Here's Why the Chevy SS Was a Total Failure

This is a brand-new 2017 Chevy SS. This car is rear-wheel drive. It has a six-speed manual transmission and it has a 415 horsepower v8. This car is basically everything enthusiasts say they want and yet It was a flop. Chevy canceled it after just four years and only around 12,000 sales. Today I'm gonna take a look at this SS and I'm gonna show you why you should have bought one Even though you didn't and I'm gonna try to understand why this car was such a failure even though it looked so promising on paper I'll start with the basics The Chevy SS is built in Australia where it's sold as the Holden Commodore. The SS came out for the 2014 model year and back then it was only offered with an automatic. A six-speed manual became available the next year Prices have always started in the 45 to 50 thousand dollar range and sales were lackluster Chevy sold only about three thousand of these per year for four years and they only just pulled the plug In fact as I filmed this there are still a few new SS stragglers left for sale on AutoTrader. Today I'm gonna show you around this SS which I've borrowed from a viewer in New Jersey And I'm gonna show you all of the quirks and the features and basically what you missed out by not buying one of these And then I'm gonna take it out on the road and find out how it drives and then I'm gonna give you my theory On why the SS never really took off and then of course I'm going to give it a Doug score and for more of my thoughts on the SS experience Click the link below to visit AutoTrader.com slash oversteer I'm gonna start on the outside of the SS now the SS has notoriously restrained subtle styling for a V8 rear-wheel drive Performance sedan but with just a quick glance you can tell that this isn't just your regular Chevy sedan in a few ways For example, it has these big 19-inch wheels that look aggressive and bold and it has these Brembo brakes underneath the wheels with big red Calipers and it also has a lot of vents like a sports car one thing about the vents worth noting though They're all fake the vents on the hood are fake the vents on the fenders are fake. They don't lead anywhere They don't go to anything, but they do make the car look pretty cool. And then we move on to the windshield wipers You'll notice there are no windshield washer jets on the hood and they aren't integrated into the wipers either instead They're hidden down here presumably so they don't screw up the style of the SS's hood next up before I move inside It's worth emphasizing that the SS is built in Australia It's very weird to have a vehicle built in Australia and imported to the United States In fact, I can only think of a few cars in my lifetime Well, that's true the Pontiac GTO and GA the Mitsubishi Diamante the Mercury Capri. It basically doesn't happen That's 30 years of cars and I can only think of four that leads to one interesting quirk with the VIN number now A lot of people don't know this but the VIN is coded to where the car is built Japanese cars start with J, American cars start with 1, German start with W Australian built cars start with 6 and so the VIN number in this car starts with 6 Very few cars can lay claim to a 6 VIN and because this car is manufactured in Australia and because it's manufactured there by GM's Australian subsidiary Holden there are a couple of interesting quirks in this car You wouldn't find in a standard Chevrolet For example under the hood the in the plastic engine cover. It doesn't say Chevrolet. It just says v8 That's because the plastic engine cover probably normally says Holden So they just decided not to stamp that in on the Chevy's and they just stuck this here instead I really got a wonder about this decision How much did they really save by not making a different part with the Chevy logo something like 30 cents a car? But that's the decision they made and those sorts of things are notable in several other places throughout the car For example, take a look at the door sill at the bottom of your screen now in every other car The door sill gives the name of the automaker Chevrolet or at least the model SS, but in this car, well, it's blank That's probably because the door sill in this car originally said Holden and they just decided to replace it with a blank one again They probably saved like 90 cents a car by not just putting a Chevy logo there But that's the decision they made and then we move on to the passenger side of the dashboard Now when I first got in this car, one of the first things I noticed is that SS is Embroidered on the passenger side of the dashboard. It's very luxurious And I've never seen it embroidered in any other car before like that But as I thought about it, I realized if you take off that embroidery, I bet there's a Holden logo under there Of course, I don't know that for sure But my guess is that they didn't print the SS logo directly on the dashboard instead They covered it with a piece of embroidery in order to cover up the Holden logo That is most likely underneath just a guess but beyond the Holden stuff in this car There are a couple of other interesting quirks one of which is in the gauge cluster information screen Now you can move this screen around pressing the menu button and a little up-down dial on the turn signal stock Which is an odd placement to control this screen And when you do this, you will find that Chevy apparently felt they had to put some little picture on every single menu screen And so they went with some rather interesting pieces of clipart It makes it look like a Microsoft Word document from the 90s For example average speed is a tire with some speed lines behind it like a child would draw Navigation is a compass thing the trip odometer is a road But my favorite is units which uses a set square to show that it measures stuff The next interesting item is in the middle here in the center console You will find a little dial that says on it mode select You can choose between three different modes tour Sport and performance by twisting the dial and when you do that You can audibly hear the exhaust changing as you go from tour, which is the luxury mode into sport and performance It's worth noting that the mode select dial also changes the suspension character This car has GM's magnetic ride control suspension system, and it is the best suspension in the car business I love it It can be a luxury car when you want and a sports car when you want better than any other Suspension system now I mentioned that that little dial can take you from tour to sport to performance mode And those are the three modes of the SS, but that isn't the end of the story There's also a secret mode if you press the little traction control off button twice It brings you into a little secret mode it appears in the gauge cluster information screen. It's called competitive mode It turns off traction control and stability control I find it interesting that all you have to do is tap that button twice to get into the secret mode and an AMG car you have to like hold down the brake pedal and press the turn signal twice and then hold down the traction control and then say The secret password and this thing just tap it twice and you're in competitive mode Next we move on to the infotainment system now This is Chevy's my link system, and it's fairly normal similar to the my link system and all the other GM vehicles There are a couple of interesting items worth noting one is in the navigation system settings menu There's a little feature called breadcrumbs now what this does you put it on and it basically puts little dots on the left Last mile or two of roads that you've driven on so if you're in an unfamiliar area and you want to get back you can see Where you've been that's a useful feature And I like the fact that they call it breadcrumbs as if you were dropping breadcrumbs in a forest and you wanted to retrace your Steps later another interesting item in the infotainment system settings if you go to vehicle settings and go to climate and air quality You're wondering well, what air quality items do I get to change? Well, the answer is none of them. You can just change the auto fan speed I don't know why they call it climate and air quality But nonetheless if you were thinking you might be able to improve the quality of your air you were wrong next up We move on to the center console in this car Which is very normal boring looking rather small not particularly interesting although it actually is a surprisingly Versatile center console for example on the center console lid. There's a little spot where you can stick a pen There's also a little spot where you can stick business cards now move on to the area right below the center console lid And you'll find more versatility for example. There are two little slots where you can stick coins Presumably its size for Australian coins It's also worth noting the center console has two little channels that you can use to run your cords From the USB port inside the center console to the outside to the cabin while the center console lid is down to make things a little Bit tidier in case you want to have access to your phone or your music player while you're driving or sitting in the passenger seat Maybe the most interesting thing in that center console is there's a little spot where you can put your key It's got a cryptic little diagram on it And you're supposed to stick the key right in there if you're driving along You can put the key in there to get it out of your pocket since this is a push-button starter car now I looked up in the owner's manual Exactly what that is for use it really just a little home for your key And it turns out that you're also supposed to use that if you're trying to program a new key It's like a transmitter programming location So if you've got an SS and you're wondering what that key location is therefore in the center console There's your answer now speaking of the owner's manual. It is a little bit of an interesting document one thing about it Is there's no fancy pictures of the car. There's no leather bound book. It's just basically a very simple basic owner's manual I like the fact that on the outside it says SS sedan as if there was any question which SS this belonged to there's no wagon or coupe or convertible There's only the SS sedan next up moving on to the SS's rear seats They're reasonably roomy like you'd expect of a sedan of this size a couple of interesting quirks in the rear seats one of which is They're fixed. They don't fold down There's no way to fold down the seats to get extra long items inside the trunk and passing through into the cabin however There is a little pass-through push this and this thing folds down so you can get well narrow Extra long items through now speaking of that pass-through the weirdest thing about the pass-through is this there is a little armrest here You can pull it out And then put your arm on it and a little bit more comfortable when you sit in the back If you put down the trunk pass-through you will notice that it really functions as a larger armrest because it has Cupholders in it so if you want a rear cupholder in this car you can do it in the secondary larger armrest except Then you're hanging out with whatever you got rolling around in the trunk and speaking of the trunk one interesting thing about the trunk in The SS is there's no exterior latch or release you can use to open the trunk There is a release on the door by the driver's seat, and there's a release on the key fob But if you walk up to the car your hands are full you can't pull the key fob out of your pocket too bad There's no way to get in you have to use the remote And then you can open up the trunk by the way one other interesting item worth noting something I've always hated in General Motors vehicles Not just this one all of them when you're around the car when you've gone to unlock the doors Or when you're about to lock the doors and leave the car for some reason the reverse lights turn on which is Infuriating you're driving through a parking lot, and you see that some Tahoe is about to back up and leave the space So you sit there waiting and really the person locked the doors three minutes ago They're already inside doing their shopping, and you're waiting for someone to back out of a space There's nobody in the car. Why do GM vehicles turn on the reverse lights when you unlock the doors? They should only go on when you're reversing please Change this General Motors But don't let the lack of an exterior trunk release make you think that this car is poorly equipped on the contrary The SS is freaking loaded every single SS comes standard with an automatic parking system Press a little button line it up properly and this car will park itself It also has a nice little heads-up display that projects in the windshield It's configurable, and you can change it to show various different displays including one with the tachometer that I think is kind of cool This car has heated seats, and it also has ventilated seats although unfortunately You're not able to use them at the same time as you can see this car has a full leather upholstery interior including little red Stitching and the seats themselves look really really nice this car has blind spot monitoring it has forward collision warning It has lane departure warning and the best part is all that stuff is Standard this car only has three options It has the orange paint color and has a power sunroof and it has a full-size spare tire everything else everything I just mentioned comes standard these cars were incredibly well equipped They might be a Chevy But they're loaded up like a luxury car like a Cadillac or a BMW And then there's one other quirk that has to be mentioned before we move on and that's the exhaust note which is pleasantly Unsubtle the opposite of the rest of this car take a listen So those are the quirks and the many features of the Chevy SS Which is surprisingly loaded with stuff especially when you also consider the fact that it's real-world drive It's 415 horsepower, and they had to ship it here from Australia Right so with that in mind on to the drive all right driving the SS The clutch like in all of these GM vehicles the clutch is just not as smooth as it should be It's so bizarre to me Mike Mike the CTS V is like this. They're all like this is the old one They there's a little kink to the clutch Which is just kind of annoying with that said the trends the feel of the shifter is just perfect It's just slots right into gear. There's no play. There's no my in third. There's none of that It just it just feels so good going into gear. It's just like the most satisfying thing all right now I'm in tour mode and yet it already sounds surprisingly good the end of the day. It's naturally aspirated VA I was just talking with the owner, and we were thinking you know there's not that many naturally aspirated V8 stick shift rear-wheel driving this might be the end of the line in terms of sedans. I love the sound I can't believe I'm in just the tour mode When I go to sport it doesn't sound like the exhaust note changes dramatically going between sounds what it is is It's deeper the engine on the exhaust note especially as it revs are about the same But it just sort of like it deepens a little bit especially at low revs You can hear such a roar and grumble Which is funny because this car you know I look at this car And it doesn't seem like the kind of car that would growl, but that's exactly how it feels Great sound really great sound I was only going up to 4,000 rpm. It sounds good It doesn't sound you know like a Hellcat or anything like that in terms of craziness It just sounds good. It's not Excessive and that's kind of I think the overall theme of this car, right. It's good, but not excessive I can't believe GM is still doing the skip shift thing so in General Motors vehicles from the 80s when you would go in first First gear you're trying to shift into second if you were going at a low enough speed It knew you weren't trying to do anything fast or fun So it would skip second third and force you to go into fourth it was called the skip shift And it was the most annoying thing and my Viper did this too is common a lot of American cars at the time And everybody else kind of ditched this but GM still does it so when you shift from first you're going to second at lower speeds It's it skips the shift and it sends you into fourth and it even tells you on the on the gauge cluster gears Skipped for fuel economy, and this is a pretty rough road And I'm in I'm in performance mode here And it's just it's so much more comfortable than my station wagon God this car is so much more comfortable in my station, right? As expected the sound is great going up an on-ramp it sounds good And it's quick Especially mid-range mid-range feels really really good. It's got power It's just incredibly precise the steering not necessarily the handling But just a cap of the wheel and you're kind of already moving I'm impressed with that considering this car size this car to me is always sort of seem more like a muscle car type car But that's something I more associate with smaller modern performance cars, and then you look down I mean, I'm just so impressed with how well equipped this car is I'm looking at my heads-up display It's letting me know that I'm in my lane so that the lane departure warning doesn't kick in if I was to get too close To kind of for me forward collision alert would turn on and let me know that the blind spot monitors Tell me when someone is in my blind spot navigation system automatic headlights blah blah blah I mean, it's just kind of an unending amount of equipment this car is totally loaded at this at this speed going You know highway speed 65 miles an hour Not going fast because it is a charger up there. I'm a little bit nervous But it feels great. I've got it in performance mode, but the suspension so good. It feels great It's very smooth the ride is good the the seat is just so comfortable I mean I can totally cruise long distances in this car I've been a lot of these were sold to people who wanted a Camaro But they needed more practicality so they showed up at the dealer like on And then do this like you know we have this and so that's the Chevy SS now you might be wondering and in fact You should be wondering this car is fun to drive. It's rear-wheel drive six-speed manual 400 plus horsepower It's loaded with stuff for a fairly reasonable price as MotorTrend pointed out. It's basically a modern-day Reliable e39 BMW m5 so why didn't it sell I have three theories This car was a great value, but I think it was too expensive car enthusiasts interested in a stick shift rear-wheel drive v8 They don't need automated parallel parking and a lot of the other stuff this car had Subaru WRX doesn't come standard with basically any of the features on this car and the Subaru WRX is more popular than Bragging about how you have an Android phone, and you won't be seduced by Apple They should have taken some of the stuff out of this car and sold a base version for only $35,000 although I suspect if they had done that the profit margins wouldn't have been high enough for them to justify shipping it all the way from Australia I Guarantee there are car enthusiasts watching this video people who have money people who buy new cars people who are thinking I? Didn't know this thing existed. I guarantee there are many other car enthusiasts watching thinking. Oh, yeah That Chevy never marketed this car They never made any ads for it really and you basically had to find out about it through word-of-mouth Which frankly is a terrible way to sell a product the name didn't really help things Chevy has used the SS name as a high Performance trim level on dozens of cars throughout the last 50 years And it's almost like they didn't want to bother coming up with a real name for this car So they just decided they would use some leftover SS badges and leave it at that It was simply too generic and when you said SS people often replied SS what SS Camaro SS Malibu it made no sense I? Love the SS is styling really I do but let's be honest We live in a world now where people don't want Subtle cars that you don't know or fast until you're getting beaten by one of them at the drag strip The Camaro is bold and aggressive the Charger is angry and the Challenger looks like it Just ate a couple of small cute woodland creatures grazing in the forest The SS appeals to those of us who like sleeper cars cars that are fast But don't really look like it But that is a dying breed and so with those things in mind the Chevy SS was a failure But frankly, it's probably the best Automotive failure in the last couple of decades Anyway time to give it a Doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the SS is a handsome car But to me this category isn't just about looks But also about how the styling benefits the purpose of the car and they're clearly the SS falls short So it gets a 6 out of 10 next up acceleration the SS does 0 to 60 in 4.6 Seconds so it earns a 6 out of 10 as for handling the SS is very sharp though It's large size robs it of sports car like handling which is to be expected and it earns a 6 out of 10 Cool factor is decent car enthusiasts know what it is, but the general public has no idea It's anything cool, which to be honest for me is sort of cool in itself still This is no Lamborghini or even Porsche and it gets a 6 out of 10 finally significance This is a significant car in the sense that it's a fun sporty enthusiast luxury car But it's not particularly important to the Chevy story or the GM story or even the story of the SS trim level in general And it gets just a 5 out of 10 bringing the total weekend score to 29 out of 50 But that's pretty good. Only a few four-door cars have scored higher than the SS Next up are the daily categories starting with features This car has automated parallel parking blind spot monitoring forward collision braking ventilated seats a big touchscreen with navigation I don't really want to score a $48,000 Chevy higher than a Bentayga, but this thing simply has more features Most people actually want it gets an 8 out of 10 falling short of a perfect score because it doesn't have any autonomous or truly revolutionary features Next up is comfort and the excellent magnetic ride control earns this car a 7 out of 10 It's combined score of 13 and comfort and handling is uncommon for a car at this price point as for quality I expect the SS to be reliable But it does feel a little cheap inside with usual GM plastics and ugly General Motors font throughout It gets a 6 out of 10 for practicality The SS has 16.4 cubic feet of cargo space and it earns a 5 out of 10 Finally, there's value and I've never done it before but I'm going to do it here The SS gets a 10 out of 10 I do wish there had been a cheaper SS But if you like some tech features and some luxury equipment and some performance This version is an amazing luxury car and sports car and daily driver Especially considering Chevy has twice offered these with a 20% off promotion from new at that point You almost can't afford not to buy it I suspect also that it will hold its value pretty well, just like its spiritual predecessor the Pontiac G8 GXP Total it up and the total daily score is 36 out of 50 placing it right near the very top of the charts Add it all together and the Doug score is 65 out of 100 putting it in some serious good company behind the Lexus LFA But that's kind of the thing about this car. It's just really good at performance and practicality and basically everything except actually selling