cheapo said:
so based on the cars you guys have owned, name the manufacturers from the most reliable to the least.
Hrmm... we had really good luck with all of our vehicles. The Metro had 123,000 miles put on it in just over a year and the only problems were with the master cylinder which was a known problem. The Suzuki version had a recall but GM decided it wasn't important enough so they didn't recall the Metry while we owned it.
The Blazer had the 4.3L engine. It had 35,000 miles when we bought it and had a bit over 200,000 when we traded it in and the only thing we every did other than routine stuff was we put a rebuilt alternator on it.
The Monte Carlo had a 305 and an auto and had 230,000 when I bought it from the second owner. I drove it for about 20,000 miles and a roommate drove it for a few months until it needed the tanks on the radiator replaced.
The Sterling was a wonderful car that was mostly a Honda/Acura underneath the skin. It had a problem with it's front wheel drive... CV joint died, replaced the boot on the shaft, it failed, replaced it again. Had a shop replace it, it failed again. We replaced it and traded it in.
I had my Civic Si for 58,000 miles and 42 months and the only thing I ever did was replaced the tires. That's it! Nothing else.
My wife's Jetta we leased for 4 years or 48,000 miles and it was in the shop 12 times in 4 years. One O2 sensor went bad under warranty, the MAF sensor went bad under warranty (and went bad two additional times), the entire headlight/turnsignal wiring fried in less than a year, one speaker actually fried, the radio stopped working... I forget what all else happened but needless to say, we were disappointed.
Overall, I think it comes down to two things: how long the vehicle keeps running and how long every little detail keep working. I think the American trucks and non underpowered cars are very reliable. But if you look at cars like Escorts and Cavaliers, they are mostly underpowered and tend to be owned by younger drivers that drive the crap out of them then don't maintain them properly. When the Escort is maintained in a fleet, they consistantly get over 300,000 miles but when owned by 16-24 year olds, they often don't make it past 100,000 miles without needing engine and/or transmission work.
There's also the issue of the age and responsibility of the driver and caregiver. You can take two cars that are basically the same but targeted to different age drivers and see a visible difference in reliability. The parts are the same, the difference is the age of the driver.
Also, certain brands and models seem to attract a certain type of driver. For example, the Civic for whatever reason is more attractive to the young punk street racer type than the Toyota Corolla. I don't think the Corolla is any more reliable or well-engineered than the Civic, and in fact, even with the abuse the Civic gets from some drivers, it still keeps on chugging quite respectably. But you'll find that generally Corollas go through far fewer clutches and brakes than Civics.
