My brother dated a lady who had a 1986 Hyundai Pony. I’ve been exposed to unreliable foreign cars, but this one took the cake. Although she was a careful driver and maintained it well, the thing broke down and rusted out in no time.
Runners up; Morris Minor, Renault Dauphine, Renault “Le Car”, Range Rover, any Fiat, Russian Lada, GM British Vauxhalls of the 70s.
I should, of course add the infamous Yugo, an unreliable Yugoslavian car based on an unreliable Italian Fiat. Consumer Reports rightly advised its readers to buy a good used American car with their money. It would outlast a NEW Yugo.
British Leyland products in the 1960s and 1970s. They were so bad that it was SOP to rebuild the top end at 5000 miles. No joke and no missing zeros - five thousand miles. Add to that the Prince of Darkness, and you couldn’t find a less reliable manufacturer.
Forgot the Renault “LeCar”, and also forgot Land Rover and the regular Rover.
Actually it is the more recent Land Rovers that have gotten really bad. Land Rover’s of the 40’s, '50’s, and '60’s were actually the rugged durable vehicles that matched their reputation.
I question the Le Car as a nominee. While I do believe they were an unholy POS, I knew a guy in high school who had one, and he tried to destroy it, but it would not die. He drove the crap out of it, he parked it in a creek for a month, then drug it out, drug it down the street to his house, and it fired right up. He wrecked it before he could break it, and he tried hard. He must have had an unusual one.
VDCdriver, I’m not sure we’re on the same page with this. The time/miles issue on a legitimate parts failure is not what I meant. What I’m referring to are a number of things related to vibration, body flex, and so on.
In other words, a faulty door seal admitting rain water would be a warrantable issue but a misaligned door may not be.
With Subaru, a mechanic getting paid is a shaky propostion no matter if it’s a legitimate warranty repair or not.
The OP wanted opinions and I simply base mine on what I saw week in and week out. Your car apparently had an issue with alignment, brake rotors, and wiper blades and your vehicle would be only one of many to enter the shop during a given week. Cumulatively speaking, the complaints add up and Subaru had more complaints as compared to the other makes of cars I serviced.
From my posts one might gather that Subarus were the only cars I ever touched and that’s not the case. The reason I reference Subaru a lot is because they were the most problematic of the makes I listed and their warranty policy is even worse than the actual problems.
The fact that a customer actually gets their car repaired gratis doesn’t mean the mechanic in the shop got paid for it and even if he did, it’s quite likely he was losing money doing it.
Subaru is the reason why I quit working for car dealers and it all came down to 2 incidents in one week. Work had slowed (it comes in cycles) and tension was high because a mechanic standing around makes zero dollars while they’re idle. One incident involved a loopy Subaru owner who accused me of a Comeback (mechanicspeak for screwup) and no way in hxxx was it a comeback. Incident two involved repairing 3 cars in one day for various warranty gripes (maybe 10 problems all told) and Subaru of America would not pay one dime of it. The car owners were happy but had no idea the mechanic was getting screwed. (Note there’s 3 problem Subarus in one day; all less than a year old.)
I bailed out, went home, and stewed for a week or so; meditating life’s inequities. At that point I told my wife I’m not turning another wrench for a dealer ever again and went to work for myself. Weeding out the idiot service managers and writers and making myself beholden to no one but myself was the best thing I ever did. The first 6 months were tough I admit but word of mouth helped get things rolling along.
Great story OK…it really emphasizes how a business run for short term profit alone does a disservice to it’s customers. There are some that I appreciate going into, especially when the waiting area has a full view of the bays where the cars are being worked on, and the customers are invited to check problems out while the cars are being worked on…Educating and not taking advantage of the customer should be a priority.
Granted, some customers could care less, but the offer educate means a lot.
Per Consumer Reports the Jag XJ and XF are the two least reliable mainstream cars being sold today. And it isn’t even close. Ford did a lot to improve Jag, but they seem to have gone back downhill since Ford lost interest then sold them off. Land Rover also gets consistently poor ratings. A shame as the newish Evoque is a beauty.
Honda and Toyota and Nissan have car plants in the USA and the first two are the most reliable cars you can buy. Least reliable have been the Chrysler products. Lots of places online to find reliability information for specific models and years. I don’t go by JD Powers as they report owner problems during the first 90 days of ownership whereas Consumer Reports surveys thousands of owners year after year about repairs they have done on their cars and their reliability information is more accurate for evaluating what is best to buy.
Don’t get mislead by “domestic”. The US and Japanese auto companies have set up plants in the south to avoid unions and having to pay living wages and provide health insurance for their workers. GM is domestic but that have sent billions of dollars to China to build autos and produce auto parts and import them into the USA.
. The US and Japanese auto companies have set up plants in the south to avoid unions and having to pay living wages and provide health insurance for their workers.
What do you mean by the South??
Do you mean Southern States or South of the border.
I know Toyota, Honda and Nissan have set up plants in Southern States. And yes they don’t have a union…but they pay very well (especially for unskilled workers). Cost of living in places like Mississippi and Tennessee is far lower then here in NH…and the starting pay for a non-union factory worker is a lot more then what teachers with 30 years experience here in NH make. More then double what a teacher with a 4year college degree makes up here. So I wouldn’t say the pay is bad.
If you’re talking about South of the border…yes the pay is a lot less then here in the US.
When I see a VW or a Mercedes I think to myself "Hey, look at that Shop Car! These cars, my neighbor has one of each, and they seem to be either in the shop, broke-down and needing to to go to the shop, or just returned from the shop.
I knew two guys who bought Yugos new (despite my warnings). They eventually told me all the Yugo jokes. I knew another guy who bought one for $500 that was less than 2 years old and had less than 10,000 miles on it. I told him “You can hardly go wrong with a deal like that.” He said “That’s what I thought.”
I was surprised to see all the anti-Volvo comments. In the 70s and early 80s I knew several people who had Volvos from the 60s and they raved about 'em.
i also knew several folks who had British Leyland cars from the 60s and 70s. Those cars didn’t move during the winter. ( I’m from Rock Island, NW Illinois. It’s not that cold).