centuryman

1999 Subaru Outback with 77,000 miles. It spends most of the year in the garage. Don't plan to ever buy another car. Use bikes or walk for commuting, errands, grocery shopping, recreation, fitness, and most travel.

stapfam

Newest car is only one day old now. Only probem is that I haven't seen the wife since. She bought it home last night and went out for a drive to get used to it. And Got home tonight with a message on the phone that she will be late so cook your own dinner.

At least I can watch the re-runs of the Paris Nice that I recorded earlier in the year now.

Booger1

I wouldn't call the early GM engines a diesel engine.It was a converted gas engine,that's why it didn't hold up.If they would have built a real diesel,it would have been fine.Could have used a trans capable of diesel torque also.

Beancounter don't know how to build cars,that's why the big 3 are failing!

NealH

My newest car, my cycling car, is a '98 Sienna van with right at 100K miles. And, it runs as good as ever. Those 3 liter Toyota engines rock.

roccobike

Newest car is the wife's 2005 Toyota Highlander.
My car is a 2004 Volvo S-60, 2.5 Turbo. YESSS!!! By far the fastest car I've owned since I sold my 1969 LT-1 Corvette. With a true average, all around gas mileage of 26.2mpg, it's not bad on gas either.

Road Fan

At the risk of being banished to P&R, I have to respond (I have responded there to other wrong-headed comments). I work in the auto industry, and I am getting real tired of people blaming the companies of today for bonehead technical decisions made 30+ years ago. Those conversion diesels were made in the 1970s, 30 years back. The had to have been designed several years before that, knowing how long it takes to tool for a new major piece of a car. It WAS a dumb decision, the whole world knows that. But what is going on now in the car companies?

World platforms, smaller high-revving engines, thermal energy recovery systems, hybrid powertrains, fuel cell research, extensive use of electronics, far improved quality monitoring and quality control, and reliability that in some cases exceeds Toyota.

There's a lot going on that at least should be allowed to come to the market. The US industry is on the attack, attempting to compete for market share. Comments like this one just perpetuate a lot of outdated impressions. It's not useful, it's not current, and it's not true.

Road Fan

Road Fan

Can't agree with this perspective either . Buy what you want, but just in this thread are a lot of very high miler US cars. All cars have become more reliable. Granted, a long history of bad choices, but today's industry is not the same one. BTW, you should see the $$ Ford and GM put into advanced safety electronics and powertrain efficiency improvements. I can see it, I work with them off and on, I have for nearly 15 years now.

I'm an old enough fart to have had a 66 Ford lose its oil pump with 70,000 miles on the car, and to have had a bud with a 65 that put three transmissions in it. Reliability is FAR better today, even in smaller US cars.

Road Fan

I had one of them!!!

Randochap

20. It's Made in Japan.

Tom Bombadil

I've owned 3 Dodge Caravans since 1988 and have lost two of their infamous transmissions. Where they used a tranny off of one of their car lines that was designed for a vehicle that was about 500 pounds lighter than the Caravan and thus subject to failure at between 60,000 and 100,000 miles.

However it is true that the statistics show that nearly all vehicles have improved in quality since the 1970s. Vehicles from GM, Ford, and Chrysler still tend to trail those from Toyota, Honda, and now even Hyundai, but a new GM car will tend to be about as reliable as a Honda from the 1990s. That's a big improvement from where GM was in the early 80s.

I want my next vehicle to be reliable for 200,000 miles. I have reasonably high confidence that I can obtain such a vehicle from Honda or Toyota. I have less confidence in GM, Ford, and Chrysler products. I wish that wasn't true. I like the upcoming 2-mode hybrid Saturn VUE, but Saturn has less than a stellar record on newer models and as I'll be on a fixed & lower income in a few years, I don't want to be hit by high maintenance costs. Don't know if I can take the leap of faith to invest in one.

Mark Turner

We've got a 1999 Subaru Outback and I drive a 1992 Toyota pickup as my work vehicle. I rode my bike this year more miles than we drove the Subaru. When to replace? Who knows. There's no immediate need unless I need to upgrade my business image to my photography customers.

cranky old dude

Tell that to my wife and you better be prepared to run away!!!! We've owned our share of Fords and Toyotas and Chevys. I shudder when I think about the Fords and Chevys.

One important point no one has touched on yet is the willingness of the companies to stand behind their products. Toyota does, Ford doesn't, plain and simple. I own a '94 E-150 which I purchased new after listening to a bunch of malarky about the new modern Ford Motor Co. With 55 thousand miles on it I've already replaced Power steering pump, Alternator, Transmission, Air Conditioner, Ignition part that fried (major Ford problem leaving countless stranded on highways and credited with many injuries) and two recalls to repair the Cruise Control "Start your truck on fire when you least expect it" Switch. Those are just the parts that stick in my mind, there are many, many more repairs that we paid for. Ford only dealt with the Cruise Control problem, and we all know how long it took before they even admitted that there might be a problem. This was the same "Bull Headed" you bought it-you fix it attitude I had to deal with when I bought my first new Ford in 1980 and they had their Disk Brake issues on the F-150's.

Toyota, on the other hand, mailed my wife and I several free warrantee extensions because they had some instances where their products didn't perform as well as Toyota thought they should. We bought our Toyotas used, not new. Toyota has convinced me that they stand behind their products. American manufacturers have convinced me that they only want my money. It will take years of hard work for American Manufacturers to erase that image, if they can do it at all.

I am aware that many Toyotas are manufactured in America. I used to own one that was designed, Engineered, and built on the West Coast. Toyota Motors bought it back from me as it was no longer safe to drive after only ten years!!!!!! I have no faith at all in any auto manufactured on our shores. My opinions are shaped through my personal experiences with the products and I will no longer be swayed by reports, polls, etc. I'm sorry , but that is what 40 years of paying and paying and paying for low mileage repairs have done to my wife and myself.

I'm just one example of the hurdles ahead of American Auto Manufacturers. Hard learned opinions are very difficult to change and words and promises alone won't do the job.

maddmaxx 

When I hear how much american cars have improved, I feel like Charlie Brown staring at the football just before a kick...........

On the other hand, the american consumer has had a lot to do with the state of the auto industry also.

2 examples: I owned a 1991 Ford Escort Pony, an 84hp, 41mph, manual transmissioned, 0 option car that ran and ran and ran. It always passed emission tests (except for the mouse nest in the aircleaner box) and it was easy to repair (it broke very infrequently). It was inexpensive and functional as my commuter car. Can't buy much of anything like it today. Too little horsepower, no air conditioning, no antilock brakes, no 6 cd changer, doesn't fit a family of 12 etc. Consumers wouldn't buy it.

2nd example. A couple of years ago, Scion came to america with a small low horsepower box, designed to be a utility vehicle (based on the world car concept). It even had centrally mounted instruments on the dash to ease manufacture of both right and left hand drives. I became interested and this year went looking to buy one. Whoops, the american consumer told Toyota how to improve it......... Its now wider, longer, taller, the small engine has been replaced by a large engine, the weight climbed 500 lbs, the milage dropped several mpg and styling dictated that the low bottom lip of the rear hatch had to be raised way up (thus defeating the ability to carry an upright bicycle in the rear.) The american consumer told Toyota what to do to "improve" the vehicle................

ollo_ollo

Our newest & main car is a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica with 45,000 trouble free miles. It replaced a 95BMW 525 wagon at 130,000 miles after my wife refused to travel in it due to an engine problem while we were on a trip. She & my daughter hit on this successful vehicle replacement strategy back in the nineties when my 1981 Mercedes 300SD turbodiesel began showing some interior wear. They have used it on myself & my son a few times now, so beware! Wifey only drives her low mileage 95 Chrysler Cirrus for a few monthly shopping trips but refuses to consider getting rid of it. Oh well Don

Ken Brown

My 1991 Previa unfortunately succumbed in July with just 211,000 miles on it. Mechanically it was great, but our winter road salt corroded the body and the brake lines. I had only 3 cars over 38 years until I bought a 2004 Sienna when the Previa was towed away.

Road Fan

Also VW has had a turbo-diesel in the US for several years, I think its a 1.8, on the Golf and Jetta.

Road Fan

Yeah, I was upset about that Scion "improvement" too! I've been thinking they must be planning to put a hybrid powertrain in it to restore the econobox image, but no joy yet.

The consumer may have told Toyota how to improve the Scion, but Toyota chose to listen. The changes were Toyota's choice, to maintain or improve sales. Similarly for the US OEMs, the consumer has over and over voted with their checkbook in favor of Explorers, Expeditions, Escalades, Highlanders, Denalis, Suburbans et cetera, and with the less well-heeled or somewhat more environmental opting for RAV-4s or Escapes. Could the OEMs have ignored such demand? Yes, but only at their peril. With B&A plants and in some cases supplier plants that near break-even only well above 50% capacity, they can't just ramp the "production line speed" knob up and down, fine-tuning to match demand. There are a lot of constraints in just remaining as profitable as they sometimes were.

Back in '94 I was driving a VW Passat with 5-speed and the VR-6 - great car. I started at Ford in '94 and several of my co-workers had that basic Focus - a few still have them. One has an Aerostar van based on the Ranger pickup with around 250 k on it, but he has replaced transmissions a few times. A pain, but still much improved over the '60s and '70s, and much cheaper than replacing it with a Windstar or Freestar or whatever it's called now. I'm no longer with Ford, and we now have a pair of 2007 Prius's.

Road Fan

I agree with your sensibilities and I certainly see the difficulties in changing hard-learned lessons. What I do ask is that current opinions about destroying a major industry be based on the current perspective, with less emphasis on the historical problems. They were real and painful, and in some cases they are still recurring, but I do know that the OEMs are and have been working to re-engineer the ship and to turn it to a new direction.

Well, I said several things there and I don't really see what your wife actually disagrees with. I'm not saying everything's perfect in the US auto industry. What I am saying is that the industry knows its faults and is taking action to make changes. In Michigan the changes have been drastic, involving massive job loss and plant closings already, over the past 5 years. Before the credit crunch it was resulting in improved quality and profitability, with evolution of new technology.

The dealer and distribution networks are much harder to change. In many cases the dealerships are not owned by the OEM, and actually just buy the product from the OEM, with much of the rest of "policy" (like paying for standing behind the product after 10 years) being the decision of the dealer, by comparison a small businessman. Parts stock is the choice of the dealer. Availability of technicians is the choice of the dealer. The number of dealers is another issue - Toyota sells now more cars than GM but has around a third the number of dealers, with a lot more control over them. For GM, old old contracts say the dealers are essentially autonomous.

Plus the OEMs are so big that not only does the right hand not always see what the left hand it doing, there are way more than two hands. Changes are slow and need to sink into the culture. Same problem as the consumer opinion you mention and have, Creaky, that hard-learned views are hard to change.

I don't want to alienate people, but I do have a unique vantage point being in the auto industry. I think the recent changes should be allowed to come to fruition, not curtailed. There's a lot of baby in the lake full of bathwater.

Road Fan

Digital Gee

This reminds me of the time, several (okay, many) years ago when I became interested in buying an RV. But all I wanted was the basic shell, if you will. I wanted the simplest RV they could make -- maybe have a bathroom in it, and I'd add (or build) my own bed, "couch," and storage units. I wanted the outsides, and nothing on the inside.

I was told you can't buy something like that. And nowadays, even the simplest RV (not that I want one anymore!) comes with a TV (no, wait -- make that TWO TV's) , a microwave, probably a bathtub with jacuzzi jets, and so on and so forth. It seems like the same is true of cars -- it's very hard to buy a very simple model with few "luxuries" unless you manage to get the first year's product. After that, it gets bigger, and has more stuff in it, and ... well, you get the point. Sigh.

cranky old dude

Very optomistic and good news. I'm anxious to start hearing consumers and mechanics rave about how dependable their domestic vehicles are and how the domestics are the best performers out on the highways and how they seem to last forever. Then I most certainly will buy one.

I hope the turnaround occurs soon as our economy truely needs a good boost. Too many jobs will be permanently impacted if the "Rebirth" of the american automobile industry doesn't come to full fruition. God Speed and please hurry. We're out here. Our current cars won't last forever. We'll purcahse whatever marque is the best quality for our limited dollars. Thanks for the "Insider" insight as it indicates there truely is hope for domestic automakers.

(Oh, just to show that I'm not just prejudice against American cars....Tacoma is definately off my Short List as a replacement for my pickup, at least until they can publish that they,ve resolved and how they resolved the rust issues.)

Happy Trails

Road Fan

Cranky, I don't really care what you like to buy, I work for a supplier who sells parts to all the car companies in the world, so I'm not beholden to the Big 3, even though I started with Ford. I'm very glad to see my comments are hitting home!!!

But I do want to ask for caution about expecting all the problems to be fixed when the economy improves. It will take time, still!

Thanks for listening, I truly appreciate it.

Road Fan

stapfam

Watch out. The UK no longer has a british motor manufacturer.

If you don't buy American- in a few years you won't be able to.

Artkansas 

My car is a 1983 Pontiac Bonneville Wagon. I have probably put 50 miles on it since I bought it 3 1/2 years ago.

cranky old dude

No worries, I've still got my '72 MGB and it runs just fine.

And my Trek and Volae are american built and they're fine too.

Robert Foster

You make a good point. A lot of our problems we created ourselves. In the early days imports were not dependable, but we bought them. They cost less and got better fuel mileage. But a early Toyota getting 50K miles was rare. Mazda RX motors couldn't be fixed and ate gas like a V-8 but we loved them. Then things changed and everyone got better but I will agree the Asians got better quicker. But VW didn't and we still buy them. Our mindsets take a long time to change. Look at the earlier post about Scion? Then type in Scion Sales slump in your search engine and see what the improvements have done to Scion. People say if you buy Japanese you buy quality but bring up JD powers and see where Suzuki stands in dependability ratings. And Suzuki is built in Japan. In fact just look and see how many imports fall below some of the domestics in dependability. To me if a car meets your needs and you like it more than likely it will last you as long as you want as long as you take care of it. A car or truck is nothing more than a machine designed to get us from point A to point B and it doesn't matter much where that machine is made. That is why my 92 Pontiac may last me till I can no longer drive. With any luck my Tahoe will do the same.

The real test is how easy will they carry my bike if I have to call and have my wife collect me because of a malfunction 40 miles from home? Other than that I am waiting for a EV before I even consider another car.