patrick.net

TechGromit says

Do you know what my biggest compliant on luxury cars is? They are not built as well as cheap cars and they cost a LOT more.

Totally. In fact a quick glance at most any quality report shows pretty much all of the major Japanese manufactures up on top of that list with the American brands either almost as high or as high with almost all of the Euro brands at the bottom. I've known way too many people with a Mercedes or BMW that had some tiny little thing go wrong and the repair cost $3,000 or more. As said earlier, I can buy any crappy econo Toyota I want and it'll probably outlast most anything out there regardless of cost. That said, its apparent that people in the Bay Area are unperturbed by quality issues as you sure see an awful lot of those expensive, albeit less reliable luxury cars on the road.

The best way to buy a luxury car is to get a Toyota or Honda, and then just load it up with all the options. The interior will be comparable to the real luxury cars, but will be a fraction of the price. In most cases, a fully loaded Toyota is very comparable to Lexus. Most of their cars even use the same exact body. A Honda Accord and Acura TL? Exact same car. Chevy Suburban and Cadillac Escalade? Exact same car.

HousingWatcher says

I have a 10 year old car too and have no plans on getting rid of it anytime soon. It only has 26,000 miles! Most peole I know with newer cars have way more mileage than I do.

Er that's only an average of 50 miles of driving per week. (7 miles a day) You should consider getting out and seeing the world a little.

thunderlips11 says

She began to describe a "thunk-thunk-thunk" sound that started a few weeks ago. I asked her when the last time she got an oil change was.

She said, "What's an oil change?"

Reminds me of the story of the lady who put black tape over the engine idiot light that was red and it was annoying her. She ended up seizing the engine.

I think what's amazing to me is that these days a lot of the cheap econo-cars are pretty damned nice for what they cost. I test drove a chevy Cruze and it was loaded, had this color LCD touch-screen, killer stereo, nice interior, nice wheels and everything. Not bad at all for a car that's less than 20k. 10 years ago the features it has would've only been on top-of-the-line luxury cars.

"Er that's only an average of 50 miles of driving per week. (7 miles a day) You should consider getting out and seeing the world a little."

Yeah, but I live in NJ. Getting out here means seeing bumper to bumper traffic for hours at a time. Last Friday I spent 45 minutes in the Lincoln Tunnel!

TechGromit says

Do you know what my biggest compliant on luxury cars is? They are not built as well as cheap cars and they cost a LOT more.

You're actually wrong on that, at least, that's not monotonically true. Cadillacs do better on reliability. than other GMs. Lexus does better than other Toyotas. Infiniti does better than other Nissans. Lincoln does better than other Fords. You can see this in JD Power rankings generally, for example.

Also, while certain luxury German cars don't do as well on JD Power lists for reliability, drive one for an extended period of time and tell me they don't feel more solid, have fewer rattles, have better fit and finish, feel more stable at speed, etc. than many other cars. The normal wear and tear just doesn't beat them up as much as many other cars. A typical German car at 100K miles has far fewer rattles (if any) than a Ford at 50K from my experience. Compare an Audi or Mercedes convertible to a non-luxury convertible -- tell me if you'd feel comfortable driving the non-luxury convertible on the Autobahn -- even the fabric roofs are designed for 120+ mph travel.

TechGromit says

Take my 2003 Honda Civic LX for example, I had 100k miles on it before I replace the front tires and break pads. My wife leased a Infiniti GX37 two years ago and they are tell her she needs new breaks on the front, not to mention they squeak really bad. She asked the dealer about it and they told her they used a different material for the break pads on luxury cars and it tends to squeak more.

You don't know anything about cars if you think this is an identifiable problem with luxury cars. Brake pads are a wear item, dependent on type of pads, type of rotor (or drums), driving habits, type of vehicle, what type of roads you drive on, etc. Wear items have very little to do with the quality of a vehicle. If you thought the stock pads sucked, a non-dealer mechanic could have suggested other pads.

A Civic has basic brakes for a car -- adequate, nothing fancy. It is a great car, don't get me wrong. The G37 is a sports car and does have brakes that wear differently -- these are performance brakes made of different materials (prior G35s used Brembos which are typically even higher performance, but people complained about the squeaking and dust, so Infiniti switched them up in 2006 or so). Chalk this up to your ignorance about cars in general. You sound like those people who buy sports cars, do a lot of smoky burnouts, and then complain that the tires didn't last very long.

Also, consider that your wife might have different braking habits than you too. Does she drive in the city more? Does she drive in stop and go more? Does she ride the brakes more? Is one car an automatic and the other a manual?

By the way, 100K miles for front brakes seems unbelievable, frankly -- I think you're making that number up. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 100K for REAR brakes, but it seems highly implausible for front brakes, unless you drove on the open highway with the cruise control on for whole gas tanks at a time.

Don't believe ANYTHING your dealer tells you -- if the dealer says the sky is blue, you should go check because it's probably red, purple, orange, or black.

HousingWatcher says

In most cases, a fully loaded Toyota is very comparable to Lexus. Most of their cars even use the same exact body. A Honda Accord and Acura TL? Exact same car. Chevy Suburban and Cadillac Escalade? Exact same car.

Actually, this isn't quite true any more. A Toyota ES does share some common platform features with a Camry, but they are far different now than they were when Lexus first started as a nameplate in 1990, and the Lexus has better interiors and some additional features. The Honda Accord and Acura TL are similar and do share some parts, but Acura typically gets advanced features first and has higher quality interior materials. The difference between the Suburban and the Escalade is a little more subtle -- the Escalade has a bigger and more powerful engine (also found in the Yukon Denali I believe). There are different option choices and other things, and the quality of the parts is not necessarily the same, and the quality of the interior materials is usually not the same. Sometimes there are other differences under the skin -- e.g. better radiator, better transmission cooler, better differential or suspension geometry, that might result in more reliability or better performance. I believe this was the case for many Lincolns vs. Fords on the same platform , for example higher strength steel on the Lincoln. That said, there are some cars that are almost exactly the same; you just happened to pick some that weren't.

edvard2 says

I think what's amazing to me is that these days a lot of the cheap econo-cars are pretty damned nice for what they cost. I test drove a chevy Cruze and it was loaded, had this color LCD touch-screen, killer stereo, nice interior, nice wheels and everything.

The new Chevy Cruze is a great car. GM has hit the ball out of the park with that one -- this is not your father's econobox.

thunderlips11 says

She began to describe a "thunk-thunk-thunk" sound that started a few weeks ago. I asked her when the last time she got an oil change was.
She said, "What's an oil change?"
She had the car for years, and put maybe 50k miles+ on it, but never once got it serviced.

My daughter just got a "new" car. Her old (paid in full) one was making a horrible noise... Turned out she hadn't changed her oil. Ummm, turned out that she blamed it on the guy who serviced her car last june (2010), because he was supposed to change her oil at that time.

As her dad pointed out - now that she has a car payment - she should take care of this one because it would really suck to make payments on a car that doesn't work.

Now that she's learned about the wonders of getting your oil changed, next we gotta get her to change a tire...

corntrollio says

The new Chevy Cruze is a great car. GM has hit the ball out of the park with that one -- this is not your father's econobox.

It replaced the Cobalt. It's a nice little car with shit that keeps going wrong, including a power window that has a short in it (ya gotta hit the door a few times to get it to work sometimes) and is loud as shit. Unfortunately, I bought dad's econobox. At least it's roomy.

Ellie that sounds like a very expensive way to teach a teenager a lesson. Just take the initiative, do some maintenance with her. Show her the basics.

That's how we did it with ours.

Anymore, I see a jazzy car, and I mostly just see the monthly payment.

I have a photograph from 1994 -- a random shot from the window of my first apartment, which was an ancient cold water flat above a business on a busy intersection. The photo reveals a busy avenue and across from it, a full parking lot at the drug store/laundromat. Every car in the photo - save for an older model 3 series BMW - is a beater. I say beater with love...

Around this same time, I'd saved up some money and bought in cash what I thought would be my first foray into the land of nice, air conditioned conveyance -- a ten year-old BMW 5 series. Almost instantly, I experienced regular road rage from other drivers whenever I was out in that car. More so than at any other time when driving either my '68 VW Bug or the '65 Chrysler my girlfriend had at the time. It was almost like a social experiment to witness how night/day the different experiences were. Despite being a ten year-old 4 door, (ancient, by current standards), the readily apparent envy and resultant hostility that other drivers expressed was disturbing.

Flash forward to now and it's a very different story: If you drive an '89 Volvo, (like I do, and love), you are probably pitied as some woeful, low budget drifter who can't get any credit. I'm surprised other drivers don't try and fit quarters through the windows at stoplights. Meanwhile, my ancient Volvo and the little granny hovel I rent have allowed me some of the joys of solvency which remain mostly unknown pleasures to my colleagues in much finer sedans/digs.

somewhat related:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk

corntrollio says

By the way, 100K miles for front brakes seems unbelievable, frankly -- I think you're making that number up.

Believe what you want. Actually the real number was 95k, I had them done when i had the timing belt changed. It's probably true I waited too long and wore them down to next to nothing. I had the front tires replaced at 80k. I live in South Jersey where there's not much bumper to bumper traffic. Also my type of driving may be a factor. When I see a red right ahead of me, let my foot off the gas and coast, some people zoom past and slam on the break at the last possible second. Another is when coming to off ramps from freeways, I coast into them, decelerating to 20 or 30 mph before applying the braking, instead of hitting the off ramp at 65 jamming on the breaks at the end of the ramp.

Car batteries are only suppose to be good for 5 years at the best conditions, but mine last 8 years on my Honda, until I had to replace it recently.

corntrollio says

You don't know anything about cars if you think this is an identifiable problem with luxury cars. Brake pads are a wear item, dependent on type of pads, type of rotor (or drums), driving habits, type of vehicle, what type of roads you drive on, etc.

I may not be a car expert, but to have to replace the break pads at 25k in way too soon in my opinion with country driving. 25k would be acceptable for city driving, but not for the type of driving my wife does. So far it seems to me luxury is another name to nickel and dime you to death. I replaced the air filters twice so far, the dealer wanted $50 each to change $10 filters.

TechGromit says

I may not be a car expert, but to have to replace the break pads at 25k in way too soon in my opinion with country driving.

The only way to run through brakes pads in 25k doing country driving, no matter what the make of car, is to drive with your foot resting on the brake a lot or to have a defective brakes that stick. Stop and go city driving it's very possible.

Battery life has zero to do with the make of car. Don't run them flat or really low and almost any modern battery will go that long. If you want a much better battery go with the optima gel type. I've used them since they came out in the mid 80's. I keep cars 10-15 years routinely and have had never had an optima go bad.

I'll have to disagree on brake pads. There's a wide variation in lifespans depending on what "type" of braking you want. Ceramic pads are the longest lasting, but noisiest. I would expect a luxury car to have quiet brakes using organic materials and much shorter lifespan. Also depends a lot on what a mechanic considers the "replacement point". Did they bend the squealer back and run it down to within a hair of the metal plate, or are they replacing with half the pad left?

The biggest burner of brake pads is high-speed braking. Every time you hit your brakes at 55+ the wear is many factors larger than the same braking at lower city speeds. There are a fair number of 2-footed drivers out there that always have the left foot resting "just a little" on the brake pedal.

If everyone drove an old beater car imagine how bad the recession would be?

Personal consumption is like what 70% of the economny? so if that were reduced to say 20% of the economy bY 'mass frugality' we would never recover, never grow out of it - society collapses.

Basically these people in the nice cars are preventing the cannibal anarchy apolocalpse. You people in the 20 year old civic are trying to destroy society.

CreatE some jobs, at least buy a new civic for $%%# sake!

The idoit protestors on wall street should shud up and get jobs as car salesmen if they wanna help us. Hows that for a plan?

Lets remember 'cash for clunkers' - the democrats plan to destroy all old cars and make us buy new ones. nice! That was a nice giveaway to the unions.

PockyClipsNow says

Basically these people in the nice cars are preventing the cannibal anarchy apolocalpse. You people in the 20 year old civic are trying to destroy society.

BRING IT ON!

Who runs BarterTown? Ellie Mae runs BarterTown!

My take is that the Bay area has three major factors that influence the car decision. One is the hippies---it's popular on the liberal circuit to drive an old car in perpetuity, or buy a Hybrid as a sign that you're sufficiently concerned about the environment.

Secondly, is the higher median income here. Some of the choices that the plebes have to make in the rest of the country just don't apply here. A few hundred bucks for a nice car doesn't matter to someone making 6 figures, generally.

Now, I know that 6 figures here is not a big deal since we also have a high cost of living. That's why I'd say that the high rent/mortgage costs also influence this.

If one spends a few thousand on housing per month, why would a $200 differential on a car matter to you? When your rental alone may be $2500, the change in your monthly payment on cars is negligible.

When we lived in Chicago, my wife put a lot of effort into deciding on a/c, power locks, CD player etc---and this wasn't THAT long ago. Total difference in monthly payment was like $10 for each.

Here a sandwich is $10. But the price of cars is not proportionally that much higher than in the Midwest. Still, my Midwestern sensibilities keeps me in Camry or other boring Sedans.

elliemae says

It replaced the Cobalt. It's a nice little car with shit that keeps going wrong, including a power window that has a short in it (ya gotta hit the door a few times to get it to work sometimes) and is loud as shit. Unfortunately, I bought dad's econobox. At least it's roomy.

Yeah, although the Cobalt SS was a fun car. :)

Zlxr says

Now they don't even sell small trucks here anymore. What happened?

They do, they've just gotten a little bigger. Toyota makes the Toyota Tacoma. It makes them in Texas (and used to make them in California before NUMMI closed) because of the Chicken Tax.

TechGromit says

Car batteries are only suppose to be good for 5 years at the best conditions, but mine last 8 years on my Honda, until I had to replace it recently.

You realize that Honda doesn't make the battery right? It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the type of car. Batteries are another one that can have variable lifetimes depending on the nature of the use, and certainly some can last longer. I have had 6+ years on a luxury make and have had batteries fail at 3 years on non-luxury makes. If you care that much, get a replacement battery with a longer life -- very easy to do, and relatively cheap.

TechGromit says

I replaced the air filters twice so far, the dealer wanted $50 each to change $10 filters.

So replace them yourself. It's not very hard. Your mistake is paying dealer rates. The problem with dealerships is that you only get to talk to sales people -- I prefer to talk to my mechanic about my car's repair, not a salesperson.

Yes, Infiniti dealers charge more for service than Nissan dealers most likely. If you really want to go to a dealership for service on your G37, you would be better off taking your Infiniti to a Nissan dealership for service -- they'll do it for a better hourly rate most likely. This is a secret tip that lots of people don't know about -- Nissan dealerships will generally service Infinitis. The Nissan Z is basically a 2-seat version of the Infiniti G35/G37, and there are some parts that are shared (although the Infiniti, as a "luxury car," has a quieter exhaust which gives it slightly lower horsepower vs. the Z and there are probably some suspension tweaks, among other changes). The G35/G37 coupe is actually based more directly on the Z, which is why it's wider than the sedan (or saloon to you Brits).

Austinhousingbubble says

Despite being a ten year-old 4 door, (ancient, by current standards)

Actually, a few years ago, I believe the average car was 9 years old, and in the current recession, it's possible the number went up. (10.2 years was average recently: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/03/average-age-of-vehicles-in-the-us-highest-in-15-years/1 )

Vicente says

There's a wide variation in lifespans depending on what "type" of braking you want. Ceramic pads are the longest lasting, but noisiest. I would expect a luxury car to have quiet brakes using organic materials and much shorter lifespan. Also depends a lot on what a mechanic considers the "replacement point". Did they bend the squealer back and run it down to within a hair of the metal plate, or are they replacing with half the pad left?

Exactly right. Most mechanics should suggest changing pads with approximately 10% of life left, although it may depend on your mechanic and your driving habits. My guy will warn me at 10%, but knows I keep a close eye on my car, so he will tell me to come in soon because it's at 10%, no immediate rush (especially if it's my car that gets driven very little), whereas he may tell someone else to change them now.

But Vicente is exactly right that different pads have different lifespans and different braking capabilities and are made of different materials. Trying to assert that brakepads are a sign of car quality is silly -- they cost almost nothing and can generally be easily replaced for something longer lasting if you'd like that tradeoff vs. stock. No joke, some people optimize for dust caused by brake pads, because they want their fancy rims to look clean for longer. To each their own.

Vicente says

The biggest burner of brake pads is high-speed braking. Every time you hit your brakes at 55+ the wear is many factors larger than the same braking at lower city speeds.

Yes, kinetic energy is proportional to the square of speed. So 60mph is 4X more KE than 30mph and 16X more KE than 15mph. It's possible there are other factors too that come into play, e.g. friction coefficients, what materials your rotors and pads are, how hard you hit the brakes (e.g. panic stop vs. not).

E-man says

Anyways, wife got sandwiched between a 10-wheeler and a van in her E430 last summer, and let me tell you. That car was solid. After the accident, wife doesn't want to drive any other car other than a Mercedes so we bought her an E350. We look at it as buying insurance. Simple as that. Can't take the money with you if you get crushed in a car accident.

This can be a good reason to buy a car. Some luxury cars do have better crash performance ratings, although not always. Look at the IIHS and other benchmarkers on this -- there is a lot of data out there, and the simplified star ratings don't always tell the whole story.

Look, this is not to say every luxury brand is better than every non-luxury brand. That's not true at all. There are differences even within a manufacturer's own line. But to assert the reverse is making the exact same logical flaw. And to assert they are exactly the same is yet another flaw.

"When we lived in Chicago, my wife put a lot of effort into deciding on a/c, power locks, CD player etc---and this wasn't THAT long ago."

What car did she buy? There is currently no car on the market with optional AC and power locks. AC has not been an option for many many years...

HousingWatcher says

What car did she buy? There is currently no car on the market with optional AC and power locks. AC has not been an option for many many years...

Well, no common car, probably. You can get certain sports cars as racing models, where they are stripped down very heavily to reduce weight, and sometimes they have crank-windows and no A/C and no radio, and lack other things that would add unnecessary weight.

I was shocked that there were 2006 model year cars that still had tape players.

Vicente says

Air conditioning goes out again I'm just going to put in a free-spinning pulley and delete the compressor, fixing the silly thing is too expensive.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to remove the A/C and get a smaller serpentine belt? Plus less weight too.

I'm currently considering doing this on my beater since I can't find where my r134a leak is.

PockyClipsNow says

If everyone drove an old beater car imagine how bad the recession would be?

Personal consumption is like what 70% of the economny? so if that were reduced to say 20% of the economy bY 'mass frugality' we would never recover, never grow out of it - society collapses.

Basically these people in the nice cars are preventing the cannibal anarchy apolocalpse. You people in the 20 year old civic are trying to destroy society.

CreatE some jobs, at least buy a new civic for $%%# sake!

Buying all those imported cars isn't helping the US economy either.

corntrollio says

Also, while certain luxury German cars don't do as well on JD Power lists for reliability, drive one for an extended period of time and tell me they don't feel more solid, have fewer rattles, have better fit and finish, feel more stable at speed, etc. than many other cars. The normal wear and tear just doesn't beat them up as much as many other cars. A typical German car at 100K miles has far fewer rattles (if any) than a Ford at 50K from my experience. Compare an Audi or Mercedes convertible to a non-luxury convertible -- tell me if you'd feel comfortable driving the non-luxury convertible on the Autobahn -- even the fabric roofs are designed for 120+ mph travel.

Yep, quality has many -- uh -- qualities. Remember AMC? Maybe misaligned upholstery seams or body panels which can't be perfectly aligned and, for sure, they all swayed in the wind and generally drove kinda funky. But they ran. And ran and ran and ran. I have friends who I help work on cars. Back in the day, a couple of them had AMC cars. I don't think any other cars at the time had more durable drive trains than the AMCs. i know I was still seeing the occasional AMC daily driver until about 15 years ago. I doubt the owners were putting any money into these cars.

Contrast that with the 2005 Neon I inherited. It drives great. It handles very well and the engine is responsive and powerful for it's size. The fit and finish is excellent. But in the last three months I've had a tie rod end break without warning, a rear wheel bearing has failed and the transmission cooler blew out, leaving me stranded as I watched a strawberry milkshake mix of coolant and ATF pour onto the street. This seems to be a design flaw in these (expensive) radiators. To compound the problem, the ATF can ruin the rubber seals in the heater core. I'll have to evacuate the AC, pull the dash and steering column to get to the core they built the rest of the car around. And the engine has developed a piston slappy sound on cold starts.

I'll probably pull the seats as well, so I can lie back in relative comfort as I curse out Daimler/Chrysler and their design which makes a wonderful impression but fails on long term durability and economy.

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't it be cheaper to remove the A/C and get a smaller serpentine belt? Plus less weight too.

Well yeah you could do it that way sure. I haven't researched price actually, I would think a bracket and pulley should be cheap but I could be wrong. From my lurking on ToyotaNation swapping for a pulley is the usual way to do AC delete operation. Then all replacements are just walk into any store and ask for the standard belt for that year model. If you want to start removing weight, there's a lot you could do without worrying about a few pounds for a pulley. Haven't done it myself but there's a lot of folks who do carbon hoods, remove rear seats and so on to draw down the weight. Not my thing. I have thought about a home-made front air dam though to improve aerodynamics, just takes some cheap ABS and some cutting and fitting.

Vicente says

Air conditioning goes out again I'm just going to put in a free-spinning pulley and delete the compressor, fixing the silly thing is too expensive.

Why? The compressor is a free spinning pulley until the clutch engages. Just pull the wire to the clutch. Even if the compressor locks up, if the clutch isn't energized it should spin free. Modern compressors are very efficient and are much lighter. They don't really drop gas mileage when running like the older units used to so there really isn't much penalty for having the air on any more.

Cook County resident says

I'll have to evacuate the AC, pull the dash and steering column to get to the core they built the rest of the car around.

I have never done a heater core on an air conditioned car where you didn't have to pull the dash. It's pretty common.

zzyzzx says

Buying all those imported cars isn't helping the US economy either.

Yup. Good think my Toyota was made in Fremont, California.

bob2356 says

have never done a heater core on an air conditioned car where you didn't have to pull the dash. It's pretty common

GM J cars are (were) pretty easy. Pull the side panels off the center stack, drop a bottom panel and remove the core. Minor disassembly, no AC or other complications.

Cook County resident says

bob2356 says

have never done a heater core on an air conditioned car where you didn't have to pull the dash. It's pretty common

GM J cars are (were) pretty easy. Pull the side panels off the center stack, drop a bottom panel and remove the core. Minor disassembly, no AC or other complications.

Hooray for GM, I've never owned a gm car but it's good to see at least one car company that admits heater cores fail. I've owned fords, vw's, honda's, toyota's, jaguar (owning a jag is like zipping your dick up in the zipper, it's so painful you only do it once in a lifetime), and bmw's. At some point of ownership all of them had coolant show up on the carpet requiring that I've pull the dash and heater box. Bmw, oddly enough, is the least of a PIA to do. Plus the bmw heater box is designed so the coolant goes out the ac drain if the core fails. A partial victory for common sense that is so rare in car design.

zzyzzx says

PockyClipsNow says

CreatE some jobs, at least buy a new civic for $%%# sake!

Buying all those imported cars isn't helping the US economy either.

Man, are you still talking your nonsense?

http://www.indiana.honda.com/

Honda Manufacturing of Indiana is honored to produce the Civic Sedan, the car that helped establish the Honda reputation for quality and efficiency.

Seriously dude, give up on your stupid talking point. It has been debunked several times now:
http://patrick.net/?p=1081559#comment-770542
http://patrick.net/?p=1090587#comment-770944
http://patrick.net/?p=1089822#comment-771207

Still haven't told us what you drive, purity man.

Cook County resident says

I don't think any other cars at the time had more durable drive trains than the AMCs. i know I was still seeing the occasional AMC daily driver until about 15 years ago. I doubt the owners were putting any money into these cars.

You still see some OG Jeep Cherokees from when Jeep was still owned by AMC. Some of them had other problems, but some of the drivetrains are still good.

Vicente says

Air conditioning goes out again I'm just going to put in a free-spinning pulley and delete the compressor, fixing the silly thing is too expensive.

bob2356 says

Why? The compressor is a free spinning pulley until the clutch engages. Just pull the wire to the clutch. Even if the compressor locks up, if the clutch isn't energized it should spin free.

When the A/C went out on my old American car made in America :), eventually the pulley on the A/C unit seized (which is when I finally replaced it), so good call on putting in a free-spinning pulley, if it makes financial sense. However, the problem with not having a functional A/C unit is not just in the summer when it's hot, but also in the winter for defogging purposes. When my A/C unit was out, it was actually a bigger hassle in the winter, because I also lived somewhere where it got very cold.

bob2356 says

jaguar (owning a jag is like zipping your dick up in the zipper, it's so painful you only do it once in a lifetime)

Everyone I know who had one told me you needed to own two -- so you had a spare when it inevitably went to the shop. You could just trade them out.

bob2356 says

Hooray for GM, I've never owned a gm car but it's good to see at least one car company that admits heater cores fail.

Essentially it's a trap door in the heater/AC box. The big Fords of the late 60s and 70s had the core under a simple access plate under the hood or behind the glove box.

I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if current model GM cars are now just as difficult to service. I doubt the bean counters give a damn about repairs that are almost always out of warranty.

bob2356 says

They don't really drop gas mileage when running like the older units used to so there really isn't much penalty for having the air on any more.

Maybe not on your vehicle, but on my 4-banger I can see it plain as day on my UltraGauge when I turn on the AC. At my usual highway speed Inst MPG figure drops from ~32 to ~28.

Maybe it's just a matter of being fed up with the damn thing if it breaks again.

Vicente says

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't it be cheaper to remove the A/C and get a smaller serpentine belt? Plus less weight too.

Well yeah you could do it that way sure. I haven't researched price actually, I would think a bracket and pulley should be cheap but I could be wrong. From my lurking on ToyotaNation swapping for a pulley is the usual way to do AC delete operation. Then all replacements are just walk into any store and ask for the standard belt for that year model. If you want to start removing weight, there's a lot you could do without worrying about a few pounds for a pulley.

There were cars like mine made without air conditioning, so it would be easy enough for me to just remove enough parts and get the standard belt for one without air conditioning. That and less clutter in the engine bay would be nice.

corntrollio says

zzyzzx says

PockyClipsNow says

CreatE some jobs, at least buy a new civic for $%%# sake!

Buying all those imported cars isn't helping the US economy either.

Man, are you still talking your nonsense?

http://www.indiana.honda.com/

Is the Civic's engine and transmission designed and built in the US as well? How about the procurement, accounting, and other back office type jobs, are those also in the US? I don't think so.

Vicente says

Is your friend.
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Thu, 20 Oct 2011 at 10:53 am Quote Like Share Permalink Flag Take It Outside

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't it be cheaper to remove the A/C and get a smaller serpentine belt? Plus less weight too.

Well yeah you could do it that way sure. I haven't researched price actually, I would think a bracket and pulley should be cheap but I could be wrong.

For my car, removing parts and buying a shorter serpentine belt is cheaper than the dummy pulley.

I agree with those that are saying that how "reliable" a car is, can be significantly influenced by how reliably the owner services it and how it is driven. A lot of German sports cars (BMW M/Merc AMG/Audi S) get dinged badly for reliability, but a lot of them have a very aggressive service schedules that, if adhered to, will provide well over a decade of trouble-free service. I think that a lot of people buy the cars and drive the dog shit out of them, but somehow expect to service them like they are econo-boxes. Huh? Those sorts of cars don't exist for practical purposes, and the owners that understand that buying one means paying for regular service have a good ownership experience. I know a few people that understand this, and a lot more that don't. Buy a fast car, enjoy it and pay for proper upkeep...you can't go wrong.

As far as the quality of new vs. old cars, I don't think that blanket statements can be made. In the case of BMWs, older ones were put together more sturdily, even though older ones do require more maintenance if you want them running at 100%. The interior in my 21 year old BMW is in better condition than many I have been in that are maybe 5 years old. There's a reason I am still driving this car, and it goes well beyond money.

Older Audis and Mercs seem to be similar. New VWs seem like they are better constructed and take less maintenance, so kudos to that product line. Japanese economy cars seem to be better now than they were in the early-mid 1990's. In all cases, the newer cars all seem to come packed with lots of electronic bells & whistles unless one goes for the sub-$20k range.

My fiancee drives a 2003 Civic LX that she paid something like $15k for in 2003. While the interior feels cheap, I have to respect the thing. She has 155k miles on it, and the only actual maintenance she has needed has been a $600 timing belt change around 110k miles, and it can pull 40+ MPG on the highway. The shocks are blown and a lot of the bushings seem to be shot (which drives me NUTS and I nag her daily about it), but the car is the definition of "cheap & easy to own." I do all of the maintenance on my old BMW (and I definitely spend more than $600 per year on it lol) and some of it on her Civic. I have gotten broken/defective parts from the Honda dealer in the past, which has NEVER happened with a BMW part, and I'd say that for 75% of things the price is the same. German car parts are only ridiculously expensive if a)you buy them at a dealer, b)it is some sort of medium/large interior or body trim piece or c)it is an electronic control module. Engine and suspension parts are on-par with Japanese car part prices.

I will never buy a new car. I am a cheap-ass and the whole depreciation-the-second-you-leave-the-lot thing bugs the hell out of me. Hell, I don't think I will ever buy a car newer than 1995 (after which OBD-II was implemented)!

Oh, and I will never buy ANY Toyota product. My fiancee worked for one of their suppliers (around 2009) that provided large injection molded parts. Toyota would send them simple/crappy hand drawings for quotes, the company would quote them at some price, Toyota would then send them full production CAD drawings of the same part that required a bunch of slides & multi-shot features and demand the same price. When her company told them that they couldn't meet the new specs at that price, Toyota told them that they didn't want to know about it and to make the parts anyway at that price. An aunt of mine used to be an engineer for Toyota, and she said that the exact same shit went on in the production of ECMs (electronic control modules). I am sure that this isn't exclusive to Toyota, but since I know about it, and it seems that they were having some real issues with throttle control modules recently, I am not buying one simply in protest of this BS.

Cook County resident says

bob2356 says

Hooray for GM, I've never owned a gm car but it's good to see at least one car company that admits heater cores fail.

Essentially it's a trap door in the heater/AC box. The big Fords of the late 60s and 70s had the core under a simple access plate under the hood or behind the glove box.

I wish my 69 torino had one of those. It was a 2 day job to get the heater core replaced if I remember right.

bmwman91 says

A lot of German sports cars (BMW M/Merc AMG/Audi S) get dinged badly for reliability, but a lot of them have a very aggressive service schedules that, if adhered to, will provide well over a decade of trouble-free service.

These cars are several orders of magnitude more complex then economy cars also. There are a lot of things to go wrong that don't exist on civic's or corrolla's.

Do you use pelicanparts for your bmw parts? They are the best I've found so far.

Yeah, Pelican is my go-to source. They have gotten considerably more expensive over the last 3 years, unfortunately. Still, they are a lot cheaper than the stealer...err, I mean dealer. Pelican also carries some Chinese OE replacement parts, which are SHIT and that displeases me. Having vacuum lines crack after 1 month sucks. Watch our for rubber products by CRP industries (China Rubber Products...the acronym is one vowel short of a true description).

Anyway, between Pelican and RealOEM, it is at least easy to find anything I need for maintenance. I've been an E30 owner (2 different 318iS's) for 11 years now, and knowing the size of basically every bolt on the car also helps. The electrical systems are also really simple.

Oh yeah, another thing you run into with cheaper Japanese cars is shitty wiring harnesses. The harnesses are nice and neat on BMWs because they will spend the extra money to run the wires a little further to go around things & to their destination. The ones in economy cars look like damn spider webs with wires branching out of the middle of a big loom and making a giant mess for someone trying to get their hand someplace like under the dash.

You know what I like about driving an old car? I can bully the nice new cars around. You see they paid a lot for their nice new car, and God forbid they scratch it. I can swerve around, jump out in the four way stop, and park way to close to them at Target. Ding my door, sure, no problem, but it is going to cost your pretty little car some paint.

I bought a new car once. It was dinged at Wal-mart that first month. Never again will I buy a new car. Lessoned learned the hard way.

Truthplease says

You know what I like about driving an old car? I can bully the nice new cars around.

For years I had a 76 maxivan. More pop riveted patches than original sheet metal, painted with a roller and house paint. No one ever challenged me. I got respect even in Manhattan.

zzyzzx says

Is the Civic's engine and transmission designed and built in the US as well? How about the procurement, accounting, and other back office type jobs, are those also in the US? I don't think so.

In some cases, yes, and some cases no, just like so-called "American" cars. As I mentioned in prior threads, many of the "foreign" manufacturers have design teams here in the US because we have unique design requirements in some cases. In general, all the "foreign" manufacturers have North American or US subsidiaries, so yes, of course they have procurement, accounting, and back office here. These questions suggest that you don't know much about how these businesses work.

You know what -- prove to me that 100% of Fords, GMs, and Chryslers are 100% made here. You will fail miserably, as I stated in the other threads for many many reasons. End of story.

bmwman91 says

A lot of German sports cars (BMW M/Merc AMG/Audi S) get dinged badly for reliability, but a lot of them have a very aggressive service schedules that, if adhered to, will provide well over a decade of trouble-free service. I think that a lot of people buy the cars and drive the dog shit out of them, but somehow expect to service them like they are econo-boxes.

Yes, this is very true. Look at something like TireRack.com for reviews. I saw some reviews for the same tires my car has by someone who drove an AMG Mercedes. He complained that the tires didn't last long enough. Well no shit, if you keep doing burnouts in your AMG.

bob2356 says

These cars are several orders of magnitude more complex then economy cars also. There are a lot of things to go wrong that don't exist on civic's or corrolla's.

Is that really true though? Most of the concepts are similar. Maybe if you have an automated manual transmission, it's more complicated than either a manual transmission or an automatic transmission, but some econoboxes have automated manuals (e.g. new Ford Fiesta, and it's more common in Europe).

I don't think having an extra computer or sensor here or there adds up to "orders of magnitude" (which implies 100X or greater more complicated).

bmwman91 says

Oh yeah, another thing you run into with cheaper Japanese cars is shitty wiring harnesses. The harnesses are nice and neat on BMWs because they will spend the extra money to run the wires a little further to go around things & to their destination. The ones in economy cars look like damn spider webs with wires branching out of the middle of a big loom and making a giant mess for someone trying to get their hand someplace like under the dash.

Yeah, I've noticed this too. There is some degree of meticulousness that occurs by the Germans that reduces the maximum efficiency of the Japanese in manufacturing, but increases efficiency in repair.

Truthplease says

I bought a new car once. It was dinged at Wal-mart that first month. Never again will I buy a new car. Lessoned learned the hard way.

Umm, if your biggest problem with buying a new car is some cosmetic paint issue, that's probably misguided. There are many good reasons to not buy a new car -- e.g. expense, high depreciation, etc. However, there are many good reasons to buy a new car -- e.g. additional safety features, lower maintenance, additional modern conveniences, etc. The risk that you might get a ding seems quite trivial relative to the benefits, whereas the substantive good reasons not to buy a new car at least have the possibility of outweighing the benefits depending on your own personal calculation.