Do you believe american cars are reliable

ericyoung017

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Minnesota
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2002 Acccord with dented fender
so I guess I might see what the world thinks of this subject because every american car we have owned has terra failed.
We owned an 88 taurus that was supposed to be the car to have and everything rusted, leaked or broke on it. Don't believe me? We replaced the rad alternator tranny ball joints (they could not be greased)many a sensor, oil pan etc. It was just a bad car

The same thing happened to the two chrysler vans we owned and many of the problems came about at around 130000 miles
what do you think? Are ford and GM telling the truth when they say their cars are better than before? Have you ever owned an unreliable american car?
 
Detroit products have gotten better in general, but Ford's really gotten off their arse and upped the quality.

GM and Chrysler product had quality improvements but recently they've both taken a nose dive. Something about lazy union workers now being combined with lazy unfirable government workers...
 
Every "old" American car I've owed was hella reliable. They may have been POS but they did what they were supposed to do. Still drive a 97 Bird, and all I've ever done to it was regular maintenance stuff, oil, brakes, tires, plugs etc. Suspension is wearing out now but that's hardly surprising after all these years and NYC streets. Drove it cross country 2 years ago NY-Cali and back without any worries whatsoever. My Jeep is no spring chicken either, I'm not exactly easy on it, everything still works perfect (well I did have to replace the seat heater when it was 1 yo). I have some issues with American cars but reliability is not one of them.
 
In all seriousness, they have managed to improve over the years.

Although, the Chevy Cavalier is regarded as one of the crappiest American cars, I have several friends with those and over 170,000 miles on them without any major repairs.
 
Just look at the number of pickups with 250k+ miles that are still running around. Some American cars are damn reliable, some not so much. Are German cars reliable? Because some seem to break as you are leaving the dealership and others last for over a decade. It really depends.
 
Just look at the number of pickups with 250k+ miles that are still running around. Some American cars are damn reliable, some not so much. Are German cars reliable? Because some seem to break as you are leaving the dealership and others last for over a decade. It really depends.
This. An S-10 or F150 can give you much better reliability than, say, a Sunfire.
 
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On the other hand, we have Dodge pickup trucks, where the automatic transmissions appear to be made of explodium and absolutely everything bolted to the chassis except the rest of the powertrain rots away in short order.

Also, if the S-10s were so great, where the hell did they all go? They're an endangered species down here, from being one of the most prolific vehicles on the road just a short decade ago.
 
My wife has a 2001 Blazer, I hate the damned thing but it has 160,000 miles on it with almost no trouble (I once had to spend a Saturday flushing the Dex-cool crap out of it once but really that was no big deal)>
 
Also, if the S-10s were so great, where the hell did they all go? They're an endangered species down here, from being one of the most prolific vehicles on the road just a short decade ago.

This reminds me of two friends of mine who had S-10 Blazers. One day they were comparing how many parts had been replaced between them, it boiled down to every mechanical component on the car at least once, sometimes twice, sometimes even three times.
 
This reminds me of two friends of mine who had S-10 Blazers. One day they were comparing how many parts had been replaced between them, it boiled down to every mechanical component on the car at least once, sometimes twice, sometimes even three times.

It didn't help that the S-trucks were assembled by drunken (not figuratively, literally) Cajuns who would often throw their lunch/snack/beer break trash inside body panels then weld them closed. Some estimates have as many as one in four S-trucks carrying things like food wrappers and beer cans inside their cab panels from the factory. This is part of why the S-trucks had so many rattles that were impossible to track down.
 
If you listened closely you could also hear them rusting.

And yet their survival rate seems to be better than the dustbuster vans. I mean, I've seen an S-10 in the past five years, rusted out as they almost always are, I haven't seen any dustbusters at all, and they were inexplicably popular around here.
 
We used to have a 1990 Dodge Grand Caravan and during our time of ownership it had three different transmissions. It also went though several other important parts like an alternator, starter, water pump, and fuel pump that I can remember off the top of my head because I helped replace them. That water pump was a bitch.

I also had a Chevy Beretta of the same year that left me stranded three times in the year and a half that I drove it. It broke for stupid stuff too (i.e. not due to poor maintenance) like the shift cable breaking so I couldn't get in reverse to get out of a parking spot or the rear wiper flapping around on the side mirror in heavy rain on the interstate at night.

Meanwhile my Land Rover Discovery never left me stranded and it was badly neglected by previous owners. So in my experience, no. American cars are not reliable.
 
So if you want reliability buy British? :p
 
If you listened closely you could also hear them rusting.

And yet their survival rate seems to be better than the dustbuster vans. I mean, I've seen an S-10 in the past five years, rusted out as they almost always are, I haven't seen any dustbusters at all, and they were inexplicably popular around here.

The dustbuster trio never sold well to begin with, but the survivors of their electrical and climate control failures are commonly seen out in places like CA and AZ (and to a limited extent, Texas) as the preferred transport of many illegal alien families. The latter is confirmed by how many of them are impounded when the owner is arrested on a bench warrant and deported, yet none of their family steps forward to bail the vehicle out resulting in the seized vehicle being auctioned off. And there's a lot of them at the police auctions, showing the usual stickers and decals declaiming their owners' backgrounds.
 
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1988 GMC 2500 van. Utterly unstoppable for 20 years before succumbing to bearing failure because of redline abuse. Nothing a rebuild wouldn't have fixed, though.
2002 Ford Focus. No mech problems AT ALL in 150k miles. Just a single bum thermostat and suspension wear-out.
1998 Ford Escort ZX2. No mech problems in 150k miles. Just exhaust rust-through.
1989 Plymouth Voyager Turbo. Lasted 15 years with no notable problems before spectacular failure due to heavy modification.

Other than that, I can't speak for much since I seem to have jumped right over the bad decade.
 
It didn't help that the S-trucks were assembled by drunken (not figuratively, literally) Cajuns who would often throw their lunch/snack/beer break trash inside body panels then weld them closed. Some estimates have as many as one in four S-trucks carrying things like food wrappers and beer cans inside their cab panels from the factory. This is part of why the S-trucks had so many rattles that were impossible to track down.


Just curious...have you ever read Ben Hamper's book "Rivethead"? A fascinating read about GM's assembly line procedures and workers in the late 70's.
 
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