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Brand Problems Swept Under The Rug
Pick any brand and someone can name a problem they tried to sweep under the rug or downplay.
Who wants to go first? British Rover?
Who wants to go first? British Rover?
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Toyota: sludging 2.2 and 3.0 in the late 90s (at least, some would say they tried to sweep it under the rug, including all those in the lawsuit action class that eventually won their suit), failing head gaskets on the 3.0 (different 3.0) from '90-'95. (and a few '96s, there was eventually a silent recall and a 100K extended warranty)
Subaru: failing head gaskets on the 2.5s in the late 90s and early 00s. Failing wheel bearings on Outbacks (perhaps other models as well?).
Honda: ?? The auto trans's in the late 90s and early 00s V-6s? How quickly did they respond to that? Was the "fix" effectual?
VW: ignition coils on 1.8Ts for most of the early 00s. Claimed it wasn't a big problem even as owners waited on a six week backlog of parts before they could drive their cars again.....
GM: DexCool?
Ford: head gaskets in the "Vulcan" V-6?
I hope someone will help me out with the domestics. Seems like most Chrysler products were short-lived products of ill quality until the 300 came along. Andre might beg to differ.... ;-)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
VW - too many electrical glitches to remember.
Early fixes on those Honda trannies were a problem. They eventually got things right and at least in my case didn't take it out of my pocket and kept me rolling the whole time.
My folks had an OHC 6 in a 67 Pontiac Tempest that GM spent some time denying was a defective design.
Everyone will have stories in here...
My sister had the electrical issues, mostly with the power window and locks, on her '00 New Beetle.
Ford Explorer roll-overs?
Earlier MB W210 in harsh winter regions are becoming rusty, and many enthusiasts aren't loving those cars.
Older Passport/Rodeos and Axioms seem to have more frame rust than normal too.
Back to Ford, I had friends who had the "plastic" gear failure happen to them long ago.
They denied the frame rust problem for a long long time though. Started buying back rusted out Tacomas for XX percent over KBB trade in a couple years back.
GM plastic intake manifold gaskets on the NA 3800 series II motors
Well, I can dig up some dirt on Chryslers over the years...
1955: I've heard stories that the 1955 models were poorly put together. However, I think this was partly because the 1949-54 models were almost tank-like. Truth be told, all cars started getting flimsier around that timeframe. Once upon a time, cars had to be built like trucks, to handle all sorts of road conditions...dirt, gravel, deep ruts, washouts, etc. But as America got paved and more civilized, the car became "softer" and started to differentiate itself more from the truck. From examples I've seen though at car shows, I would say that the typical 1955 GM product, or 1949-54 Mopar, does look like it has better fit and finish.
1957: These cars suddenly made the competition look about 4 years old, and Plymouth's ads proclaimed "suddenly it's 1960". Unfortunately, rust resistance was so bad that many of these cars would not be around in 1960! The market in general softened for 1957. About 8 million 1955 domestics were sold I think, and around 7.5 million 1956es. 1957 saw that market shrink to about 6.2 million...but Mopars were wildly popular that year, taking something like 20% of the market. It was Plymouth's best year ever up to that point, and I think that would only be surpassed once or twice in the early 1970's, thanks partly to the Duster. I think it was DeSoto's third best year ever, surpassed only by 1953 and 1950. Something like 37,000 Imperials were built, and I believe that was an all-time record. Dodge and Chrysler also had strong, if not necessarily record-setting sales. The 1957 cars were rushed to the market, which hurt quality, and because of their wild popularity, assembly lines were no doubt sped up in an attempt to rush the cars out the door. The biggest problems were squeaks, leaks, rattles, and rusting. And of course, leaks could lead to electrical problems. However, even things that Chrysler is normally good at, such as engines, transmissions, started to suffer, as they were rushed down the production line.
Dodge Dart: Many people consider the Dart and its Valiant sibling to be one of the best cars ever built, especially when equipped with the slant six engine. However, at least one rag joked that it was one of the worst cars ever made! The reason was that the fresh air intake vents tended to hold water, a problem only exacerbated by drain holes that were easily clogged. Accelerating, braking, and turning would cause that water to slosh around, spilling into the car. Well, the cars tended to be durable and long-lasting otherwise, so they'd subject the owner to the torture of wet feet long after most "ordinary" cars had worn out and been junked!
Lean Burn: A rudimentary computer that first debuted for 1974, that controlled the spark advance and a few other functions. When it failed, it was supposed to default to run rich, to keep from burning up the valves. But it wouldn't always. Supposedly a horrible, horrible invention, but I've had three cars with it, and two of them were reliable. The third, a 1979 New Yorker I still have, will occasionally stall out, and sometimes won't start, but my mechanic doesn't think it's the Lean Burn. I drove it to work today, and it behaved. Hopefully, I won't be hitching a ride or hoofing it tonite! :P
This post is becoming epic length, so I'll cut off here and write more later...
I'll play...
Toyota: you beat me to it, I was gonna say sludge on the 1MZ (3.0l V6). Add to your list the hesitation complaints on the new U660E 6 speed automatic. And let's not forget the glass camshafts on the new Tundra, which had to be replaced.
Subaru: just a few more specifics, most of the head gasket failures seemed to be from 1999 to 2001. And yes the wheel bearings failures also occured on the Forester and Impreza but only 98-2001 on the Impreza and 98-2002 on the Forester. 2002 glass trans on the WRX, though to be fair most of those were heavily modified.
Honda: the Ody added a cooler to the trans, IIRC, for model year 2004. So 2003 and earlier trannies are basically time bombs. CR's data shows an immediate improvement under "Transmission" for 2004. Early power doors were also very problematic, though many vans have that problems.
Mazda: the CD4E transmission in the 90's 626 4 cylinder models will need a rebuild every 60k miles, you can count on it. 1990 Miata crank. 99 Miata also had an issue but right now it escapes me.
VW: not only the ignition coils, but also the window regulators. So bad dealers did not have enough stock.
Dodge/Chrysler vans: transmission. A neighbor down the street had 3 differnet Grand Caravans and each ate through a trans, one of them ate two.
The Sienna is heavier and carries a heavier payload than other models, so it would not surprise me of lots of those had the problem. It was less than 1% from what I heard, but I still would not buy a used one and take that gamble.
I believe the formula went like this:
Ungalvanized steel
+
Snow (and salt/chemicals) in New England
+
AWD/4WD cars that were out in that weather all the time
=
Rust.
Well put.
I had a CJ-5 for a few years. The old ones back in the 70's were known for having the gas tanks rust out. New Jeeps have "Death Wobble."
Late 80's Caravans had lousy transmissions, but my '89 Voyager was fine ... not counting the three head gaskets in 90k.
And it's not Toyota sludge - it's gel.
I'm in sort of the same boat with Mopar. The 2.7 that my Intrepid uses was implicated in sludging, and the transmission doesn't have a stellar reputation, either. I've never had any problems with my engine or tranny in the 149,000 miles I've had the Trep, but I also know how it's been taken care of these past ~10 years. I think I'd be reluctant to buy a used one. I think I'd be willing to take a gamble on a 300M or Intrepid/Concorde with the more powerful but simpler, cheaper-to-fix 3.5, but when you consider these cars have been out of production now for about 6 years, even newer ones ain't spring chickens anymore!
That, and while my Intrepid's been a good car, I don't know that I necessarily want another one. Sometimes change is a good thing.
Window Regulators in the back both failed recently.
Oh and the front airmatic struts died too plus something else.
Thank god he is out of his 60 day 3,000 mile state warranty now.
I think there are some occasional transmission flaws in those 2003-04 W211s, too.
I don't roll down the rear windows on my car, I am chicken :shades: ....several years ago I rolled them down on the fintail on a hot day...when I went to roll up the rear driver's side window...snap! It wasn't too tough to replace anyway.
I've never used synthetic before, but I guess it couldn't hurt. Especially since I've gotten a bit lazy with oil changes on that Intrepid!
That's the other question - how many cars have to sludge in order for the brand to get a problem reputation that sticks? The warranty claims accrual rate seems to run under 3 percent for most car makers (Warranty Week).
My guess is that the percentage of "brand problems" that ding a reputation is still relatively low, maybe 5% or 6%.
Double that for Freelander owners. :P
oh man quintuple for freelander owners.
There is a reason why we tried to pass on selling any 2005 MY freelanders.
We had to take some but we took the absolute minimum that we could and stopped selling them used a year or so later which was about the same time we sold the last new one. :surprise:
To add to what you said.
The Chrysler 2.7L had a reputation as a sludger. I owned one and never had any problems. Chrysler trannies from the 90s were supose to be weak but I just sold a 97' with 117K miles and it shifts just fine.
I found the post that said head gaskets on Toyotas were a problem in the 90s to be interesting. I had an 86' Toyota (2.2L I think) that blew the head gasket twice before 40K miles. The truck as a whole was a POS.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
They had a ridiculously strong chassis. The torsional rigidity was better then anything else on the market back then when they came out. The only cars that had stiffer chassis later on were the Cayenne and Range Rover with the Range Rover being the absolute stiffiest.
You could balance a freelander on opposing wheels and open all the doors without getting groans or creeks. Then you could close them again and all the latches still lined up.
Try that with most SUVS and the windows will break.
I KNEW I was going to love this topic! :-P
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
My guess is that the percentage of "brand problems" that ding a reputation is still relatively low, maybe 5% or 6%.
Good source, thanks. My numbers may be outdated, I was recalling an article in Automotive News with a photo of a lady next to her Sienna, at the time it was around 1%. Surely more gelled later.
Still, Toyota's case got more attention because it was a surprise, and that made it front page news.
Still, at $6000 for some cases, I'm not taking any chances with the 3.0l V6.
Various suspension parts get out of spec and causes violent shaking, usually at 50 mph or over. Sometimes it's the tires or alignment.
This is a great post about it:
erickpl, "Jeep Wrangler Tires and Wheels" #134, 20 Nov 2008 7:54 am
I believe it was '98-'02. The '03 Sienna was the new body style, and it used the 3.3L right from the start, went to using the 3.5L about halfway through the model run (for maybe the '06 MY?).
At first there was a rumor or two floating around that the 3.3 had the same problem, only in the Sienna. That seems to have come to nothing.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Alignment issues.
2004 was the re-design.
The 2GR engine arrived in 2007. I know because I shopped the 2006 and decided to wait for the engine upgrade, and that's the main reason I got a 2007.
I'm not 100% sure but I think the visual refresh came in 2006, so it was not at the same time the new engine arrived, IIRC.
I never understood how that could happen...until one day I changed the oil on my Intrepid and it happened. I had taken the old filter off, and didn't realize that the gasket had come loose, and was still stuck to the engine. Put the new filter on, and something didn't seem quite right as I tightened it. That should have been my signal to double-check, but I let it go. Started the car up, and it didn't sound quite right. There were, for lack of a better word, vulgar squirting and squealing sounds coming from under the hood, like what you'd hear in a dirty cartoon (not that I know of such things. :P )
Well, I had changed the oil in my grandmother's driveway, and drove the car down to the end of it, got out, and saw a big oil puddle spreading underneath. Got the car off the driveway, saw where it was coming from, and when I took the filter back off, that's when I noticed there were now two gaskets! And sure enough the old filter had no gasket on it.
Good thing I stopped the car, too, because it ended up squirting out about 3 quarts in 100 feet! I swear, in 20 years of changing oil, I'd never seen something like that happen!
Oh, and to add insult to injury, even though I cleaned up that oil streak the best I could, it still left a mark. And around that timeframe, Bing.com (used to be local.live.com) updated their aerial photographs of the neighborhood, and that streak in my grandmother's driveway showed up in all it Valdez-like splendor.
(I didn't know where else to put this, and it made me laugh just a little
You don't maintain Chevys, you repair them.
The New GM needs to rename their dealer service departments something different. Auto Atelier or something.
Grease monkeys should have caught the extra gasket, but there must've been something on the engine block to make them stay on like that. Plus the exhaust headers are right there, below the oil that spilled.
BBQ Time!
I remember a Detroit paper put a photo of a CR-V on fire (definitely engulfed in flames, BTW) on their front page, but it just didn't get a lot of media attention.
2 things contributed - the sticky filters, but more importantly, an exhaust header location that wasn't at all fault-tolerant.
I followed that thread and it was funny, some people wanted to crucify Honda while others blamed the guy doing the oil changed and even defended the design.
I think a recall to add a simple oil filter relocation kit (probably $15 cost per unit) would have been a good compromise. Honda just sent out TSBs to all dealers IIRC.
It is simply dumb, dumb to put the oil filter above the hot exhaust. There is ALWAYS at least some spillage. Keep the oil filter away from the heat source! Duh.
Every V-8 Mopar I've ever had has been like that, with the exception of a 1967 Newport with a 383 I briefly owned. It had its oil filter up front, but the DeSoto's Hemi, and all the 318's and 360's I've had had the filter on the passenger side, right above the exhaust pipe. On my Dart, it was so close that the exhaust got bent, and rubbed the oil filter. It rubbed a hole in it, and I had oil pouring directly on the pipe! I was able to solve that problem by just using a shorter filter...until I finally got the exhaust system replaced.
I remember my '82 Cutlass Supreme with its Buick V-6 had the filter up front, similar to the Mopar Big Block. No danger of leaking on the exhaust up there, but as I recall, the Cutlass would leak right on a rubber fitting for the suspension, which no doubt would lead to premature deterioration.
I think the Olds 307 in my grandmother's LeSabre was above the exhaust, too. At least, I remember changing the oil once and getting some on the pipe. On those old cars, I guess they just didn't run that hot, because the oil would just cook off, but not ignite. With the Honda, I guess it was coming out as a fine enough spray to actually ignite?
Subaru does it right - the filter is WAAAAAY up front nowhere near the exhaust, and easy to access.
Same for my Toyota 2GR V6 (Sienna, Camry, etc.).
My 91 Escort had the filter above the exhaust collector. Dumb, dumb.
My 93 Miata had a hard to reach location, but at least they had the sense to route the exhaust on the other side.
Tougher with V- and H- engines, but as mentioned above Toyota and Subaru got it right.
I think that convenient access for servicing ranks pretty low on the list nowadays. We DIY types are a dying breed.
Honda's different. The bury them where they will never be found.
The service shop I ran was primarily a quick lube place but we did do a lot of other services. I would say about 2/3s of our revenue came from oil changes. You aren't making a lot of profit on a $23.00, including tax and disposal fee, basic oil change so most of our profit was on the up sell services just like any other business. You upgrade someone to a synthetic oil change at $57.00, including tax and disposal fee, plus they but an air filter for $14.95 then you are doing alright.
There are three primary reasons an oil filter gasket sticks to the motor.
1. The Oil filter isn't properly crimped to hold the gasket in place. Every once in a while you just get a bad run of filters. I have seen it happens many times.
2. The oil filter is on way, way, way too tight. That is probably what caused the CR-V problems because they were on insanely tight. You could spend 15 minutes just trying to turn one of those filters two revolutions when they came in for their first oil change. They were in too tight of a place so no easy way to get a wrench or pliers on and you couldn't see what you were doing either.
3. The tech forgets to put some fresh oil on the gasket when it was put on originally.
Sometimes it is a combination of all three but one of those three things is the killer that makes a gasket stick on. Most of the times you can figure it out really easy or you can see the gasket on the engine still. You should check the old filter to make sure it has a gasket attached too but techs don't always remember that. Some filters have a dark black gasket anyway so they aren't easy to see right away.
That CR-V was also I think the first or second honda to go with the smaller PZ-109, using my old penzoil part number speak, oil filter. Before that all hondas were PZ33s, unless they were really old hondas then they were a PZ-18A, that was a larger 1/4 cup filter. The PZ-109 was the same thread as a PZ33 but it was skinnier and a hair longer. The PZ-109 held less oil then the PZ33, probably 3/16s of a cup instead of 1/4 cup, and because it was skinnier it was harder to grip then the PZ-33.
So that smaller unfamiliar filter, combined with not being able to see anything, combined with the filter seeming to be on tighter then any other factory Honda filter to date were all contributing factors. Maybe honda had a run of improperly crimped filters too. Honda factory filters were always on really, really tight. The oil filter usually came off all mangled and nasty and was a big PITA. Ford factory filters were nearly as tight as the Honda's but the ford filters were usually larger and in easier to reach locations so that made it better.
Oh yeah, Maximas. Guess they got that one handled in late '06 finally.
Nissan Maxima: Stolen Headlights!!
All you gotta do is hand tighten those filters. Are some of the techs using air tools or something? Relax, folks!
Was a little slow at work and I have been kind of concentrating on internet customers over showroom customers in case my wife goes into labor. Makes it easier to bail out for the day in case I need to
I always told my new guys hand tight for oil filters. There are only a very small number of cars that require a tool to tighten the filter. The cars with canister style oil filters of course and most larger diesel engines that have spin on filters.
For example the 7.3 liter power stroke diesel that Ford used a few years ago has a filter, FL-1995 is the motorcraft stock number, that holds about two quarts of oil. It is one big filter and needs to be primed to prevent oil starvation at start up. The filter is so large and heavy that tightening it by hand may not make it tight enough. Plus that big diesel shakes so much that it can loosen the big filter over time.
We had a big band wrench for that filter and just wrapped a rag around the inside to keep from scraping up the shell of the filter too much.
Hmhh back on topic other problems that I found while running the shop that were swept under the rug.
The northstar caddy engines had the tendency to consume massive quantities of oil. They fixed it later on but a quart every few hundred miles was normal.
Back to ford the early two valve and four valve modular motors in the Crown Vic, Mustang, F-150 etc. would consume almost that much oil if you used synthetic. They seemed ok with conventional oil though and the problem was most noticeable in the F-150s and the four valve modular motor in the Mark VIII, Navigator and Cobra.
Mazda Rotary engines could probably have a thread all to themselves, but early ones had the seal issues and new ones still burn oil.
Guess not.
They also said it would be much more fuel-efficient...guess not: 17-18 mpg, a number worthy of a 5000-pound full-frame SUV, is pretty bad for a 2900-pound 2+2.
Now they are making the same promises for the next-gen Rotary: 30% better fuel economy, and reduced oil consumption. They DON'T get the benefit of the doubt......we will see.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)