, though; like me, she's dedicated to that feature. She complains whenever I'm testing a car with buttons for the radio, or worse, touchscreen-only operation. (A recent winner is the Genesis G80 I have right now (the renamed Genesis sedan), which has a full set of normal buttons/knobs, a touchscreen, and the console control wheel.) She also thought the Navigator concept was cool, but just due to the features that would never make it to production.



We skipped Mercedes because she wasn't interested in lines for cars without screens being on, but they had a Maybach convertible on display – honestly, it looks like tasteless trashy bling that messes up a lovely car.



We didn't spend much time at Lexus as I've had a couple of those as recent test cars; she only restated her objection to the mouse-controller thing. We also sat in an Infiniti Q80 (the old M), which she said had too many buttons but is still preferable to having too much through the screen. Nearby at Cadillac, she said they all looked so boring; I'd been unsure if car folks were just too spoiled by 14 years of exposure to Art&Science, but evidently long vertical headlights just aren't cutting it. We mostly skipped Porsche, BMW and Jaguar/Land Rover due to crowds, but when I was there earlier I'd been pleasantly surprised by the interior room in nearly all the latter's cars. And the 7 Series seemed nicer than the S-Class, which surprised me.

We moved on to Volkswagen, where she liked the old Tiguan (the only one they had) for its size, driver comfort, and build quality. It's easy to see the lingering appeal of this old model from the show floor, despite its ridiculous price, terrible gas mileage, and poor crash-test performance. She did dislike the VW infotainment system, though, calling it slow and annoying.

When I was there, I sat in the new Atlas, which takes the Passat approach to the crossover market: standing out by being roomier. It definitely doesn't look like an exciting new model, but it's roomy enough that it should be able to get some attention. The interior also looks nice, though I didn't get enough time to poke around for quality flaws.






Volkswagen was also the place I saw my first manual transmission of the show, in a GLI. It was one of the few even by the end; even Mini's display was automatic-only.

Next to VW was Kia, where we sat in a new Soul. She's still happy with her 2012 Soul except for wishing the seat would go higher, but felt she didn't have quite as good of a view out of the new one, possibly due to a higher dash. She liked the feel of the interior, though, and the ergonomics. And kudos to Kia for having a base model on display in addition to a loaded one. Prisca was also a fan of the new Niro hybrid, though her first thought was that it was a pity there isn't a gas model with a manual transmission and low price.



Meanwhile while the Stinger was pretty slick, playing the Soul hamster commercial behind it is not going to help its image:




(Hyundai, meanwhile, put up a wall between the Genesis line and the rest of its models, and changed the carpet color.)



I was amused, though, that Kia hid its only Rio in the far back of the display, carefully hidden:





We next went on to Subaru, where Prisca has always liked the image and big windows of the Forester. We didn't linger, though, because the cars didn't have accessory power.

We also sat in a couple of subcompact cars back to back: the Honda Fit and Nissan Versa Note. She generally liked both, but continues to hate the Honda touchscreen (especially the old version in the Fit, rather than the updated one in the new CR-V) and was appalled at the $20,000 sticker on the Versa Note we were sitting in. It's definitely a better car the farther you get from that price point; there's a good chance that would have been her car today instead of a Soul if Nissan offered power windows with a manual transmission, and the basic crank-window model may turn out to be my own next car.

FCA, Ford-brand, GM-minus-Cadillac, and Toyota-brand were upstairs in their own hall. Chevrolet was right at the entrance to the hall, and Prisca was pleasantly surprised by several models. She liked the Spark more than she expected – coming just after I liked it less than I expected, incidentally – and loved the seat and forward visibility of the Trax. She liked the Sonic while we were car-shopping for her and continued to find it agreeable in person.

She didn't get a chance to sit in the Bolt, but I did and thought it was quite nice – well-built and, so unlike the Volt, roomy and airy. It had a few BMW i3-like materials, but a vibe of normalcy instead of the BMW's concept-like interior and exterior.







Meanwhile, I was impressed by the new Equinox, which looks upscale of CR-V et al in person. The GMC Terrain....I'm still not sure what to make of it, but it's definitely different.







At Toyota, we sat in the Prius Prime, where Prisca thought the double-sized touchscreen was cool visually and cleverly designed for what it is, but she decided in the end that she still prefers a more conventional layout. We also sat in a Prius c, where her impression matched mine: "It's okay." [moves on]



The new Camry has some awkward details, but could have been a lot worse. Meanwhile, the new C-HR was rather sharp in a concept-car-in-production kind of way. And I was amused by what looks like a Sienna WRX.










At this point we also started sitting in a few midsize SUV/crossovers – the Edge, 4Runner and Grand Cherokee. She generally liked their seating positions a lot, but contrary to folks' predictions on here, she felt intimidated by the idea of driving something so wide. She also sat in a Wrangler, a car she's seen all the time and always thought looked horrible, but thought it was quite comfortable to sit in and had a cool vibe. We were in a fairly basic-seeming two-door with a sticker of $35,000, which she
thought was crazy.

Three Fiats at the show were hits: the 500L, which she thought was great to sit in except for a ridiculous handbrake; and the Ram ProMaster and ProMaster City vans. The latter is one her mom is looking at to replace her old Renault Modus, but the former's high seat and super-low dashboard won especially high praise: "Now THIS is a car." (She doesn't like the three-door 500, though; she thinks it's ugly and has uncomfortable seats, and has a negative impression of the types of Italians who often buy it.)



Back at Ford, the new EcoSport looks better than I expected; it's small enough that that the large-looking expanses of metal above the wheels aren't as daunting as they look in pictures. There was also the new 2018 Mustang, but the color looked terrible under the auto show lights so it was hard to really form an impression on the changes. They seem innocuous enough, though the loss of the V6 is a disappointment.







The new Jeep Compass also looked nice – a simple, elegant design. I wonder if it would have made more sense for this model to wear the Cherokee name, as it looks less bizarre and more like the Grand Cherokee. Meanwhile, the Compass has always been the awkward weird one and could have been the name for today's Cherokee. But oh well.




We rounded out the day by doing ride-and-drives with automakers that were offering generous gift cards: Ford and Kia. Mazda offered a $5 Starbucks gift card but would have made passengers wait inside rather than coming along, so we skipped them (boo). I need to file a complaint with Great Things Are Coming.

[Galaxy]

The new Jeep Compass also looked nice – a simple, elegant design. I wonder if it would have made more sense for this model to wear the Cherokee name, as it looks less bizarre and more like the Grand Cherokee.

The Cherokee styling is getting fixed for the facelift.

[Eye of the Tiger]

The Cherokee styling is getting fixed for the facelift.

[Galaxy]

"We gave it everything we got" is a kind of depressing marketing statement. 

[12,000 RPM]

Poor Rio



Isn't a new one already out in Europe?