Are all manufactures terrible now?

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Agreed. Concerning Internet forums distorting the image of car / truck reliability, if every vehicle shopper allowed forums to influence their purchase no vehicles would be sold at all!
 
If the 60-70 cars had the oil and filters and fuel of today, they may have lasted many more miles too. They were not designed on computers and didn't use Mexican and Chinese parts like today. Do you really believe that there will be any 50 year old Prius in an antique car auction. The way plastic is designed to recycle itself, there won't be very many old ones around.
 
Cars are more reliable but repairs are more expensive.

Customers are more willing to accept longer loan terms combined with historically low interest rates lent support for continued price increases.

Customers driven technology (ex NAV, Apply car play) suffer from obsolescence. Younger buyers are more interested in technology so they have a greater appetite for leasing because they want the latest and greatest.

Govt emissions, FE, and safety requirements are a cost adder. Always will be.
 
I disagree. I think its always been that way. Nothing is perfect either. I have an 07 Corolla, mechanically its been stellar. My 2015 Venza Im confident will be just as good mechanically. Interior fit and finish on both is clearly where they cheaped out. Albeit durable but not top quality..lots of hard plastics. Also, you need to note the addition of safety improvements etc from older vehicles. Next purchase will likely be a Lexus.
 
No complaints whatsoever with the Manufacturers of the cars in my sig; I've also been happy with Mazda.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by PWMDMD
Originally Posted by PimTac
You must not be old enough to remember cars from the70's. Vehicles rusting on dealer lots. Parts missing. A whole litany of issues.

A car salesman's most used phrase; "we will take care of that before you drive it off the lot."


Well, I was born at the end of the 70's so...no.




The 70's Malaise was around ten to twelve years of bad times. The Saudi oil boycott. Gas rationing. (Even/odd days). Inflation. Interest rates well into the teens. Unemployment was also well into the teens and in some places like where I lived in the PNW it was around 20%

It makes the Great Recession of 2008 look tame in comparison.


Don't tell that to a few of our Millenial members. They've been deluded into thinking everything was absolutely wonderful, right up until they were born.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by tiger862
I test drove an 80 Toyota pickup truck new off the lot that overheated so I turned around. I raised hood and radiator was missing. They were glad it wasn't an auto and offered me truck with condition of putting a radiator in it but I passed as I knew it overheated.




Now it's getting deep in here.


+1
 
Originally Posted by tiger862
I test drove an 80 Toyota pickup truck new off the lot that overheated so I turned around. I raised hood and radiator was missing. They were glad it wasn't an auto and offered me truck with condition of putting a radiator in it but I passed as I knew it overheated.



What model was it?
 
If it was new then that had to drive it onto the ship in Japan and off the ship here plus get it parked, etc. All that without a radiator?
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
If it was new then that had to drive it onto the ship in Japan and off the ship here plus get it parked, etc. All that without a radiator?

I think a tiger is thoroughly busted.
 
Originally Posted by Imp4
Would you rather a late 70's malaise era big three product?!?
No rust proofing.
V-8s producing 135 hp of emissions choked performance .
Garbage reliability.
Several components or systems defective from the factory.


Yeah, and that 135 HP V8 was 400 cubic inches and got 11 MPG.

I do miss my 1976 Monte Carlo.. but it wasn't "stock" anymore.
And I helped a buddy build a really SWEET 1978 Olds Cutlass (SBC 350 swap)

But I *REALLY* enjoy my new-to-me- Kia Optima.

I'm sold - - I'll *definitely* be shopping for another Kia in the future!
 
For years the R&D went into making more reliable vehicles which peaked around the turn of the century, then they started trying to appease other interests such as safety (for example more airbags) and fuel economy more, and more recently the slow integration of various things towards self driving such as traction control, collision avoidance braking, self parking, lane assist, etc. These aren't all bad things, but there is no free lunch.

All this creates more failure modes, more weight, but we want crumple zones too, and to still increase both fuel economy and performance. Components, even the sheetmetal, gets mass deducted. Systems get changed like electric steering. Transmissions get more gears and different designs. It all adds up to more complexity and more designs without enough time passing to refine them.

The quality control in the '70s was a different issue and could be worked out through tighter control and robots replacing line workers as much as reasonable possible, but it wasn't just the '70s, rather the entire time vehicles were being made since the beginning, that they just became more complex and customers became more picky so the "error" rate went up.

It's only going to get worse if fuel economy standards keep getting higher. It's a pity that those who think the standards are a good idea, won't consider the cost to the environment to make more new vehicles and scrap old ones because they become cost prohibitive to repair. What those standards really are is a fine, an additional cost to automakers that they pass on to consumers, essentially a luxury tax. The hilarious part is that the difference in emissions between current vehicles and the mandates is less than the emissions from the container ships bringing the vehicles (or at least parts), not even counting the manufacturing or disposal.

On the other hand, you have to expect the manufacturers to progress and for things to become more complex. I just don't think the government should be involved. Let the customers decide.
 
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Originally Posted by PimTac
If it was new then that had to drive it onto the ship in Japan and off the ship here plus get it parked, etc. All that without a radiator?


Not unbelievable if it was stolen out of there. The hoods are REALLY easy to open from outside.

My dad ordered a brand new F150 in 1978.
By the time it got to the dealer, all kinds of stuff was stolen off of it!
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The vehicles are manufactured way better than the were years ago. I remember when a vehicle hit 100,000 miles its life expectancy was considered short. Now 100,000 miles the vehicles are just getting broken in.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
If it was new then that had to drive it onto the ship in Japan and off the ship here plus get it parked, etc. All that without a radiator?


It's more likely that the radiator was stolen while it was sitting there new on the lot, by someone who needed a radiator or just a crackhead wanting parts to resell, but then you have to wonder how nobody noticed the puddle of antifreeze or at least the dried up crust from it.
 
I will have to say that the newer Lexus and Toyota are not of the same quality as in the mid to late 90's and early 2000's.

My furnace fan motor lasted 25 years and had to be replaced. The service guy said I have seen furnace motors like yours that burnt up last 50 years. He said he hoped the replacement lasted 10 years.
He then told me to pick them both up. The old burnt up one was way heavier than my new one. He said I nobody makes motors like my burnt up one anymore. Too expensive and it lasts too long. LOL
 
The only thing that I dislike about a lot of modern cars is how unnecessarily hard it is to do some simple repair or part replacement, that's the extent of my gripes. I put a thermostat housing on a GMC Canyon with the 3500 yesterday and the location of it is absolutely asinine. A few weeks ago, I replaced an oil cooler/filter housing on a Chevy cruze 1.4l and was just amazed at the fact that it is all stuffed behind the turbo and exhaust manifold. I know they're limited on the amount of space that they have on these cars, but seriously.
Some modern cars have designs that make parts prone to failure, but it's not usually anything catastrophic, just an annoyance. Overall, cars today are far more reliable but can be a heck of a lot harder, or at the very least, time consuming to work on. I guess I wish we had the ease of working on a car from the 70's with the reliability of today's cars. Everything else is wonderful though. I love the fact that we can all be in a car that's so much safer and reliable as well as getting good fuel mileage with a lot more power.
 
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