Oh PLEASE! If I have bad luck with a brand, I’m going to tend to avoid it. Maybe eventually I’ll give them another chance, but not for a while. Certainly people can be soured on an ethnic or social group if they have bad experiences; it’s just human nature. Your analogy is a bit drastic though—cars aren’t people—they don’t think or choose their behavior. People should know better, but cars can only live up to the way they’re engineered. The only similarity between people and cars could be that both can be a product of their environment—if you mistreat a child or a car, you’ll end up with a screwed up adult or vehicle most of the time. There’s a lot of brands out there. If you don’t like one, buy something different.
It’ll still be quite a while before I consider another Ford or Pontiac vehicle.
i had a 99 ford taurus wagon and the tranny went out at 50,000 so ford fixed it for 1200.00 but a rebuilt one then at 75,000 the rebuilt went out the ford dealer wanted 3000.00 to replace i called ford and what they told me was they would not replace so i am done with fords and they wonder why they are in trouble i thought ford quailty was job 1 boy was i wrong done w/ fords
I bought a 95 neon and like the OP, I began to hate the car about a month after I bought it and the new car smell went away. It had very little power. When you hit the ac switch, you could feel the car slow down. It only got around 28 mpg which was terrible for how small the car was. I had a couple old chevettes that got much better. I stuck with it for 3 years until I traded it in.
It wasn’t that the car was terrible, it was just far below my expectations. I never looked at another neon again.
I think Honda’s marketing practices in the late 80’s/early 90’s with regards to a MSRP or nothing policy left me cold. This was later followed up by a waiting list/take it or leave it attitude (no price negotiation, no color choice) when the Odyssey came out, causing me to purchase the Mazda MPV I still am driving.
When we bought our 87 Accord and our 96 Accord we were able to buy them at 2-4k LESS then MSRP. There are ways to buy vehicles under MSRP.
Those things that you’re complaining about I would thing would have been discovered during the test drive. I’ve driven many vehicles that I refused to buy because of one or more of the things you’ve mentioned (except sound system…which I just replaced). We refused to buy one car because our golf clubs wouldn’t fit in the trunk. The salesman couldn’t understand that decision.
Fords. I hate them. My parents, despite having numerous issues with them were always repeat customers.
Same with my sister-in-law and her husband…Not ONE of their Fords lasted more then 6 years or 100k miles. They were JUNK when they traded them in…And put THOUSANDS of dollars into repairs on every single one of them. I was amazed when my Sister-in-law had spent at least $5k on her 98 Taurus and bought a new Ford (mini van) in 03. And now she’s looking at a new vehicle after spending at least $6k in repairs since she bought this van…Not to mention the repairs that were done under warranty.
NEVER. This line of thinking is the corperate equivelant of racial bigotry, profiling, and social class snobery.
Just cuz you may have a bad apple or two, don’t throw out the whole busshel or you’ll starve yourself.
I’ve had great cars and bad cars from the same brand. (VW as we’ve had 11 of these). It’s not been the brand so much as the dealer. We finally switched dealers and service problems become 1 time visits, not relationships with the service department. HOWEVER, I’m so fed up with dealer baloney, that a problematic car would mean NEVER AGAIN. At 54, I’ve earned the right to be cranky about how I’m treated.
I’m sorry to hear of the problems that VDCdriver had with his or her Volvo.
I also had a 1974 Volvo, a 145 wagon. It was almost bullet proof. During the warranty period there was some sort of engine problem that arose that was detected and repaired by the dealer (I’d be more specific but I was in the Navy, at sea at the time, and my wife took care of it).
The car made 6 cross country moves including one to the Philippines and back and kept on going.
The car paint was yellow and as it got bumped and scratched I would treat it with some of that dark red primer. My younger daughter started calling the car the banana-mobile.
As the car rolled over 200k it did develop some leaks. It did require that I check and refill the oil in the manual transmission every 3000 miles and it did seem to use more engine oil. The next problem was that the doors did not seem to remain latched. Even though you had closed the door, when you went around a corner the door would sometimes swing open. I was sad to see it go.
Would I buy another Volvo? They’ve priced me out of their market.
Does one car make or break it for you with an entire brand? No. I’ve owned Chevy, Pontiac, Saab, Ford and Honda. If I liked a car from one of these brands, I would consider buying from that brand again.
I’m not likely to buy another Ford any time soon. I had a Capri GT in the 70s. It was fun, but the steering jiggled during braking. I thought I was the only one - not so. Every Capri did that. I talked to a couple of college friends who both owned Capris (one guy had 3 or 4 of them - he raced) and they said it was cheap McPherson struts. If Ford has spend another $80 on the struts, it wouldn’t have happened. Believable? The guy with 4 Capris worked for Ford. Yeah, I believe him.
And then there was the early rust on my 1998 Taurus and the early engine problems (80,000 miles) on the 1996 Windstar that couldn’t be cured. I know others swear by their Fords, but I just don’t trust them. GM cars, on the other hand, I’ve had good success with them.
I can vouch for jayhawlroy in that Honda won’t deal on an Odyssey. I have known of 3 people (not me) that purchased this van and Honda said they can sell these all day long at sticker, so they do. BUT, that does not mean all Honda dealerships sell this way.
Please remember that Accord’s are a different breed from the Oddysey and can be marketed differently.
It’s comical how things turn out for people. You had bad luck with your Taurus but my 1998 was bullet proof, I had 288,000 and put on 1 starter and 1 alternator, thats all. But, after owning an 03 Windstar I will not be buying another Ford for awhile
Honda has improved since 95. My family is all about some Ford, but my mother purchased a Honda Pilot 2 years ago. It drives well and she hasn’t had any problems with it so far. I’m not switching to Honda by any means but the Pilot has impressed me and has changed my opinion about the company, as far as their SUVs go anyway.
You had bad luck with your Taurus but my 1998 was bullet proof, I had 288,000 and put on 1 starter and 1 alternator, thats all.
From my small sample of people who owned that era Taurus…YOU’RE VERY VERY LUCKY…My sister-in-law put THOUSANDS into her 98 Taurus…And it was a pile of junk when she sold it at 80k miles in 03.
I probably will never buy a Ford again. After college, the cheapest new car I could find, which had gotten good reviews in Consumer Reports previously, was an 85 Ford Escort.
It didn’t end up being so cheap, however. The first year it had a cracked head, which was a major repair for a 6 month old car. In the next 3 years it had to have a new carburetor (got a rebuilt one at this point), an ignition coil, and EGR valve failure which no one could diagnose and caused mulitple tows, catalytic converter, radiator, fuel pump, alternator, directional (fell off), wheel barings, and many assorted fluid and oil leaks . You name it, it had problems with it. The week after it was paid off,(why did I wait??) I sold it to a wholesaler. It had 60k on it…Good ridance to bad rubbish!
I might consider buying a full sized Ford truck because they seem much improved, but my father had an 85 F150 and it was also a piece of junk. It always ran backwards from day one. A very bad year for Ford!
I’m going to agree with you about the dealer experience. After getting rid of my 85 Ford Escort in 1989,(see below) I bought a 82 VW Rabbit with 100k on it. I ended updriving that to 369k, only because of rust. It had a rebuilt transmission at 220k and other wear items, but for that much mileage it was great. The VW shop I took it to was awesome, but then I moved to another part of the state. I’m on my 5th VW now, (Golf) and all in all I’ve had good luck. I’d love to buy a new Rabbit, BUT the dealership in the area is horrible and so is another specialty shop I have been going to. Since they are the only game in town, they have a huge attitude and are always ‘right’. It’s a problem that might affect my decision. I don’t see how I could buy a Honda after driving a VW for 20 years, though!
In my opinion, it doesn’t sound like your Civic gave you that much of a headache. Based on what you have written, I think you bought the wrong car. My old 98 Civic was a great car for my needs. It did have faults though. It was noisy (both with wind and engine noise) and wasn’t very comfortable on long trips. Fortunately, I bought the car for everyday use and those faults only bothered me occasionally.
When you shop for a minivan, I think you would be foolish not to look at the Honda Odyssey. It is completely different compared to your Civic. It is quiet, smooth, minivan with a beefy six cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. It is different from your Civic in almost every way. It has a level of refinement much higher than even the current Civic. The only other minivan in this class is the Toyota Sienna. Chrysler’s minivans are nice, but the Odyssey and the Sienna are in a class by themselves.
Next time you shop for a car, ask to take it home for the weekend for an extended test drive or rent one for a week. This way you will be less likely to find yourself owning a new car you don’t like.
I once had a very poor experience with a 1985 Ford Escort and I have stayed away from Fords since then. However, I would consider owning a Focus if I was in the market for a small car. Ford has come a long way with quality. Not only do things change over time, but just because you don’t like one model from Honda doesn’t mean you won’t like another model much better.