Worst 7 Seater SUVs | Auto Expert John Cadogan | Australia

It’s so easy to make the wrong with seven-seater SUVs. There are so many alternatives.

Here’s the top seven most outrageously crap seven-seaters money can buy, but shouldn’t, in Australia.

1. Fiat Freemont
The Fiat Freemont is a discount seven-seater SUV, a hastily re-badged Dodge Journey with very few redeeming features outside of the price. It’s imported into Australia by Satan’s preferred carmaker, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. With management by Mephistopheles, it’s perhaps unsurprising to learn Fiat Chrysler is one of the Australian auto industry’s grubbiest operators.

Ford Territory
There are two basic problems with the Ford Territory: a) it’s outdated, and b) It’s made by Ford. In Australia. They’re both pretty bad problems to have.

Territory is the Joan Rivers of 7 seater SUVs. It still drives well, but when it takes off its bra, it can have a mammogram and a pedicure on the same elevation. Buying a Territory in 2016 is like buying a brand new 16-year-old SUV. It has the worst tacky plastic interior and (in particular) pathetically outdated engines.

Holden Captiva
If ‘worst SUV available today’ were an Olympic Sport, the Holden Captiva would go for Gold. It’s that bad. I’ve reported a million dissertations about exactly why this is so. Captiva is a card-carrying shitbox.

In short, the Holden Captiva is a cheap, mean, and ultimately shiity import built in the old Daewoo factory in South Korea, which was so on the nose from a quality standpoint that they had to change its name to ‘GM Korea’ in a failed, under-done attempt by marketing arseholes to get the stench of poor engineering off the products.

Infiniti QX80
The Kim Kardashian of SUVs: an over-done, trumped-up, big-arsed 99-per-cent Nissan for ‘just’ $120k, drive-away. And when you look it, from every angle, all you see is Kim Kardashian’s arse.

This premium priced SUV shitbox with the absurd name weighs nearly three tonnes. Maybe the QX80 should go on a diet. Like the Kardashian diet – that’s the one where you can only eat stuff Kim Kardashian can spell. Like cat. And anal sex.

Technically the nonsense-named QX80 is an eight-seater, but I mean, Jesus: who in their right mind would buy one? Two words: Depreciation disaster.

Mercedes-Benz GL-Class
That badge. Everyone wants one. Chicks want it. Guys want it. Chicks want guys who have it. Mercedes-Benz is so aspirational.

The reality is that the GL-Class is just another poorly engineered heap of German crap.

According to Consumer Reports in the USA (where the Australian Jungle King is built) the list of faults that typify the GL-Class ownership experience include: defective collision-warning sensors, power steering failures, infotainment catastrophic failure, voice recognition failure, rattles in the doors and tailgate, transmission – lock-in-one-gear syndrome (that Benz SHITBOX-tronic logic…) and the engine ECU making like the Titanic.

Nissan Pathfinder
This is an SUV that has truly betrayed its heritage. Previous Pathys were decent four-wheel drives. This one has unfortunately impacted in Nissan’s descending colon.

Then when the transmission ultimately shudders its way to complete exhaustion, a few weeks down the track, after purchase, don’t expect a look of abject shock and awe from the service manager. You’d be the hundredth Pathfinder transmission failure this year. It’s simply disgraceful.

Ssangyong Rexton
Seriously. You’re not really considering a Rexton, are you? Not really? Who’s going to want a used Ssangyong Rexton in three to five years?

It’s a guaranteed hole in the road to tip money into. Guaranteed. Your Shitbox-yong Rexton RX270 XVT SPR Auto 4×4 was about $48,000 brand new in 2012. The top-whack trade-in you can hope for today is about $18,000 – that’s being generous. A good way to burn $30,000 in four years, retaining just 38 per cent of its drive-away value at trade-in time.

If you’d bought a Hyundai Santa Fe Highlander in 2012 – first of the new shape – okay, it would have cost you about $54,000 drive-away. But you’d trade it in now for an equally optimistic $30,000, both according to redbook.com.au

So, let’s get this straight: The Shitbox-yong would have cost you $30,000 over four years, in depreciation. The fully loaded Santa Fe – a far superior SUV – would have cost $24,000. That’s 20 per cent less, despite costing more and being an infinitely better SUV to own. Pretty simple choice, huh?

Hopefully this report has prevented you from making one of those terrible mistakes. Thanks for watching.

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