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258 comments on DrumBeat: June 19, 2007

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Substrate on June 19, 2007 - 9:10am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Ten Ten Worst Used Cars and Trucks
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/06/10_used_cars.html

1. Ford Expedition
2. Ford F-150
3. Auto-trans BMW
4. Toyota Prius
5. Ford Focus
6. Dodge Durango
7. Ford Taurus
8. Mercury Sable
9. Older Toyotas
10. GM Dex-Cool

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 10:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That is the main reason I did not buy a Prius. Well, that and it was more expensive. Doesn't matter how good the design or the car company is...there are going to be glitches in a new model. And the Prius is still relatively new.

I don't drive much, anyway. So I got a cheap, reliable Corolla.

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Scotjen61 on June 19, 2007 - 12:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That list is bogus. I sold my two year old Prius for more than I paid for it. How is that a bad used car. Got to drive it two years and then made $1,000.

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 12:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

They are talking about cars much older than that. You wouldn't expect to see too many problems with a 2-year-old car.

Me, I plan to be driving my Corolla twenty years from now...unless the gas stations go dry in the meantime. :-)

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Dragonfly41 on June 19, 2007 - 12:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have a 4 year old Prius with 80,000 miles on it and still runs great. I really don't see how the Prius made that list.

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 12:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Four years old is still not very old. The article said the problem is with older vehicles (eight years old or 100,000 miles).

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Dragonfly41 on June 19, 2007 - 3:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The Prius in the USA have not been out that long...so again...why is it on this list...makes no sense except to give it a bad name when it doesn't deserve it.

I have had the dealer offer to buy it off me twice now for an excellent price or trade in value, so I don't buy it being a bad used car at all.

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 3:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The Prius in the USA have not been out that long...

That is kind of the point of the article. The Prius is only now reaching the age where problems are arising.

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peakearl on June 19, 2007 - 4:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is really hard to know what to make of this because there is no information on rates of problems, no numerical or statistical comparisons. The fact that a problem isn't covered by a warranty after 50,000 miles is not unusual, but they make a big deal of it. I also note that as IIRC Consumers Reports has found the Hummer to be horribly unreliable - possibly the worst of all, and yet no mention of Hummers on this list at all. I suspect Prius owners are more inclined to BLOG than Hummer owners?

If you Google for prius reliability and go through the sites, they are consistently found among the very most reliable (including used 2001 models). I agree we need to look at how they age, but this really doesn't give much to go on.

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 5:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

If you Google for prius reliability and go through the sites, they are consistently found among the very most reliable

And the article does mention that, so it's not like it's a hit piece or anything.

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peakearl on June 19, 2007 - 6:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I know, but it really is a very damning article if it is true that it is the fifth "worst car" in the entire universe of vehicles, which is what they are really implying.

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Consume More on June 19, 2007 - 11:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I keep looking for the '73 Pinto to show up on these lists. It's never there.

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WNC Observer on June 20, 2007 - 9:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

With the Firestone 500 tires, of course.

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Substrate on June 19, 2007 - 1:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That may be the first generation Prius, I'm not exactly sure. The Gen1 and 2 Prii though are quite complicated machines with lots of little sensors and computers just looking for a place to go wrong. Most normal cars begin experiencing problems after about 150,000 miles...thats why most car companies offer protection up to that amount. After that, time and wear start taking its toll...the more complicated the vehicle, the worse it usually fares. For the carefully timed orchestra known as the Prius, that could be more painful than most. High expectations may also play into it. If you expect your Prius to be a Wundermobile, and it turns out to be an automobile...you'll probably be a little more apt to complain about its shortcomings.

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Sunspot on June 19, 2007 - 12:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Corollas RULE! I have an '02. If I ever buy another car (if there's any gas available that I can put in it...) it'll be a Toyota, likely another Corolla.

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Stoneleigh on June 19, 2007 - 12:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I drive a Yaris and am extremely happy with it. It's fine for our family of five, and I've managed to get four people and a week's worth of groceries in it.

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Leanan on June 19, 2007 - 12:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My grandmother drove hers for something like 25 years. She gave up driving before the car did. And she wasn't your typical little old lady driver. Her hobby is horticulture, so she often filled up the back with bags of mulch, potted plants, etc.

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PeakVT on June 19, 2007 - 11:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Admittedly, this isn't a scientific sample but behind every complaint we receive is a consumer who would have been a lot happier -- and a lot richer -- if he or she had picked a different model when out shopping around.

This is Consumer Affairs, not Consumer Reports. I have no idea how reliable the Prius or any car is, but neither do the writers of that article. I can can find plenty of anecdotes about how reliable the Prius is. I have yet to see data.

And one of the cars they indicate as problematic is the Corolla.

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Cherenkov on June 19, 2007 - 5:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I believe that Consumer Affairs is a anecdote-driven site. They do not test vehicles.

In other words, how likely is it that someone perfectly happy with their car would seek out a consumer site and talk it up?

The truth is Toyotas are probably the best engineered automobiles on the planet. They are extremely reliable. I purchased a Toyota Camry with 350,000 miles on it for $1600. I put another 112,000 on it without ANY maintenance. No oil changes, nothing. I sold it for $1000. Does this mean that all Toyotas will run as well or as long? Of course not. The question is the number of problems per passenger mile. According to all scientifically managed studies, the Toyota performs far and away above the rest with the Honda coming in second. For me, the most telling aspect of the list is the number of American cars.

I owned a Ford Windstar after owning two flawlessly performing Toyota vans, both the Previa and the previous wonderfully rugged version, and I can tell you I would never buy another Ford. What a piece of crap. From day one. Problems problems problems. Of course, I had wanted to stay with the tried and true Toyota, but the wife wanted cheap and that is what she got.

Does that mean that ALL Windstars suck? No. But the list is packed with Fords and not Toyotas. While the list is by no means scientific, it begins (taken as a whole) to approximate the idea of problems per passenger mile.

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Donal on June 20, 2007 - 9:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I was just reading about how you can't trust the names of so-called public interest groups. Consumer Affairs was founded for a noble cause, but has long since sold out, lock, stock and barrel to corporate sponsors.

Correction: Actually it wasn't Consumer Affairs I read about, but the point is that the word 'Consumer' in the name guarantees very little.

16. Beware of consumer groups or other public interest groups who make nice with corporations.

There are now probably more fake public interest groups than actual ones in America today. And many formerly legitimate public interest groups have been taken over or compromised by big corporations. Our favorite example is the National Consumer League. It’s the oldest consumer group in the country. It was created to eradicate child labor.

But in the last ten years or so, it has been taken over by large corporations. It now gets the majority of its budget from big corporations such as Pfizer, Bank of America, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Kaiser Permanente, Wyeth-Ayerst, and Verizon.

http://www.alternet.org/story/54093/?page=2

As far as the Prius, CA makes it clear that their survey is not scientific. They don't make it clear whether they mean the first model of Prius or all Priuses.

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Catskill on June 19, 2007 - 7:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yep - just had the transmission on a F-150 go south on me at 97,000 miles.

Admittedly it was a work truck but isn't that what they're always showing in those testosterone laden commercials - how those trucks smash and slam around thru anything with nary a scratch...?

Ford stinks - what a piece of junk...

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Catskill on June 19, 2007 - 8:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Also forgot to mention that if you look at car reviews from Consumer Reports annual guide (they review back about 8 years into a models history) I've always been amazed how lousy so called "luxury" brands rate in various different mechanical categories. Here's a list off the top of my head of brands that get horrible reliability ratings:

BMW
Mercedes
Jaguar
Volvo
Audi
VW
Land Rover
Porsche
Saab
Hummer

Also interesting that nearly any of the largest SUVs (think of those named after mountains, territories, or continents) also are rated (generally) as quite unreliable.

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WNC Observer on June 19, 2007 - 9:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My theory is that the car manufacturers know that the buyers of these things love cars so much that they'll really appreciate any reason for a visit to the car dealer's, so they make sure that they get lots of reasons.

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musashi on June 19, 2007 - 4:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Looks like Ford pretty much owns the list. :-)

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bruce from chicago on June 19, 2007 - 4:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

FORD: Found On Road Dead. Actually Chryslers are worse. I hate the day I stupidly decided to buy a Neon in October 1996. Worst car I ever owned, and it has cost me countless hours working on it to keep it running. Very poor design and workmanship. If I had some extra money I would park it on a vacont lot, put a sign on it - "free car" - with the keys and title on the front seat and then buy a used Toyota.

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sgage on June 19, 2007 - 4:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We used to say Fix Or Repair Daily.

Or when I lived in Vermont, Found On Rutland Dump.

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mose on June 19, 2007 - 5:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It was "Fixed Or Repaired Daily" back when I was a kid.

Mose in Midland

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Donal on June 19, 2007 - 6:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I still remember a few of those:

FIAT - 'Fix It Alla Time'

BOAC - 'Better On A Camel'

Sabena - 'Such A Bad Experience - Never Again'

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musashi on June 19, 2007 - 6:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

FIAT = Fix it again Tony.

PO content

Lucas electric, from the people that invented sudden darkness.

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bruce from chicago on June 19, 2007 - 9:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I had some joke matches I used to carry in my 68' Triumph Spitfire that had printed on them:

Lucas Electronics
Joseph Lucas "Prince of Darkness"
"If your lights don't work don't try these they don't work either"

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musashi on June 19, 2007 - 9:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

When I visited the UK at first I wondered why they drank warm beer.

Then I saw they had Lucas refrigerators.

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sunfixer on June 20, 2007 - 3:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Whole Romeo, because it hasn't rusted yet.

sf

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DIYer on June 19, 2007 - 11:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

PONTIAC - ...

Uhm, nope. Some things just don't bear repeating.

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rude crude on June 20, 2007 - 5:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

PONTIAC....How about:
Peak Oil Nut Thinks It's A Cadillac!

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Engineer-Poet on June 20, 2007 - 1:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

CHEVROLET:  Cheap heap, each valve rattles, oil leaks every time.

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CSS on June 20, 2007 - 2:17pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This guy at consumeraffairs.com comes out with anti-Prius articles on a regular basis.

Funny thing is that consumerreports.org in their annual survey just a few months ago found:

The bottom line. The Toyota Prius ranks as the most satisfying vehicle overall for the fourth straight year, with 92 percent of owners saying they’d get another one.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/reliability/would-you-buy-that-c...

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258 comments on DrumBeat: June 19, 2007

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