@MikeInNH. About the only replacements I had to do on the 1978 Oldsmobile were the alternator, fuel oump, and water pump. I bought one alternator at NAPA. It had a lifetime warranty, so I got a free replacement. The fuel pump was mechanical and driven by the camshaft, so I could change it out in less than half an hour. I never had to touch the carburetor or distributor. I never had to replace the spark plug wires. I did replace the water pump.
The Olds was the last car I felt comfortable doing my own maintenance.
I purchased a '79 Accord, brand new. Yup, the tops of the fenders rusted through. They were replaced under warranty, complete with a slightly mismatched paint job. This was alsothe only vehicle I’ve owned to blow a head gasket. I didn’t myself another new vehicle until this past summer.
The Caravan should be the most reliable minivan built. 2019 was the 11th year for the generation. That year was the 2nd year for the new generation Odyssey. Apparently the 9-speed transmission is a problematic. Our daughter bought a New Pilot recently. They tried to buy a 2019 at first, it the salesman convinced them to get the 2020 because it has the newer 10-speed transmission.
It may be the case that driving a BMW or a Mercedes Benz might be important for one’s imagine. If that is the case, maybe the OP should buy the BMW if it is important for job advancement.
I spent 44 years as a faculty member at a University. I noticed that a lot of the administrators drove expensive cars. Maybe it’s the “dress for success” phenomenon. I have observed new, young faculty colleagues driving expensive cars. Some of them did advance to administrative positions.
My problem is that I am a country boy. I got along better with the service staff than over half my colleagues. Mrs. Triedaq is a country girl. She did have a high level administrative position. Her staff just loved her. She has been retired 9 years and still goes out with her office staff once a month. She never felt the need to have an expensive car.
@MikeInNH. I realize my one experience.proves nothing. With my Uplander, I may have had an outlier. My problem with Consumer Reports is that the responders to the questionnaires may not be representative of the whole population of the buying public. The subscribers of Consumer Reports do not represent a randomly chosen sample of automobile owners.
My experience with automobiles is certainly not statistically significant. I relay my experience with a particular vehicle, but I am careful not to recommend that vehicle or warn against purchasing that particular vehicle.
I have a degree in research design and statistics and have done consulting work and taught both undergraduate and graduate statistics classes. One of the most difficult tasks is to obtain a truly random sample. I have written computer programs to generate random numbers. I have used the clock in the computer as a seed for the program so that every set of random numbers generated is not the same. For Consumer Reports Reports to obtain a random.sample of owners of a particular make of automobile would be almost impossible and certainly not practical. The information CR provides is certainly useful. A person just needs to realize that the data are from subscribers of Consumer Reports.
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ALL surveys like CR will have that kind of problem…but that doesn’t mean that all their data is invalid. It means that some of their data might be invalid. So you use other resources to get a better picture. When your get other reports all saying a certain vehicle is a good purchase (or bad purchase), then you can probably bet on it.
And that’s why I look for overall trends in the CR reliability data. Every model year is a different set of people responding, so multi year trends are significant.
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Trends work. Only problem with trends is new models or redesigned models. But if you buy a vehicle that’s been around for a while with a proven track record…then it’s a good bet.
CR’s reliability charts now indicate which years are a new model or a redesign.
@shanonia. Knowing which year of a certain make is a redesign is useful information. Years ago, 1962 to be exact, I bought a 1955 Pontiac. Consumer Reports gave it a thumbs up as a reliable car. I should have dug deeper. First of all, 1955 was a the first year for a V-8 engine in the Pontiac. Up to that time, Pontiac engines were either a flathead inline 8 or 6. The new design did have some initial problems. The thing that made the car attractive to me was that the Rambler dealer’s mechanic had overhauled the engine. The third thing that attracted me was that the Pontiac had a manual transmission.
From almost day one, I had problems with oil.getting to the rocker arms. I had the studs pulled out through which the oil flowed and supported the rocker arms, but still had problems. I found out that an oil filter was an option on the 1955 Pontiac. My Pontiac didn’t have that option. I later added an oil filter. The manual transmission was not a good choice. The linkage for the column shift made shifting difficult. By 1955, the GM Hydramatic was a very rugged automatic transmission.
Now Consumer Reports had the 1955 Pontiac as a recommended used car, while the 1955 Ford was not recommended as a used car. I had looked at a 1955 Ford, but rejected it based on what I read in Consumer Reports.
An independent mechanic that I had done work around his shop mowing grass from the time I was in 8th grade had told me that I should stick with Fords and Chevys. His reasoning was that parts were more readily available and mechanics were more familiar with them. On the valve train problem I had with the 1955 Pontiac, the 1955 Ford also had the problem. However, the 1955 Ford had a rocker arm shaft, so an outside oil line could be fitted and kits were available. With the stud mounted rocker arms on the 1955 Pontiac, an outside oil line was not possible.
I know Consumer Reports couldn’t know these things. The data showed that the 1955 Pontiac was more reliable than the 1955 Ford. Yet, for me as a poor graduate student, the 1955 Ford would have been a better bet.
More recently, when I had decided to sell my 2006 Chevrolet Uplander to our son and was looking for a replacement, the mechanic at the independent shop that serviced my vehicles recommended either the Toyota Sienna or the Honda Odyssey. This was back in 2010. His recommendation confirmed the information in Consumer Reports. I got a better deal on the Sienna and it proved to be reliable.
For me, the information in CR coupled with the experiences from a good mechanic who works on many different makes is most helpful in selecting a car.
Just one more thing: I once owned a 1971 Ford Maverick. According to Consumer Reports, it didn’t have a good reliability track record. However, its problems were known to mechanics and were easily solved. My Maverick used a quart of oil every 300 miles. Every mechanic knew about the valve stem seals. These were replaced without removing the cylinder head by attaching a spark plug adapter to an air hose from the shop’s compressor to keep the valve from dropping into the cylinder while the seal was replaced. I think I paid less than $40 for that job. The oil consumption dropped to a quart every 1250 miles which I could live with. The Maverick developed a squeak in the front suspension. The solution was to cut s hole in the inner fender liner and put a grease fitting in the offending part so it could be lubricated. The Ford dealer would probably replaced the suspension part at much greater cost.
There are operating costs and reliability ratings. The Maverick wasn’t the most reliable vehicle, but the tricks mechanics knew made it cheap to maintain.
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As did half of all Fords of that era, it seems. Lots of them with holes torched in the fender liner, I remember.
@texases. The Maverick wasn’t the greatest car on the road, but it was cheap to maintain. The front fenders rusted near the bottom, but there was always the fiber glass and a can of aerosol paint available at the discount store.