Top 10 cars, that Americans hate

Times are so difficult for the auto industry that even Toyota and Honda have now experienced the kinds of double-digit sales dips that have been plaguing American auto giants General Motors and Ford all year. Sales for the entire industry were down 26.6 percent collectively in September as consumers grew skittish about making big-ticket purchases.

In good economic times and bad alike, however, there are some vehicles that American consumers seem to abhor outright. And they're not just the big, gas-guzzling SUVs that are currently out of favor. It turns out, the cars American consumers hate the most come in many different shapes and sizes, and they're disliked for a wide array of reasons.

"Buyers make the same choices and buy the safe brand," says Jessica Caldwell, manager of pricing and industry analysis at Edmunds.com, an automotive consumer information Web site. "They are not thinking outside the box and buying something that may stand out as an odd purchase."

But then there's well-earned hatred, particularly due to quality issues, which is the case with the Jaguar XJ, of which only 10,852 were sold (the leader in the segment, the Cadillac DTS, saw sales above 135,000). The Jaguar brand was sold last year to Indian company Tata Motors, and when Jaguar lost its British edge it also lost favor with American buyers, says Caldwell. Even though the quality problems of Jaguars, to that point, had been well-known among consumers, the idea of having a British car parked in the driveway was, for a long time, enough to attract loyal American buyers. Written by Rahul Vishela