Best and Worse of 2009

[srt]

I would love to see 100% American cars come back and be the best sellers. 

As a young fellow, I bought my new wife a 2 year old Buick Century with about 23,000 miles on it.  Quite fancy, but she's a fancy gal!

Within a year, we'd replaced the radiator, rotors (due to warp, not pads worn out), intake manifold gasket and finally transmission at about 38K.  GM didn't stand behind it.  The 3 yr, 36K warrantee was gone.

I sold that thing and bought a '68 f-bird for her.  At least I could work on the thing!

Then, I got her a new Honda Accord.  It only had a 3/36 warrantee also.  She ran it for 206K and never replaced anything but wear items.  Not even a carberator, alternator or starter went bad!  Sold it for $2000.

Bought another new Accord in 2000.  Again, just a 3/36 warranty.  At 99,500, the tranny went out.  Honda had sent us a letter saying they were having problems with the trannys, and they would stand behind them up until 7 years/100K miles.  They took the car in and two days later we had it back.  No charge.

Until GM, Ford, Chrysler, or Joe (whoever buys whatever's left of the one(s) that fail) step up to the plate and treat buyers like Honda has treated us, I can't see me buying their product.

If anyone wants to buy a nice used Accord, we'll be ready to sell it in about 4 more years - when it is near 200K.

I need to add something here.  They're not all great.  I've been real displeased with the service department for general service.  Let me just say that it is my belief that they were trying to steal from us by saying there were problems with the car that didn't exist, and did it while the car was in for a major (timing belt) service.  I smelled something was wrong and directed them to button it bacl up once they'd replaced the timing belt.  Good thing I did.  They were off by 100% on their measurement of brake pad wear.  Several other "problems" were more in their imagination than reality.  I bought a manual and started doing all the maintenance myself.

Bottom line - a fine car, but each dealer stands on its own for good work and integrity.

[Polly]

 i went the same route , 2or 3 chev 1 buick 1 or 2 chryliser prod 1 honda accord that we gave to one in the family with over 100,000 miles on it we got a crv now that has done passed a 100,000 miles and a honda odssey with around 80,000 miles no problems with any of them i do the mainteance all 3 cars were back at the dealer 3 times for recall work again no problem , ito would like to buy american but with the trouble in the past , it is going to be hard to do  :( :( 8)

[beenthere]

American cars have been good to me. Nearly no complaints.
'51 Rambler (hot rodded it in HS)
'52 Ford mainline V-8 2 dr in HS. It got beat up pretty bad.  : :
'54 Mercury (was a tank and used and a good college kids ride)
'57 Chevy 4dr hardtop, robins egg 2-tone..rusted through at 160,000, and had rebuilt engine. But wish I had it now.
'64 Rambler Classic station wagon (V-8, hard to start in winter but 120,000 miles)
'68 Ambassador wagon (used, V-8 with mucho power, but block was rusty and had lots of water cooling problems)
'71 Ford Maverick ( straight 6, great car, but eventually rusted through the uni-body at 140,000 miles)
'75 Mercury Marquis Sta Wagon (a real big boat but room for family of 6) used, with 75,000, and added 50k.
'77 Mercury Monarch (lots of problems with catalytic converter...worst car of all, but still not a headache)
'81 Chevy Citation (great car, and never had a recall or a complaint..150,000)
'85 Chevy Citation (used, but added 100,000 miles...no problems other than CV joints).
'83 Pontiac Phoenix (wife drove, 4 cyl, and no major complaints..kids said it lacked power  ;D )
'89 Chevy Celebrity (new and a great running car, with 145,000 and then some rust)
'95 Buick Century (new and a great running car, with 135,000 - - traded but wished I'd kept it)
'90 Cavalier Z24 (Wife's sport car, that had a lot of get up and go...not good in snow. About 60k and trade)
'98 Pontiac Montana Van (no major problems, and don't recall miles when wife didn't want to drive it anymore)
'01 Chevy pickup (too small and no guts...so traded after 6 months)
'02 Chevy Trailblazer (super ride and NO mechanical problems, no rust, only tires, and filters and sold at 149,950k) Best of all of them
'07 Chevy Mailibu (Wife's car, too small for my taste, but she likes it)
'09 Chevy Trailblazer (one of the last off the assembly line. Hope it is as good as the '02)

Toss in a used VW bug in there, and a '63 Ford 3/4 ton but not much to say about them. 

Absolutely have not had a bad American-made car. Just my experience. Others have theirs.  : :

[Nomad]

     Drove a '77 gas Ford f-250 for over 300K miles, and it had 56K on it when I bought it.  Yeah, it was about worn to the nub when I got rid of it.  I figure it had close to 400K on it when I sent it to the scrap heap.  But other than replacing the clutch 3 times maintenance was nothing to be worth mentioning.

     I've had many different cars, and a lot of 'em were imports.  (Mostly European.)  By and large reliability was great but maintenance was pretty stout.

     My current vehicle is a bought new '04 Dodge Ram 1500.  I've got about75K on it.  The fit and finish are not particularly good.  The power and gas mileage are less than impressive, IMHO, especially when towing.  I will, however, say that the dealer support has been outstanding, no matter where the DanG thing decided to break down.

     If I buy another Dodge Pickup, it'll be a diesel.  But Dodge Diesels are built in Mexico.  Great trucks, but they only got American names, not American construction.

     A few years ago I wanted to buy a new grill.  I was looking for a stainless steel grill, with brass or bronze burners.  Didn't want anything particularly big, but I knew what I wanted and that's what I wanted.  I ended up buying a grill made in China.  It was bigger than I wanted, but it had all the criteria I was looking for.  Cost me right at $1000.  The closest American made grill I could find was OVER $5000!!!  And it didn't have all the features I wanted, either.  Yeah, I'd prefer to buy American.  But do a reality check.     

I guess what I'm trying to say in my roundabout way is that I'd much rather buy American, but I can't do that if I'm not given a viable opportunity.

     Another point.  (I'd like to hear from our Canadian friends about this) the last time I was in northern Ontario the local WalMart was bragging how 90% of their product was made in either the US or Canada.    If that's true, why (and how)  is WalMart  doing that there and not here?

[SwampDonkey]

Walmart does have a lot of made in Canada/USA products, just depends what your buying. There is also a pile of China made stuff to. I never looked at it close enough for percentages. I bought 3 items yesterday and they were one each from China, Belgium, Canada. One thing I don't notice is stuff made in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Guatemala like I do in Walmart USA. Walmart prices here are not even competing with the local stores. They can't even match grocery prices at Atlantic Super Store grocery. Paper products such as printing papers are all Canadian made and cheaper to buy in Canada than in the US, surprisingly.

[Larry]

With GM on its death bed one has to wonder why a small car company called KIA is having spectacular sales and growth?  They are scheduled to open a brand new manufacturing plant in Georgia later this year.  What did GM do wrong and what did KIA do right?  Me thinks Ford, Honda, and Toyota are asking those questions right now.

Full disclosure...I do not own either brand.  In fact I wouldn't recognize a KIA if one bit me.  I must admit there 10 year/100,000 warranty has tweaked my curiosity on occasion.

http://www.kia.com/#/about/

[SwampDonkey]

They aren't popular here at all although are often in sweepstakes giveaways. I see one once in awhile, but we have no local dealers.

[DanG]

This area is literally crawling with Kias.  There is a dealer in Tallahassee, and has been for several years.  They're doing the same thing Toyota and Datsun did when they first started in this Country.  They're selling cheap and offering easy financing.  For a long time they advertised, "If you have a job making $300 per week, you can buy a new car."  It obviously worked.

It's pretty easy for them to do this.  They have exactly zero retirees on their rolls.  They are locating their plant in an area where $13/hr is considered a good job, and whatever Union contract they come up with will be according to Georgia law instead of Michigan law.

[SwampDonkey]

For some strange, odd ball, reason I'm reminded of the music video of the song "Mr. Roboto" by the band Styx. :D

[tcsmpsi]

$13 an hr here is executive pay.  :D

Personally, I've not had what I would consider a 'bad' any vehicle.  Unfortunately, there have been occassions I have bought a few previously abused vehicles that had physical trauma.

The '72 Ford Pinto was a tough little car for us and was relatively trouble free, once I learned to remove all that factory breathing equipment which caused a broken carbuerator.

'49 Dodge Pickup...wish I still had it
'51 Chevy Pickup...liked the Dodge better
'53 Chevy...should have kept the '51
'55 Chevy Apache...still rather have the Dodge
'57 long bed Chevy....rode way hard and put up wet...once too often
'62 Ford short bed...big V8, lots of power...terrible brakes....
all those were hog working vehicles
'56 Bel Air sedan
'57 Bel Air sedan...283...nice car...weak front ends
'57 Bel Air sedan...327...fast, ugly, pieced together ringer  :D
'62 Studebaker...tempermental
'65 Olds Delmont 88.....425....good, solid, comfortable cruiser...
'66 Toyota sedan...column shift...tough little bugger
The Pinto
'74 Comet...nice ride, but tempermental
'66 GMC pickup...really abused
'74 Dodge pickup...really good truck
'86 Dodge D-50 (first new truck)(Mitsubishi)...Worked very...traded at 245,000 miles for a Mercedes project car  (mistake)
'79 Dodge Adventurer pickup...abused, beat up, shot, but like Timex...
'90 Geo Metro...3 cyl, 50 mpg w/air running, got traded in w/over 250,000 miles...just maintenance andnew timing belts, etc.
'96 Cavalier sedan...traded it at about 90,000 shortly after air went out...it did drive about 2 miles through fairly swift water almost up to the windows...thankfully...wonder anything worked on it after that
'98 Ford Ranger XLT ext cab....good little truck, but had to trade it in on a Dodge with more room (grandchildren)
'01 Dakota Quad cab...really good truck...only 'problem' was poor fuel mileage in town  (not one of consumer reports favorites)
'01 Dodge Neon....lot of fun (manual trans), economical, dependable (regardless of consumer reports)
'03 PT Cruiser....Manual trans., bad front brake caliper, power steering problem, expensive to work on...Chrysler and dealership always did the right thing
'05 Dakota Quad....even better than the '01...same fuel
'07 Dodge Caliber...bought in early '06 well built, economical utilitarian...letting the last two one children of the house use as they learn, prepare, etc.
'07 Dodge Nitro...A surprising vehicle...good fuel, ride, power, features....voted most pleased by my wife.    ;D
'07 Dodge 1500 Quad SLT....so far, so good

What I have noticed in consumer reports (have been online subscriber several years), is that they generally 'test' the 'have the mostest stuff' type of particular vehicle.  I also find, that their obsession with features of a less than utilitarian nature annoy me. 
I'm not interested in the "Oooooo and Ahhhhhh" capability.  I like to go from point A to B with no worries, whether it''s 5 miles or 5,000, loaded, unloaded, etc.

I'm not planning to take them out on the track or contest speed and agility in other places.  (well, admittedly, when we took the Nitro to the Black Hills, Spearfish Canyon begged me take it on.  I did.  Decreasing my time each run.   :D  I was very impressed.  So were all the bikers (Sturgis time of year).  :D

I do find that a good, solid, down to earth dealership can make worlds of difference in vehicle impression.  But then, so can the owner themselves.

[Lanier_Lurker]

I must be weird.

Since I turnt 16 and started driving I have had only 4 vehicles.  I'm 3 months shy of turning 45.

The last 2 listed are the only 2 I have owned at the same time (which is currently).

'78 Chevy truck (dad still uses on the farm)
'84 Olds Cutlass (got about 180,000 out of it)
'89 Acura Legend (just turned 291,000)
'96 Ford F-250 (has about 165,000 on it)

Of course, all of these were bought used.

[TexasTimbers]

I don't know how you guys can remember your vehicles like that. I don't know how many I have owned several dozen, but ask me to list them and I will say okay give me a pen and paper while you cook the steaks, and after we eat the steaks I will give you my list.

You'd get a page of a few cars and trucks and maybe some stickmen drawings but I would have belly full of grilled cow. ;D

[Polly]

chrysler lebaren bade head , chev one tun truck lifters rattled chev p up cam shaft went out ,buick car camshaft went out ,chev pick up steering problems trans went out idler on fan belt fell off middle of road their was more thats all i rember in all above cases had to call district reps to get problem resolved under warrentee ,their will be no more :( :(

[DanG]

The last new vehicle I bought was a '75 Pontiac Catalina.  I had to get it towed to the dealer with a bad oil pump, within the 12,000 mile/1 year warranty period.  While they had it, the dealer stole my gas and my sunglasses.  Since then, I've bought cheap, fixed them myself, and sold them cheap when they weren't working out.  I always seem to get where I want to go. ;D

[ErikC]

  One good thing about DanG's method is, there is no reason not to just walk away from the thing when it gets to deserving it. They are all just pieces of junk in the making anyway. :

[Polly]

closes thing i got to being new has got 88,000 miles oldest has 240,000 miles , not planning on trading soon : :

[CLL]

My festiva has 199,000 and the wife's Altima has about 175,000, both running strong. My idea is buy them right, change oil and lube on schedule and drive them till they die or close. Thats the only way I can see to come out on them.

[old joe]

Not a vehicle on the place less than 12 years old.  I buy them for little. run them till I can't fix them any more, then they get used for parts.  I try to keep a parts car for all my favorites.
Joe

[Polly]

all things considered that is the way to go , also you have a good hobby taking care of them ,  : :

[ksu_chainsaw]

I have a KIA Spectra- an 07 model bought late spring 08.  I now have 29000 miles on it a year later.  The only problem that I have with it is the evap filter is plugging up and turning the check engine light on.  The dealership will not cover it under warranty- they call it a maintenance item- bs in my opinion- and they want $250 to replace it- a $20 filter.  Other than that, I get 31+ mpg and no other problems.
The 00 Ford Excort ZX2 that I had before this was not bad, but nickel and dimed me to death.  I bought it with 80,000, and just after the 30 day warranty expired, the timing belt broke, which busted the camshafts and warped the head.  I rebuilt it, and nursed it along for about 3 years and traded it in with 198,000 miles- and still got $1000 for it.

Had a bunch of trucks- no major problems with any of them, and too many to list

Charles

[SwampDonkey]

I've bought and drove 4 vehicles in 22 years.

S15 from 1987-1998 (under powered but good working engine, couldn't keep ball joints on it, best warrantee ever)
Dodge Ram 1500 from 1998 - 2006 (POS made in Mexico, bad electrical, bad transmission, bad just about everything, nice cup holder though ;D )
Olds Avero 2002-2006 (fine car, no complaints, trade-in)
RAV4 from 2006 to present (fine car, strong motor, go anywhere)