May Was Tough Sales Month For Detroit, Record Good Month For Toyota

[monarch]

The long term reliability and durability of American cars hasn't improved substantially in recent years

I'd like to see you back that statement up with some data.

I have access to 31 years worth of Consumer Reports. In all that time, the frequency of repair records of most American vehicles, as compared to comparable Toyota models, has looked like this:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/cr.jpg As you can see, even after the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th years of ownership, the various mechanical components of Toyotas tend to remain reliable whereas American car components tend to reliable only during the first 3-4 years. I'm not aware of any substantial changes the American car makers have made in the various mechanical components to change this trend (except in isolated cases where new government regulations mandated better durability standards for certain components like some of the emission system components).

[Lexusfreak]

My great Aunt was in a pretty bad car accident about a month ago (her life long friend was badly injured in the passenger seat, but will be OK in time I'm happy to say) in her 1986 Murcury Marquis station wagon (she lived in Florida until 1995 so the car was in excellent shape actually) just purchased a 2003 Toyota Camry LE 4 cyl on my advice & she loves it & couldn't be happier (she had her eye on a Buick Allure......Lacrosse for my American friends.....but fell in love with the Camry after test driving both).

I personally will not go back to domestic anytime soon & this is coming from someone who was GM for years. ;) I don't know what it is.....but Detroit did loose their way along the line somewhere........pretty much every statistic supports that for the last several years.

[nc211]

American car components tend to reliable only during the first 3-4 years.

Not to knock the American cars, I've seen several Fords go 100k+ trouble free, and a few GM's as well....But...I do agree that it seems more likely this statement is true instead of false...

Funny how I read an article many moons ago about how GM purposly engineered certain component parts "alternators, pumps, etc...." with specific plastic parts that had a tested operational life of about 40k miles....Just outside of those 3 year / 36k mile bumper-bumper warranties....They banked on maintenance costs as their cashflow...aka...squeezing the profits from the initial sale to an ongoing cashflow from the vehicle..

Sadly for them, not too many other manufacturers have the same approach, and the market in general as evidenced by the sales numbers, don't agree with it either.

But, the only other car outside of the LS400 I would LOVE to own would be a 99' Tahoe fully loaded....I love those trucks!!!!

[SW03ES]

Oh I absolutely agree, there's no doubt that Toyota makes a better car, I'm just saying the American cars are getting better.

Okay Monarch, lets see some stats OTHER than Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports only polls its members, its not an unbiased source of information. Look up some JDPower stuff and come back to me.

I have browsed those boards, and that does absolutely nothing to the fact that I know a numerous people that drove those vehicles for 10+ years with no major powertrain (or other) failure. Some might be better than others (Just as I'm sure most ES owners haven't faced 8 or 9 warranty repairs totaling $10k before 50k miles.) Maybe that Explorer tranny is a byzantine POS (it can't be completely true based off of what I've seen.), but like I said earlier, I'm not here to discuss who makes a better automatic transmission.

I know plenty of people that have AWD RX300s with over 100k miles and have never experienced a transmission failure, but when I suggested that we don't know how many people are actually affected by that issue you accused me of being Monarch ;)

But trust me, I know more about the Explorer than you do. The V6 Explorers up until the redesign in 2002 had one of the most unreliable automatic transmissions ever made. Failure rate before 80k miles is in the 40-50% range. Failure rate after 80k miles is around 75%. Ford absolutey will not cover any of these repairs. Ask some Ford techs if the transmission in the first and second generation V6 Explorers is prone to failure, if they say no then they don't know what they're talking about.

As a matter of fact, Ford has techs that do nothing but rebuild transmissions on the Explorer, they are regional and travel around from dealer to dealer. These guys compete and pride themselves on how much better they can rebuild the transmission than it was built before. Think about the number of Explorers on the road, and the failure rate and you'll see why they need techs just for this.

[mburnickas]

I put about 10% faith in Consumer Reports data. I love there latest wax review; talk about sad. Or there lawn mower review (more like toys). Or there Treadmill review (cheap ones at that).

I love my Toyo and would buy another but I have again owned Ford, Chevy’s etc. What puts a bad taste in my mouth about Toyos was (1) thing. It was there “no design” issues with sludge but everyone states there is a problem. Then they (Lexus-aka Toyota) sends out letters. Why when they stated there is no issue?

As I stated before with the advent of SPC in the engineering field, sometimes you get a good one and sometimes not. Cars I think (for today) there are many goods ones and Toyo’s are up there (top 2 if not 1). For trucks, overseas is out (and has been) since they do not build trucks that will even compete with Ford Powerstroke, Dodge Cummins or Chevy’s Duramax. If they did, they would have the market all over. Build a 1-ton pickup with a nice strong diesel and BAM.

[monarch]

Okay Monarch, lets see some stats OTHER than Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports only polls its members, its not an unbiased source of information. Look up some JDPower stuff and come back to me.

To my knowledge, JD Powers doesn't provide 8 years worth of data on the reliability of powertrain components, cooling and air conditioning systems, brakes, etc. The CR data may not be 100% unbiased, but its been good enough to the extent that the Toyota based American cars like the Pontiac Vibe and Chevy Prism have earned good mechanical component reliability scores just as one would expect if the CR data was mostly unbiased.

[blake918]

I know plenty of people that have AWD RX300s with over 100k miles and have never experienced a transmission failure, but when I suggested that we don't know how many people are actually affected by that issue you accused me of being Monarch ;)

It was a joke for christ's sake! I found it especially humorous because he nearly said the exact same sentence over in the RX forum. I am more than aware that their isn't a 100% failure rate on the RX300 AWD cars as I have stated in my prior posts.

I'm pleading no contest on the V6 Explorer transmissions. I never wrote anything about disagreeing with you(--I did say it's a moot point *for me* because one of the main points of getting an Explorer is to get the V8 engine). I did say that I have about 5 friends and relatives that drove '91ish Explorers for 10+ years and 200k+ miles with no powertrain or other major failures. Based on what others are saying it sounds out of the norm, but their are satisfied first gen Explorer customers out there, just as their are satisfied RX AWD customers.

[98es]

I had a '97 Explorer V8 AWD that had been beat to hell by 2 previous owners and towed boats all its life. I flushed the tranny at 115k (presumably the first time the fluid had ever even been changed), sold it at 130k. Transmission was rock solid. For the most part I would say the explorer is and has been well built. I have another friend that has a '98 V6 thats got 130k and i highly doubt shes ever changed any fluids except maybe oil. They definitely don't age like toyotas though... after ~8yrs they rattle and all the electronics start going.

[SW03ES]

]It was a joke for christ's sake! I found it especially humorous because he nearly said the exact same sentence over in the RX forum. I am more than aware that their isn't a 100% failure rate on the RX300 AWD cars as I have stated in my prior posts.

LOL, I know it was a joke thats why I added the miley.

I'm pleading no contest on the V6 Explorer transmissions. I never wrote anything about disagreeing with you(--I did say it's a moot point *for me* because one of the main points of getting an Explorer is to get the V8 engine). I did say that I have about 5 friends and relatives that drove '91ish Explorers for 10+ years and 200k+ miles with no powertrain or other major failures. Based on what others are saying it sounds out of the norm, but their are satisfied first gen Explorer customers out there, just as their are satisfied RX AWD customers.

But the Explorer didn't have the V8 until 1996, over 5 years since it originally was launched. They continued to use the same transmission even knowing the obscene failure rate until 2001! At least Toyota changes its designs when issues happen.

I had a '97 Explorer V8 AWD that had been beat to hell by 2 previous owners and towed boats all its life. I flushed the tranny at 115k (presumably the first time the fluid had ever even been changed), sold it at 130k. Transmission was rock solid. For the most part I would say the explorer is and has been well built. I have another friend that has a '98 V6 thats got 130k and i highly doubt shes ever changed any fluids except maybe oil. They definitely don't age like toyotas though... after ~8yrs they rattle and all the electronics start going.

The V8 is a totally different story, the transmission in that vehicle like the engine comes from the Mustang and its very strong. The 98 V6 your friend had was probably a SOHC, it has a somewhat stronger transmission although failures still happen at about a 35% rate (mine is a SOHC and it failed at 77k miles).

The issue comes with the A4LD and its successor the 455RE (i believe) mated to the OHV V6.

Go to www.explorerforum.com and search for "transmission failure" and see how many threads you get. In the thousands.

We had three Explorers, and they're great vehicles up until about 80k miles. I don't think my 97 Limited left a shop for less than $800 since it rolled over 80k miles, it just left a shop again for the 5th A/C replacement at $1100 and it barely even gets driven. The repair costs on that vehicle get to nearly $20,000 in 180,000 miles. Thats twenty thousand dollars. Thats also not an abnormal figure.

[blake918]

We had three Explorers, and they're great vehicles up until about 80k miles. I don't think my 97 Limited left a shop for less than $800 since it rolled over 80k miles, it just left a shop again for the 5th A/C replacement at $1100 and it barely even gets driven. The repair costs on that vehicle get to nearly $20,000 in 180,000 miles. Thats twenty thousand dollars. Thats also not an abnormal figure.

So why not sell it? If it doesn't get driven and it's not reliable, why keep it? First failure was at 77k miles? That's nothing, our '99 Suburban's tranny died ~60k miles. LOL

[SW03ES]

I would have, but my mother is very attached to it lol. They use it for a rough use vehicle. Since I didn't buy it I just gave it back when I got the Lexus.

Its not even that it isn't reliable, only once has it ever gotten anybody stranded anywhere, and that was recently and it was a fuel pump (another common Explorer problem). It has broken down at home and needed to be towed several times. Including one time when the fan belt tensioner just decided to explode into 4 peices on startup for some reason nobody gets.