Toyota versus Chevy

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Great Story!

Reply to
Built_Well
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"Scott in Florida" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Well prior to buying the Frontier, I tried to buy a Tundra - the previous version, not the new cartoon Tundra.. I had four problems with the Tundra - piston slap (three of three I test drove exhibited piston slap), limited head room, a battleship like turning radius, and dealers that were total jerks. We have three Toyota dealers in the immediate area. I shopped all three. In every case they would quote you a somewhat attractive price, but when you got down to the final stages ridiculous fees magically appeared. The Nissan dealer quoted me a good price and there were no surprises at the end. I'd give the local Nissan dealer a B+ and all three Toyota Dealers an F- for sales service. The new Tundra is of no interest to me. If I wanted a Silverado, I'd buy one at the Chevy dealer for a lot less. I do like the Tacoma, but the prices are significantly higher than for the Frontier. However, after 19 months with the Frontier, I wish I had tried harder to buy a Tacoma. My SO had to go to a dealer 50 miles away to get a decent deal on a RAV4. I wish I had gone there to price a Tacoma. To be fair, the Frontier has not been horrible. I've had it back to the dealer three times, but for minor things. The gas mileage is worse than expected, not much different than my old 1992 F150 (but the F150 was only 2WD). I think my three biggest complaints are the ridiculously peaky engine, cramped cab (seems smaller inside than my Dad's old Ranger), and interior plastic that seems to attract dust. On the other hand, the 4WD system is good, the transmission is good, it came with good tires, and it is very quiet at highway speeds. The truck has just passed 37,000 miles and there have been no out of warranty problems. The truck was bought for farm use, and I'll probably keep it for 12 to 14 years (the F150 was 15 years old when I sold it) unless it really p*&^es me off.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

"Back then," the year to year changes were mostly sheet metal changes, the stuff underneath hardly changed at all.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

"Back Then" people could afford to buy a new car every couple of years.

Now, with new cars in the $20K > $30K range, people are shopping for reliability, and durability.

Reply to
Anonymous

It would indicate to me that his resulrts indicate a lack of proper maintenance, which many owners are guilty of.

If the oil and filter is changed every 3000 miles with dino oil and every 5000 miles with pure synthetic those engines should last to almost a million mile.

Taxi cabs commonly get a minimum of 500,000 miles out of their vehicles , which are considered severe service driving (city)

I know they change oil and filter at least once a month on a regular basis.

I had an `86 Accord-4 auto,which when it was totaled ,had over 359,000 miles on it when it was totaled

The engine ran like new and only used a liter of oil in 1000 miles at that time.(used dino Diesel rated oil).

My `92 accord was in the same category with about 320,000 MILEs on it . Wife totaled that one .

The only mechanical thing I did to them was adjust the valves when neccessary and I changed the oil and filter every 2400-3000 MILES. (Dino oil)

Reply to
mred

I am old school I guess, I like shifting my own gears. Add to that better acceleration, more control of the car, and better gas mileage and it's a no brainer for me. My car with auto gets something like 4 MPG less than the manual. That adds up.

LOL, some of us like sports sedans!! I like having 4 doors and large interior for my daughter, but I like being able to toss a car around a bit and get in a 0-60 run here or there (when alone). Keeps me young ;-)

Tampa traffic doesn't allow much of anything else.

b
Reply to
Brent

Mine probably is, also. Lost one transmission out of all the GM vehicles I have ever owned (ironically, it was on my very first one, a 1976 Chevy Nova SS I bought new, and had to replace the trany at

160,000 miles), most people I talk to say that it is a pretty reliable record. Of course, I have never talked to a Toyota owner who has EVER lost a tranmission regardless of how many miles or number of vehicles he has owned. Still waiting on my first engine failure, though, so I guess these GM's arent a TOTAL piece of junk.
Reply to
coachrose13

When did Toyota start making "Max"'s

Coachrose's award gives the 3.8 engine its anual award based on many years service from several cars with no problems whatsoever.

No other

My GTP will not approach 14.3 quarters, but for some reason has dusted every Max it has raced.

Didnt but the 06 because I considered it to be sport. Thought it would be a nice car to haul my grand-kids around, and maybe a little fun to drive around, to boot.

Reply to
coachrose13

C.E. we all know you are lying. Toyotas NEVER break down!

Reply to
coachrose13

C.E., I take back what I said on the previous reply. You are the MAN!!!!

Reply to
coachrose13

on Thursday 06 September 2007 10:57 pm, someone posing as snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com took a rock and etched into the cave:

They bought Nissan. Didn't you know. :P

I used to have the 3.0 VQ30DE on my Max. That was a pretty good vehicle for a front-wheel-drive car.

A bit on the small side and had an annoying torque steer when I punched it, but overall pretty good.

Reply to
PerfectReign

OK, I owned a '00 Nissan Maxima SE with the VQ engine and 5 speed. It was a big car inside, I will give it that, and well made interior, but I disagree on the attractiveness of the VQ engine. It does not start as well as it could, frequently it took 2 long tries to get it running if it sat for a few days. The engine has neary ZERO torque on the bottom end, as someone else said, its very peaky. I have driven manual transmissions since the 70's and I never stalled an engine as many times as I did with that car, and my wife, who also learned on tractors and old manual cars (never had an auto until 2001) she also had the same feedback. In traffic, pulling away from lights, the car was pretty slow - if I was not revving it up, I'd be being passed by old ladies in Buicks. When folks were trying to get in front of you in traffic situations, if you were going along at 2200 rpm (which is very typical) the engine is FLAT and has very little power. If you revved it up all the time, wringing the snot out of it like a sport bike motorcycle engine (which I have owned and ridden BTW) it had some power above 4k RPM's. Trying to launch the car resulted in tire spin especially in wet. Driving it like that also kills fuel milage, we never got much over 22-24 mpg and lows would be in teens. And premium fuel. And the engine compartment looked like it was attacked with speghetti of hoses and lines and crap. But it was smooth, I will give it that. The maxima also had crappy rear suspension that would bottom out with two people in the car and rode poorly, even the reviewers that loved the car said that much (was changed later years).

Although I loved manual transmissions in the past compared to the older slushbox automatics, after dealing with this car, we took advantage the Nissan's high resale value and sold it. I got a used Intrigue GLS on ebay with the DOHC 3.5 shortstar V6 (215 hp to the '00 VQ's 222) but the thing is velvet smooth, has gobs of torque, revs willingly to redline (more so than the 3.8 GM motors do) and a super smooth and superb shifting automatic. It also runs on regular fuel, and if you don't use the AC and stick to 65-70 I have gotten 33 and 32 MPG on consectutive gas tanks driving back from buying the car on a long trip. It doesn't handle as well but has better rear suspension design, has stability control, heated seats, bose stereo, etc - although there are a few typical GM rough spots, its a bargin car for us and we love it over the Maxima for our purposes.

Reply to
scott

I had those models for rentals a couple of times and didn't care for the

3.0 VQ either. It didn't have much punch to it.

The 3.5 is better, 255hp/245tq, flatter torque curve, nice power from idle to 3500 rpm's, then the variable valve timing kicks in and it howls to 6700 rpm's. You don't need to have it above 3500 for the torque though, so it's not bad to drive around easy. I have the same motor in my G35 and it feels _very_ torquey matched up to Infiniti's 5 speed auto.

I'm glad you have a car that you enjoy more than the old Max now....to each his own my friend.

b
Reply to
Brent

I know the older 60's chevy "sports sedans" sure looked a heck of a lot better than the regular sedans. They were kinda rare in comparison to the regular ones. The whole roof, side windows, etc are different on the sport sedans.. Roll all the windows down, and no pillars.. The regular sedan had the semi ugly pillars, and a more rounded back window and roof line. The sport sedans back window came to a sharper point, almost like a psuedo convertable or something. BTW, that impala we had an an automatic, but trust me, if you drove it, you would consider it a "sport sedan" just by the shear brute horsepower you could plant to the wheels. You could floor that thing and burn rubber all the way down the street, with enough torque to get the car squirrely and sideways if you didn't keep on top of things. . And I'm not talking about holding the brakes on like these new modern weenies and ricers do.. It makes me cringe to see someone burn rubber by holding the brakes on.. :( Silly it is... You should have seen how that old La Sabre coupe used to act when you floored it's 455 from a standstill.. That was an adventure.. You could get that car sideways and wrapped around a tree if you were not careful.. One of my brothers later did that to that car.. :( That engine was removed and is now rebuilt and in a 73 pontiac lemans a friend of mine has. That car will fly. MK

Reply to
nm5k

Really? Toyota already sent the Corolla outside of the US. It is cheaper to assemble the car of imported and Canadian parts in Canada than to assemble it in the US of US parts. I doubt the price a Corolla has gone down however LOL

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

You are free to believe whatever you chose but you might tell Toyota what you believe, they have been advertising that they are the number one car "brand" in the US for two years. LOL

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

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Mike, you know I like you because you're a smart, Black Jew who does not ridicule Jesus like so many other Jews do. I'm being serious and respectful to you, here--not flippant.

But I have to disagree with you again.

We weren't talking about who the //number one *car* brand// in the U.S. is. We all know the Camry is the best-selling *car* in the U.S.A. So Toyota is not lying.

We're talking about the best-selling brand (period) for all vehicles: cars, trucks, SUVs...

And the number one brand is still Chevy, barely edging out the "Toyota" brand, so said the CNBC fellows whose credibility and reputations are on the line (hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers nationwide).

Now, the "Toyota" brand Sales Figure they're talking about probably does not include Scion and Lexus.

So Chevrolet still is the best-selling brand in America...barely.

Reply to
Built_Well

Let's regroup. I never said Toyota was lying. While the press likes to point to monthly sales figures as reported to the US Department of Commerce, the industry looks at Model year sales and the total sales, year to date, from the past year. Toyota has been advertising the Camry as the best selling car in the US ever since they stopped selling the Solara as a separate brand and made it a model of the Camry. Toyota has been advertising "Toyota" as the best selling car "brand" in the US model, all of which is true. But Toyota is not the number one seller of cars in the US. GM sells more cars, and far more trucks than Toyota, but with different brand names on the grill. Camry, while it is the number one car, it is not the number one selling vehicle in the US. The Ford F150 is the best selling individual model in the US, and has been for 29 years, selling at a rate nearly double that of the Camry, in the US. The Silverado is number two, also at nearly double the Camry sales, and the Dodge Ram number three in sales, year to date. Camry is number four. The Ford "F Series" is the number one truck "brand" but again GM sell more trucks in the US but not under the same brand name. Nearly half of all the vehicles sold in the US are light trucks and GM sells more trucks alone than Toyota sells cars and trucks combined.

mike

wrote in message news:46e1f150$0$62306$ snipped-for-privacy@auth.newsreader.octanews.com...

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Toyotas are like illegal immigrants, as soon as they become established and get a foot hold the quality slips just like now Toyota and Nissan have a recall on some of there engines. When illegal immigrants become citizens their wages for working goes up to the level of any other US citizen. Why do you think businesses like illegal labor so much? Because its cheap until they become legal. Being Illegal in the U.S pays...if you own a business, thats why the US government just loves it all the while acting like there hands are tied.

Reply to
Dick Biggs

It is reassuring that they will, at least, recall their mistakes and try to fix them.

GM has a long history of making serious mistakes (or planned ones?) in their engines, and dodging the responsibility. Maybe GM can learn from them.

Reply to
HLS

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