'Advice Has Changed on What Car to Buy for a Young Driver'

Are you sure?
By the time that my impeccably-maintained Volvo had reached 40k miles on the odometer, it was burning a qt of oil every 600 miles. Conveniently, the trans needed to have a qt of fluid added every 600 miles…
The net result was that I had to take shorter vacations, due the amount of motor oil and trans fluid that I had to carry in the trunk. Not much room for luggage at that point!

And, then there was the bizarre electrical system on that Volvo, the abysmal CIS fuel injection system, and the paint that was chalked and peeling after just two years.

If Simcas were actually worse than my POS Volvo, then I really empathize with the folks who owned those Simcas!

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Believe me I’m sure. A friend I had in those days bought a 4 year old Simca 1308 with all the bells and whistles possible for a REALLY low price, making the assumption that he could make some money on it and asked me to fix it up for him (he had ten thumbs). 10 minutes after I started, I called him and told him FIX IT YOURSELF. Aside from the axles (fwd) the whole drivetrain was shot, it needed sheetmetal underneath by the squareyard. The rest I have happily forgotten. IIRC the car had less than 50k km. on the clock.

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My Father had a 40 miles per day work commute and bought cheap heaps for his work cars. He had a 1960 Simca Aronde? 2 door coupe around 1966. He paid $50 for it. I drove it a couple times on gravel back roads ( I was only 14 years old). Other than being underpowered it ran and drove well. It was my first time driving a 4 speed M/T. If I remember correctly it was column shifted.

Now I remember. I think it was 1975 or 76 a guy at work had a new Volvo and he cursed it all the time. He bought it new but was in the shop for injector issues and so on all the time. He remarked that they just couldn’t figure out what the problem was. It sounded like there was also a significant amount of disassembly that had to be done to get at the problem parts. I thought he was German but found out years later he was Swedish so maybe that’s why he bought one. He’s dead now so I’m sure he’s having some conversations with the engineers back then.

You reminded me of the early 1970s Volvo commercials stating that 9 out of 10 Volvos purchased were still on the road. My dark side enjoyed informing Volvo owners that the breakdown lane was technically part of the road. The Buick dealership I worked at also sold Opels and Saabs. The Opels seemed to be quite reliable but our mechanics spelled Saab S.O.B.! I think reliability problems with European cars was mainly caused by buyers being used to Detroit iron with cast iron V-8s surviving little or no scheduled maintenance. Euro cars tend to be much more sensitive to lack of maintenance. Saab produces excellent military aircraft which are of course meticulously maintained.

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Yeah, we’re looking to buy the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivan, too. All cars have problems, and the vast majority of these have been fine. I wouldn’t worry too much about the reliability.