I’ve only ever purchased one new vehicle, and I thing Lemon Laws don’t really apply to used cars.
That said, I did buy on POS a few years back that my wife nick-named “can’t get right”.
It was a 1993 Ford Bronco w/ a 351 V8 , auto, 4x4 and it had 115,000 miles on it. It was 12 years old at the time. I had owned nearly every configuration of the 92 - 96 Ford F-Series (literally, every engine except the powerstroke and the 302; F150,F250,F350; 4x4 and 2x4; manual and auto) so I figured I may as well round off my experience.
I got it for $5,500 bucks. The interior was spotless. You really felt as if you’d traveled back in time. The motor and tranny were great, once I spent a few hundred bucks and weeks chasing down a cooling issue the wound up being the temp gauge.
I bought it in the winter time, and realized quickly the next spring that the AC didn’t work.
The rear end roared intermittently at highway speeds. It was enough to scare me. The truck spent years in PA, which helped explain the rusted frame & suspension. I had to replace the rear spring hangers because they had holes rusted into them.
Two times, while driving down the interstate, the steering caused me to nearly defecate in my shorts by exposing me to the phenomenon known as the “Death Wobble”. Jesus that was scary.
The rear and passenger window wouldn’t roll down.
It was missing the radio when I bought it, but I knew that one.
Also had a little classic yankee bronco rear quarter panel rust, but I knew about that prior to purchase too.
I put 7,000 miles on her and sold it for $100 less that I bought it for. I got off easy.
According to my wife, I’m never allowed to buy another Bronco…
I don’t remember what year Toyota it was but think it was late 70’s, but I was trying to weld a patch panel on the lower fender of the thing for a friend to repair the rust. The fender was off but no matter how low I set the wire feed welder, it would just blow right through the metal. The metal was just paper thin. I finally got it but it was not easy.
I don’t remember an early car that wouldn’t rust. My cousin was a part owner and maintenance manager for a local subaru dealership back in the 70s and 80s. He stopped by one day with two front fenders and announced, “these are for your 78 Subaru”. I said " it’s only 3 years old and has no rust". His response was, " it will. You will need them." Sure enough.
A year later the rust started poking through both fenders. It wasn’t even five years old. The fenders were mounted over foam rubber gaskets that obsorbed water. It was startling how poorly it was assembled. I used a non absorbing gasket material.
That was typical…the smaller and lighter the car, the faster it would rust it seemed. Compared to today’s cars, they were all lemons. It was disgusting. I never went through a year without replacing an exhaust part on one of the two “lemons” we had.
In LA Japanese cars had a decent reputation by the mid-seventies, but rust wasn’t an issue unless you lived within a couple of blocks of the beach. Our 1975 Datsun B210 was a cramped, slow, primitive contraption, but it was very reliable. Did I say slow? I meant glacial, because it had the automatic. 0-60 took something like 30 seconds, but once you got to speed it would buzz along happily all day. No, it wasn’t the special honeybee model, it just liked to buzz.
That car made us all nostalgic for the 1968 Beetle it replaced. The VW was also a modest car, slow and loud, but the interior didn’t feel like a coal mine or a bunker with slit windows. The VW was fairly airy and the seats were much better than the Datsun’s, which were mounted just above the floor. My dad liked the VW because it reminded him of the cabin of a light aircraft. Despite their technical limitations it was easy to like the Beetle. It was so utterly straightforward. Not much more than the minimum needed to get a family of four to town and back.
The Datsun was replaced by a Renault Alliance, famous for its poor liability. Ours lived up to the reputation perfectly. It was a lemon all over. Despite that, we were all quite fond of that car. It, too, was slow, but much quicker than the Datsun, and the engine sounded nice. It was so much quieter and more comfortable than any small car we had owned. The French know how to make great seats. When that car wasn’t broken down it was very pleasant. Those times came too rarely.
We also had a Renault Alliance that nearly killed my sister when its brake lines rusted through. And a Chevy Vega that promptly cracked its engine block. The Renault did have some redeeming qualities, though. The Vega was a total turdpile.
Seriously, however, back in the '60s, I can recall sitting in a few Renaults and remarking about how incredibly comfortable the seats were. By comparison, the seats in my brother’s '64 Beetle were like concrete slabs.
. Our 1975 Datsun B210 was a cramped, slow, primitive contraption, but it was very reliable. Did I say slow? I meant glacial, because it had the automatic.
My wife bought a 1981 Datsun 510 with the Naps-Z engine. That was one fast little car for it’s day. Duel ignition. Very reliable…and was rusted out in 7 years.
I wonder how many the issue of salt played into the rust on '78 Subarus. I actually owned one many years ago and when I got rid of it at well over 200k miles and 10+ years of age it had just a speck or two of surface rust on the rear quarters.
Another '78 I bought to use as a flip also had no rust. Maybe OK being in the drier SW has something to do with it.
Some seats I found to be comfortable were from a Chevy Citation. A guy here had trashed a nice one due to ignoring a transmission fluid leak and parked it out in the sticks. I pulled the seats out of it and installed them into the '78 Subaru I mentioned above where they made a night and day difference in comfort.
A guy I used to work with when I was employed at Nissan was a huge fan of the Datsun B210s. He owned about 6 of those things along with a garage full of spare parts and was always putzing around with them trying to make them go faster.
My preference was for the later model Super Beetles. They actually held the road with the help of McPherson struts and could maintain a decent highway cruise.
“Are French car seats made for fat American butts . . . ?
The reason I’m asking . . .
You guys say the Renault Alliance seats were great”
You have to bear in mind that most Americans didn’t have double-wide butts in the '60s & '70s, when the Renaults in question were sold in The US. All I know is that their seats–back in those days–were very comfortable.
Would they still feel comfortable to me now that I have…expanded…and that I am much older?
I have no idea.
Years ago when picking up a part at the MoPar dealership I saw a new pickup on a lift with its rear axle rolled to the wall and a factory new axle being lifted into place under it. Even from the parts counter I could see that the leading and trailing brake shoes were switched and being curious I exited through the shop and saw that the other end also had the shoes switched and asked the mechanic what was wrong with the axle and was amazed when he said that the rear axle was locking up. I choked stifling back the laughter.
Sunny was a bit of Japanese irony, I believe. It was a grim little car, dark, cramped and ugly. But very reliable compared to any other my parents owned before getting an Accord about fifteen years ago. We had bought the B210 partly because it was the model the school district was giving driver training on at the time we got it, just before my brother was due to take it. By the time I took it, a year later, they had replaced the impractically small Datsuns with Plymouth Volares that were just as slow, but could hold four kids and an instructor in reasonable comfort. The Datsuns must have been hellish.
“Complaining about the French is a German pastime.”
I think that this is a Europe-wide practice.
The first time that I was in The UK (1977 or 1978), I remember turning on the TV in my hotel room and finding that The BBC was broadcasting a discussion program whose topic was apparently…Why We Should Hate The French.
No I am not kidding. That was really the topic under discussion by a panel of opinionated people.
The most memorable comment was from an elderly Colonel Blimp type who said… Well, every Frenchman hates every other Frenchman, so why shouldn’t everyone else also dislike them?
