List of ways in which cars are made cheaply or to wear after so much time or use

Maintenance/Repairs
41

Back in the early '70s when I was stationed at Luke AFB in Arizona, two friends, Jimmy and Bernie, from New York State decided to travel cross-country to see California. The old car they started out with barely made it to Ohio. With little money and two strong backs, they took some day labor jobs at construction sites and earned enough money to buy an even older car, a '59 Chevy, 5-cylinder, automatic, station wagon, that had no emergency brake and the automatic did not have any reverse.

I wrote 5-cylinder because it had a burnt valve and that cylinder had no compression… At their first gas stop, they discovered something else, the transmission also had no Park… they stopped for gas, hopped out, Bernie went to the rest room and Jimmy popped the hood and as he was reaching for the dipstick, the car started rolling backward…

Jimmy panicked and thinking that he forgot to put the car in park, he ran to the side of the car and reached in the window to shove it into Park. The car kept rolling and Jimmy is hanging out the window, and he keeps jamming it into Park, again and again, but the car keeps rolling and picking up speed and with Jimmy hanging out the window the car rolls across the road and into the ditch on the other side where it rear wheels wound up dangling over the open ditch… Luckily no other cars were coming…

They went to the farmer whose ditch their car was caught in and asked if he could use his tractor to pull them out, but this was the '70s and Bernie and Jimmy were Hippies and I guess he did not care for the look and the farmer agreed but not for free, he did not want money, but for them to shovel the cow manure out of the barn.

They said it was not as bad as it sounds and the farmer’s wife did provide supper for them.

Now, that Chevy was not about to give up all it quirks so quickly, it also stared burning oil, a lot of oil and it even needed oil between fill ups…

Jimmy and Bernie with so little money and only picking up some day jobs along the way, they carried a bunch of old gallon oilcans and they scrounged up used, drained oil from service stations along the way…

When they arrived in Phoenix, they called and I went down to meet them and guide them back to our place… When Bernie “parked” the car, Jimmy jumped out and shoved a cinder block in the front and the back of the rear tire… They said that was their “Parking Brake…”

They stayed for two weeks and found enough work to start on their trip again. They did make it to California and the Chevy even got them back home to New York State…

1 Like
42

I once owned 2 Volvo 240s and there is no way you’re going to convince me that either one would have gone 400K with routine maintenance. It was all I could do to keep them going over 100K. Frequent need for replacement exhausts, driver seat collapsing at 100K, constant problems with one bad cylinder on the earlier one that never could get resolved so it burned lots of oil, etc. The best thing I ever did was move to a used Camry, after which I ended up having a lot more free time on weekends.

1 Like
43

Camry’s of the 90’s over 400k is very possible. I’ve known owners who had Camry’s well over 250k miles from that era. On the other hand Volvo’s from that era - NO WAY IN HELL. In 1999 ford bought Volvo. Fords first priority was to improve Volvo’s quality. They sold them 11 years later.

44

+1 !!!
I finally dumped my '74 Volvo when it had 76k on the odometer because I could no longer deal with ongoing problems with the entire electrical system, its fuel system, and its oil consumption. Even my next car–an '81 Chevy Citation (one of the notoriously bad X-cars)–was both more reliable and more durable than that POS Volvo.

Subsequent to the Citation, each car has been better than the previous one. My '86 Taurus needed a couple of wonky sensors replaced during its first year, but other than that situation, the only repair it ever needed was the replacement of two pieces of interior trim that split on an extremely cold day.

Similarly, my '92 Accord had a small electronic teething problem during its first year, but after that, it was clear sailing, with no repairs. I would have held onto it much longer, but the driver’s seat was aggravating my Sciatica.

My '96 Outback did suffer from the classic head gasket breach at ~115k miles, but the dealership/manufacturer came to my assistance with good-will, and I wound up paying ~$400 to replace both head gaskets. Otherwise, zero repairs while I owned it, and it went on to serve two relatives very well until they finally retired it at ~250k miles.

My 2002 Outback required one “repair” in the 10 years that I owned it, namely tightening the bolts on the valve covers in order to fix a slight oil leak.

My 2011 Outback only needed one repair, namely the replacement of the WW fluid reservoir–under warranty. Other than that, when I traded it in after 11 years, it did not need any repairs.

So far–after 1 year–my 2022 Lexus has been flawless. Similarly, my friend’s 2021 Forester has also had a spotless record.

My brother owned two Hyundais–a Santa Fe and an Azera. The Santa Fe was trouble-free for the 10 years that he owned it, and the Azera needed to have the engine temp sensor replaced–under warranty–when it was about 1 month old. Other than that, no problems.

He replaced the Santa Fe with an Outback Touring XT, and it has been without fault. Likewise, the Avalon sedan that he bought to replace the Azera has needed only scheduled maintenance. He is going to dump the Avalon after only 3 years because he and his wife don’t like the seats’ lack of comfort.

So, while some modern vehicles might be problematic or to lack durability, nobody who I know has had that type of experience.

45

Yep, my lastest personal build (gaming PC), I omitted the optical drive, mostly because the case I went with has no provisions for one. Turns out it’s not a big deal, I bought a $20 external (USB) DVD-R/W drive for those one or two times a year I need an optical drive. It’s nearly a non-issue at this point.

46

We haven’t bought a disc based game since I can recall. Everything is downloaded online through the Playstation store or STEAM. No scratched or lost media, move to another platform and re-download your previously paid for content. Updates are easy. My USB optical drive has dust on it…

47

That’s me! I have a holdover subscription to Sirius/XM from my previous car and use the app to listen to music and talk radio while I exercise and occasionally other times. I have a new subscription to Tesla’s equivalent for music while I drive. It’s a lot less expensive and has other benefits that I use while driving, making it worth the $120/yr cost. It’s a lot less than an XM subscription. Having Tesla’s cellular music was great when we last drive to our daughter’s house almost 3 hours away.

48

If the Volvo 240 was such a reliable car, a 400k mile car, why are there only 6 of them for sale on cars.com in the entire country, none with over 260k miles?

49

One of the absolute worst cars from the so-called Good Old Days, prior to the advent of computer controls, was the Plymouth Volare/Dodge Aspen. Here is a surviving wagon version of the Volare, and it is–at least visually–in good condition. The seller wants $14k for it!

50

The biggest driver in COGS is labor. Everything today is designed to minimize labor content. That electric power steering unit likely does cost more to fabricate than the equivalent hydraulic unit. But look at the labor reduction- it’s huge! No pipes to install, no fluid filling & purging, no leaks to resolve… you remove that labor and all of the OH costs associated with it and it’s significant.

All that snap together plastic? Same thing, no screws. It’s less parts and more importantly, less labor. Bear in mind, cars are primarily designed to be easy to assemble. Is it harder to take them apart? Sometimes. First, you need the right tools. Secondly, you probably don’t want to do that work when the parts are at -10 degF for example. So it’s more limiting in that way than the traditional fasteners. I can have the entire front end off my Trailblazer, down to the core support, in less than 20 minutes. Try that with any 1970s car. :wink:

2 Likes
51

You’re right, they are unreliable. I think the drive train is good but the rest of the car needs a fair amount of work.

But it seems to get really hard to find anything for sale that has over 300k miles on it. I think the people who drive those vehicles tend to drive them until they are junked. Someone who is going to buy or hang on to a vehicle with over 300k is someone who is willing to work on it. Having a newer car obviously isn’t a concern for them.

Dallas Craigslist has 929 >200k mile vehicles for sale, but only 208 >250k miles. This is excluding most of the tractor trailers. 200 to 250k miles seems to be the big cut off point for selling vehicles, even in a rust free area.

52

How many high mileage vehicles are for sale on Dallas Craiglist based on milage is interesting. My search tried to exclude tractor trailers and people who put >990k mile vehicles since some accidentally add an extra zero. dallas cars & trucks "-mo -freightliner -semi -vnl -durastar -peterbilt -kenworth -sleeper -kw" - craigslist

geater than miles - number of vehicle listings
0k - >10,000
10k - >10,000
20k - >10,000
30k - >10,000
40k - 9727
50k - 9289
75k - 7829
100k - 5941
125k - 4141
150k - 2675
175k - 1659
200k - 929
225k - 432 - only 0.456, less than half remain since 200k miles!
250k - 208 - 0.4814 less than half remain again!
275k - 119
300k - 76
325k - 48
350k - 33
375k - 30
400k - 24
425k - 17
450k - 14
475k - 12
500k - 12, of which 4 are semis or mistakes
600k - 8

subtract 4 from each number to make it more accurate.

Part of this is probably because dealers lose interest in selling vehicles with over 200k miles. Private sellers use for sale signs or are turning to Facebook marketplace now and not listing things on Craigslist.

53

I have found that a hair dryer is helpful when changing the cabin air filter. Squeezing the sides of the glove box inward in order to remove it can be difficult, especially in the winter when the plastic hardens. Warming-up the plastic for a couple of minutes with a blow dryer makes the plastic more pliable and makes the task less of a challenge.

2 Likes
54

In my experience a car with over 300,000 is essentially unsellable. It is one destined to a relative or person of need.

Not unusual to find a 78 volairie with 23k on it and that would be a lucky owner. Just wondering if that $14,000 is what the owner is paying someone to take it out of the barn? Just kidding of course but I never believed in haunted cars before.

55

I only knew one person who owned a Volare, and he swore that the car was trying to kill him. No matter how long he warmed-up that POS, it would always stall in the merging lane of I-94, and he came very close to being crushed by 18 wheelers a couple of times.

By the time that his Volare was 3 years old, both front fenders had begun to rust-out, and that was when he called it quits. He bought a 2 or 3 year old Caddy, which proved to be a very decent car, and that Caddy never tried to kill him.

1 Like
56

And the fuel savings is also huge.

Hydraulic power steering is backwards. Low assist power needed at highway speeds but high power thrown away from the pump spinning at 2000 rpm engine speed.

Parking requires high power from a power steering running at 700 rpm.

And, of course one big electrical plug to power it…click… instead of hoses screwed in.

1 Like
57

I’d call the first two routine maintenance, expected for a long-lasting car. The faulty cylinder however isn’t routine maintenance, possibly a sample-defect, an internal part out of spec or other manufacturing defect that only affected that particular car. I’ve never considered Volvos to be super-reliable. But the 240’s did appear to be sturdy & safe.

58

Routine? At under 100k? Far from it.

59

In 60s/70s, Colorado’s salted roads, some part of the exhaust system would usually have to be replaced every 30-50K miles on my cars. How long do they last in salted road conditions these days?

100k for the driver seat? That depends on how often the driver gets in and out and the driver’s physical dimensions. How many miles beyond 100K would you expect a driver’s seat to last for a 350 pound football player who uses the car for frequent short trip errands?

60

@jdmere - I think George is making cracks about your weight…