Poll, worst lemon: Yugo Vs. Taurus

Lemon as in "lots of repairs required to major components" or POS as in "total trash from one end to the other" ? The Taurus is a good nominee for lemon, but the Yugo wins the POS award.

| >I nominate the Taurus and the Yugo. Please vote for one of these | >or submit another vehicle that you think is a bigger lemon. | | Lemon as in "lots of repairs required to major components" or POS | as in "total trash from one end to the other" ? The Taurus is a | good nominee for lemon, but the Yugo wins the POS award. | |

I don't get it. I haven't owned a Ford since the 70's, but I've read that the Taurus is one model that has one of the most repeat buyers. If it was such a lemon, why would that be?

Pronounced Mercury Mistake?

You have no idea. How about over 10k in repairs paid by the extended warrantee company between 96 and 2002. 3k by me.

It's the the #3 top seller, so I imagine that even if the the repeat buyer percentage is low, the absolute number of repeat buyers is high. I understand that fleet sales account for up to 60% of Taurus sales. I wonder if car rental companies get factored in as repeat buyers.

I think this is a case of lying with statistics. I'd like to see more details. I wonder what the brand loyalty percentages are. It could be people are moving from Civics to Accords to Acuras as they get more prosperous, while Taurus drivers are losers who can't make any progress.

andrew

VW, any model and year after 1969.

Well, James, it's because generally speaking, North American consumers are sheeplike morons. There's no other explanation for the sales success of so many different kinds of garbage, from the Big Mac to the Vega to the Taurus to the Twinkie to the Marlboro to Froot Loops to Wonder bread to tickets for "Scooby Doo II".

DS

'95 Ford Windstar

I had a '71 superbug and there wasn't a system on that car that have multiple failures. In 3 years of ownership, I had more repairs than I've had on all cars following it, combined by about a factor of five. Ditto for my father's '76 rabbit. Ditto for a brother's VW station wagon (model 4?)

It's always amusing nowadays to see periods of massive VW popularity such as the passats of about 8 years ago and then to watch them all vanish in about 3 years. The only other car I've seen such a wave of popularity and then seen them vanish was the yugo and the original hyundais.

I think Ford and the other domestics can attribute much of their market share to charity. Charity in the form of import tariffs that remain in place and charity in the form of the misguided patriotism of people who think they are helping this country by buying an inferior product simply because it's American.

I'm sure the stupidity and bad taste of the American car buyer play a part too.

Andrew

Off the top of my head, early Hyundai come to mind; Yugo was pretty bad, any of the cheapo American compact cars when they first started making them (Chevette, Escort) anything American with a computer controlled carb, smog carbs (four million vacuum hoses) anything American when they tried to install a very underpowered engine into it (Camaro/Firebird with a 4cyl, Taurus with a 4cyl, Mustang with a 4cyl wasn't quite so bad). Can't forget Jeep Cherokee with the French ECMs..

Biggest problems with Taurii were 3.8 head gaskets and early 90's transmission problems.. other than that they are pretty decent cars that sold very well. We've owned an 88, 91 and 94 in normal trim, and a 93 SHO 5sp. For the record, the 88 blew the trans when it was run 2 quarts low of trans fluid and driven 500 miles on I-95 @70 mph, the 91 (which was the weakest year for the trans ((estimated that 1 in 5 transmissions would fail)) transmission failed when the car was overload and driven in the mountains (I found the trans held up well if you ran it one quart overfilled with trans fluid), the 94 had a 3.8 with blown head gaskets, and the SHO has been really good.. very fun to drive. Changed the timing belt/water pump, put a clutch in it, and tuned it up. Timing belt wasn't much worse than the daughter's Honda, and I'd rather change the plugs on the SHO (including R&R intake) than change plugs on a Ford V8 with Coil on Plug system..

My opinion is get the drivetrain problems worked out and they are great cars.. last time I talked to my Jasper rep he mentioned he wouldn't drive a Chrysler because of the transmission problems.. the topic came up because I mentioned I had just changed the head gasket on my wife's 97 Sebring convertible.. seems Mopar is having problems keeping head gaskets on their 2.0/2.4 engines..

Regards,

Jim

I see two major problems with North American auto manufacturers (Can't call em' U.S. anymore now that NAFTA is in play.):

First - over the years technology has been brought to the forefront in car manufacturing. Robotics now produce more of a car than human beings do. But robots are relatively expensive. Cheap labor in Mexico replaces the robots with the attendant decline in quality.

The second problem needs a little setup:

There's an old saying, pick two of the following: fast, cheap, right.

If you want it fast and cheap, it's not going to be right. If you want it fast and right, it's not going to be cheap. And if you want it cheap and right, it's not going to be fast.

The accountants seem to have chosen fast and cheap. For example - Ford Taurus transmissions of the 90's had a horrible failure rate because a particular small part was made of plastic instead of metal. That plastic piece saved something like $5.00 per transmission and shaved the weight by a fraction of an ounce. But it made the transmissions die every

"Cheapo American compact cars" (at least in the postwar era) started out with vehicles such as the Nash Rambler, Kaiser's Henry J, and the Hudson Jet. (Bring in the small niche manufacturers and you have cars like the King Midget and the Crosley.) I don't think any of these were as bad as the Yugo! (By the way, Yugo is threatening to return to the U.S.! See

Heck, if true (and probably is partly), why should any car company build a good quality car? Although I will say I've not known many people to buy the same model car very often. The only exception is the Chrysler minivan lines...I know several people that are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th buy of those...some have gone to Ford, Honda or GM...but seem to come back to the Chrysler product eventually (for some reason).

That's a popular myth based on nothing but racism. (Truth hurts, don't it?) My experience with models built simultaneously in the US and in Mexico is that the Mexican-built cars are equal or better in terms of build quality.

DS

Because some people in some markets will seek out and buy it.

DS

And somewhere around the time of 01/25/2004 06:42, the world stopped and listened as Andrew contributed the following to humanity:

Ford Pinto Ford Granada Chevy Caprice Classic Wagon

And somewhere around the time of 01/25/2004 18:37, the world stopped and listened as Daniel J. Stern contributed the following to humanity:

FWIW, I have a 2000 Ford Focus with the Z-Tech engine, and I have had relitively little trouble with it. It's just that the maintenance costs are so high because most of the long-term serviceable (brake pads, rotors, belts, cam belt, transmission filter, ignition wires, etc...) parts are "Dealer Only", that and all the weird recalls that have been made. Those are my only complaints.

And somewhere around the time of 01/25/2004 06:42, the world stopped and listened as Andrew contributed the following to humanity:

One thing that I would like to add to this is the Chevy Caprice Classic Station Wagon. I beleive that it was a 1985 model. Well taken care of, oil changes every 3000 miles, etc...After 38,000 miles the engine suffered a cracked head or blown head gasket. Never found out which one it was. Coolent was going into the oil. What really pissed me off was the fact that the dealership wouldn't stand behind their warrenty. Their statement: "You will have to pay $1400.00 up front, and if the manufacturer feels it was their fault, then they will reimbuse you." Bullshit. It was imediately traded in at the Ford dealership across the street. Chevy? Never again.

Ford may have problems with their products, but their warrenty is quite good, and they stand behind it. It's just the routine maintenance costs that's expensive...At least in my case.

My Ford Ranger pickup has a few stories behind it as well. It's a 1991 XLT model. Let's see...It's been wreaked 3 times, broken into twice, towed about 5 times...

Major Problems:

1. At 15,000 miles, a seal in the transmission blew out. Took it to the dealer, they replaced it. Under warrenty. At 20,000 miles another seal (different one) blew, also replaced by the same dealership. At

- manufacturing defect. Ford flew in these two guys who were experts at transmissions and basically built me a new transmission from scratch. Total cost $1300.00, my cost $50.00. Also about this time, I noticed that the tires were wearing unevenly. During the transmission rebuild, they rebuilt the front end and shimed it because they couldn't alin it for some reason. It's been fine ever since.

1. At around 20,000 miles, I was driving home on I-680 through the Benicia corridor between Benicia and Cordellia over here in Northern California. I was moving at about 70-75 MPH when the engine suddenly lost power and quit. I shifted it into neutral, turned on the hazzards, and coasted to a stop. I didn't know what was wrong and it wouldn't start. After it cooled down, I was able to get it started and I drove it directly to the dealership. All guages read normal. The problem? The TFI module which is a sub-processor to the ECM and controls the ignition basically said good-night, but only when it got hot. It was fixed at no cost to me.

1. At about 75,000 miles, my pickup truck suffered that flaming ford problem. More info here:
   formatting link
   . Luckly, itdidn't catch fire, but it did burn out the keyswitch, the wire betweenthe keyswitch and the starter relay, the starter relay, the batterycable to the starter relay, the cable from the starter relay to thestarter, the big main 4 guage battery cable from the batter to thestarter, and the starter itself. It cost about 0 to fix. I wouldhave traded it in at that point, but I couldn't afford a new vehicle, soI had it fixed. Never had a problem with it since.

1. After owning this truck for about 6 years, the AC quit working. Turns out the O rings are gone. Still haven't gotten that fixed...One of these days...

1. After about 120,000 miles, the pinion seal on the differental blew out and all the oil leaked out. Replaced the seal but after that it blew again, so I just left it alone until a wheel bearing went out. Then I replaced the differential.

2. The latest one seems to be several things at once.

6a. First, the truck developed a leak. I was getting rain water INSIDE the cab on the driver side. Took the carpets out could find it, but it was leaking pretty good. Took it to a mechanic and he ran a dye test on it. Turned out the sealer was giving way in multiple places. He fixed a couple to slow down the leak but he couldn't fix it. Told to go to a body shop. I pulled the driver side fender off and we looked inside and we couldn't see where it was leaking from. First body shop that I took it to told me to go pound sand, but they refered me. I went to the shop that I was refered to and it turns out that they specialize in this type of thing. They must be good because there was a CHP cruiser being worked on there. After completely removing the dash to get at it (they took pictures. There was only the steering wheel and a mass of tagged wires), they put a very genorous amount of seam-sealer in the joints between the welds. Still waiting to see if it still leaks as we haven't gotten any rain yet.

Why didn't I trade it in along time ago? Because at the major junction points I didn't have enough money to buy a new vehicle, otherwise I would have. But, on the flip side of the coin, other than listed above, all of the problems with it have been little or minor things like coils, hoses, belts, electrical parts, etc. Equipment does get old and parts do wear out and break, but for the most part, all the bugs have been worked out and there are no major issues...Except the AC. Plus, it's cheaper to fix the old one than it is to buy a new one, and who knows what you get when you buy a new one these days. Truck still runs good, and it is still mechanically sound. I figure I'll keep it till it finally dies, but if the engine goes, I'll probably rebuild it.

All in all, it's been a good little truck.