Re: Toyota vehicles lacked passion, must be more exciting

Not true. In fact, I don't think Toyota has ever been number one in Customer Satisfaction or Reliability (Lexus has some years, but Toyota, never). I think if you check the facts, you'll see Buick has beaten Toyota on both scores more than once. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel all that great running around saying, my car is almost as good as a Buick. But then I think most of the beauty polls people like to quote are at best bunk. CR's is the worst, and JD Power only a little better.

Ed

I'll give Buick kudos as far as having improved the breed, but there are several factors as you say. Some of these satisfaction indices are based upon almost new cars. Let them age 3-4 years and see what they look like.

My wife and I bought Buicks for some years. Sometimes she talks about her last one (98 LeSabre) being a good car...BUT, it burned up an alternator, threw a belt when the goofy tensioner seized, ate a HVAC computer, had the plastic plenum decompose and fill the engine with water, had a transmission problem that never advanced to failure but was scary at times, had the radio tape deck fail (known weakness in this case) and so on.

Was it really good? Maybe not as good as she remembers it.

I had an 89 Regal that was a pleasure to drive (when it ran). It lost the Metric tranny at less than 100K miles, ate water pumps like crazy, polished off the water pumps with a dessert of ECS100 alternators (MANY of them),had regular problems with the rear disc brakes (a defective design), had the cheapo pot metal door handles break, developed water leaks around the rear window, etc etc... It had so many nice characteristics, but was -despite my fond memory of it - a piece of crap.

Why would the same water pump on my '88 Celebrity go 120k miles before it started weeping, and the replacement go to 190k miles and still be fine when the car was junked, while your Buick ate them? And it's the same pump on my '97 Lumina which went to about 110k when I put in a new one as a precaution because my girls took the car on a long trip to Florida. Ever see a movie called "The Cooler?" I think you're a cooler around water pumps. Water pump bad luck goes where you go.

--Vic

Meh, there's some truth to what you say BUT... if Lexus service is anything like Infiniti service, the dealership experience may influence customer satisfaction in a big way. Had a friend years ago who had a used G20 (basically an upscale Sentra.) Missed a shift on the freeway and got a free head rebuild from the dealer even after admitting to blowing said shift. He eventually traded it for a Z, and complained that they didn't treat him as well afterwards.

The reverse can be true as well. IMHO VW made some of the finest small FWD boxen on the road in the 80's but their dealer service was so atrocious that they always were at the bottom of the barrel in customer satisfaction.

Magazine road tests do tell you a lot about a car, but not always everything you want to know. Some Mitsubishis road test well, for example, but I wouldn't own one if it were free. You can't predict dropped valve guides at 50K miles based on a couple hundred mile road test of a new car, but you CAN assess acceleration, handling, and comfort...

Now what I want in a car is light weight, great handling, rear wheel drive, gobs of power, a shifter that feels like the bolt of an old, well-oiled ought-six, controls that as they say "fall readily to hand" and comfortable, supportive seats. I also want dead nuts reliability and an econobox price. Unfortunately I don't think that this car exists :(

nate

Reliability as reported by the owner is 100% subjective.

Obviously that's silly, but there is certainly SOME subjectivity.

But when it comes to comparing across makes and models, we need not worry about that, unless there is a consistent tendency in reporting...

For example, would you expect Toyota customers to over-report reliability compared with, say, Ford owners?

If reliability is a '9' for Toyota and a '7' for Ford (just making up numbers of course), could you explain away the difference due to 'subjectivity'? If so, what would your argument be that Toyota owners are over-reporting the reliability of their cars?

Compare that to the many thousands of owners who were stranded because VW didn't have enough supply on hand to take care of the issue.

...and regular wheel bearing replacement, and regular electrical problems, and...

But in reality, Mitsu is about as low on the list as you can get. I mean, even Yugo figured out how to keep the majority of the oil out of the combustion chambers.

Heh. Did they use the same heads as the V-6 POS engines they put in Chrysler minivans?

I mean really. How hard is it to spec a proper press fit...?

nate

Mazda MX5 3rd Generation. Also called the Eunos or Miata in earlier generations in different markets. Don't know if they still are.

Purebred small engined two seater open top sports car.