German vs. Japanese Cars

Maintenance/Repairs
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21

Good point Wha Who. Cars with good bodies and good, simple mechanicals can be fixed economically for a very long time. As you say, you also have to like the car well enough to keep doing that.

Having said that, some cars reach a point of no return quicker, where very expensive repairs are needed to keep them running, and owners decide to scrap the car. Some Volvos, Land Rovers, Jaguars, Audis come to mind. Others are orphan cars for which parts may no longer be available. I have yet to see a very high mileage Jaguar, for instance.

Examples of vehicles that can be repaired economically for a very long time are full size 2 WD US pickup trucks, compact Japanese cars, US cars such as the Crown Victoria, Ford Taurus,and others for which parts are economically available for a long time and the car is basically simple, reliable, and have a designed-in lifespan that allows this continuous fixing.

The longest mileage vehicle I ever rode in was a Toyota Corolla diesel taxi in Asia with 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles) on it. I could not imagine this to be a Fiat, Renault or other make with lower design standards.

My statements are not in conflict with other posters; some cars just have better "genes’ than others, and the production volume and spares availability and prices (especially after-market)usually determine how long a vehicle will live.

We get many posts about very high mileage Ford Taurus cars, pickup trucks, large rear drive cars, most of which are not in the “much better than average” reliability rating in Consumer Reports.

Much of my work deals with equipment life cycle costing and when to decommission the equipment or justify a further “life extension” repair. The intrinsic reliability as well as the cost of any repair weighs heavily in these decisions. Taxi companies tend to have the most experience in wringing the last ounce of life out of a machine. They invariably pick simple machines that are easy and cheap to fix. For them it will be a sad day when the Crown Victoria will be phased out.

22

25-30 years old for a Toyota or Honda is really far out there.

It is beyond rare to see a running 1980-1984 Toyota or Honda in New England. I think 15 years is more realistic and at most maybe 20 years old. Rust repair is beyond expensive and hardly worth it.

23

You’re right Andrew; I should also have added the climate as an important factor. My 1965 Dodge Dart was reliable to the end, which came at age 13 years when the body was so rusted through as to make the car unsafe to drive. Our 1977 Dodge Colt bit the dust at age 20 in 1997, when we drove it to scrap yard. The underbody was corroded through so you could not even jack it up to change a tire. We lived around the Great Lakes then.

On the other hand, we now live in a dry area and 25 year old cars here are quite common. A guy down the street has a 1976 Volvo which only has a little bit of rust on it. Cars now have better rust protection as well, and 20 years can be considered the life span of the body for most cars (in all but the Rust Belt areas) that meet North American corrosion standards.

24

It is beyond rare to see a running 1980-1984 Toyota or Honda in New England. I think 15 years is more realistic and at most maybe 20 years old. Rust repair is beyond expensive and hardly worth it.

You live in the wrong part of NE…I live about 15 miles from Lawrence MA…You’ll find HUNDREDS of 25-30yo Toyotas/Hondas in that city alone.

25

I agree re rust. But I must say that our 1999 Camry is proving to be remarkably rust resistant … except that every bolt and nut in the exhaust system has been reduced to a solid, amorphous, lump of some obscure iron-sulfur compound that has to be ground off when replacing things. But the first two exhaust sections didn’t fail until this year, and the muffler itself is still the original. Maybe the Japanese are getting the rust thing right. (And our American made 1995 Neon rusted right up there with Japan’s worst).

26

anyone who thinks they’re infallible

Who is claiming this!!!

27

“For them it will be a sad day when the Crown Victoria will be phased out.”

It’s a sad day, then. 2009 was the last year for Vickie and Markie.

28

Well, the problem with that logic is that you own the VW (and presumably don’t owe and money on it), and you would have to buy the other car. I doubt you will get much money for a 10 year old car. So, unless you can afford, and want, a replacement, ignore the advice.

29

A little pragmatism goes a long way. I keep running into well educated but not car-savvy people who rushed out to buy a Prius, while not adding insulation to their homes or throwing out the old, inefficient furnace. Both are easy to do and very cost-effective. Doing the pragmatic thing is often a boring activity, but it pays off in the long run.

Performing a life cycle cost analysis, even a rudementary one, makes you pick a simple machine that can be fixed with aftermarket parts 20 years fromn now. Sure, you can get parts for a 20 year old Mercedes, but you better get a bank loan first.

In Asia there are a lot of old Mercedes cars, but there is a whole industry making bogus (reverse-engineered) parts, and custom upholstery shops to fix the interiors.In North America we don’t have that luxury.

Over its life a car will consume its own value in maintenance and repars if it stays “fixable”. A 15 year old Audi with a turbo problem might not fit in that category.

30

German and jap ++++. Buy american an you will not have to worry about any mantanance, other than oil changes and the like. We have (my family) a 1999 ford f-150 larat. we have had it for 8 years and only had one thing go wrong with it, and even that was not bad, one of the coils over the spark plugs cracked. we got it fixed for free because we had taken it in for sevice at a ford dealership and it started acting up right after, so they fixed it for no charge.

31

“We get many posts about very high mileage Ford Taurus cars, pickup trucks, large rear drive cars, most of which are not in the “much better than average” reliability rating in Consumer Reports.”

True… and the reason I attribute to this is that the difference in reliability between what Consumer Reports rates as average and “much better than average” is ridiculously small anymore. There are numerous examples of mechanically identical (or extremely similar) vehicles having larger spreads in reliability than the difference between average and “much better than average”.

That’s why my advice has been, and will remain: Use Consumer Reports to find which vehicles NOT to buy - anything rated much worse than average or any vehicle with significant “worse than average” ratings on multiple systems. Anything rated average or better? Buy what you like.