Well, on the flip side, one of my former managers had a 1992 Civic, and he got that sucker up to about 200,000 miles before he had any issues. His was a stripper model with a stick shift though, and he had a long highway commute. Dunno if it had a/c or not. My friends' Civic was a nicely equipped EX model, and they did a lot more local driving.
Honestly, I think the reason my friends' Civic turned out to be a turd was because I recommended it to them! If I told them to avoid it, and they bought one anyway, it would have been perfect and they'd still be driving it! :-P
Mine was pretty basic too. DX I think it was called. It had AC but was also a manual. In those days Honda was more known for their manual transmissions.
Hopefully your friendship survived a bad car recommendation!
Well, there was a recall so it had to be a significant number, although many vans were totally fine. The V6 Accords were not as problematic as the Ody though. It was widely reported because Honda has always had such a good reputation. I think the problem years were 2003-4, and there have not been comparable problems since then.
I only know one person with an '05 Odyssey--and his trans took a, well, you know. Honda's goodwill offer was to charge him $1,800. He said, "It's a Honda, not a Kia!".
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
The decline in customer satisfaction is not a serious threat yet for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, but could quickly become a problem if it continues to drop, said Claes Fornell, chairman and founder of ACSI.
"I don't think Detroit can afford to slip back further," Fornell said. "We know that repeat business is important to every automaker, and that decreasing customer satisfaction makes it that much harder to get customer back."
A closer look at the data show that some domestic brands actually improved from a year ago. GMC rose from 80 to 85, tied with Cadillac — just behind Subaru, Toyota and Honda at 86. Ford matched the industry average of 83, as did Chrysler brand, which jumped from 78 to 83.
The three brands that declined most were Chevrolet (79 from 84 a year ago), Jeep (80 from 83) and Dodge (79 from 81).
The Ford Fusion may already beat the Toyota Camry in terms of models offered, transaction price and sales increase so far this year, but if the Fusion wants to make a run at the title of best-selling car in the US, Bloomberg reminds us that volume is key. Opening a second production line at the Flat Rock, MI assembly plant will reportedly allow Ford to produce around 350,000 Fusions annually, which compares Toyota's ability to crank out 475,000 Camrys and Honda's capacity to build around 450,000 Accords.
For the Fusion, that's an extra 100,000 units compared to the car's current pace, and the article adds that the Fusion is "Ford's best shot" to regain the passenger car sales crown – a title it (or any other US automaker, for that matter) hasn't held since the mid-1990s. Despite hiccups with recalls and fuel economy numbers, the Ford Fusion is still red hot when it comes to sales. Fusion sales are up 13 percent so far this year (compared to a 0.6 percent decrease for Camry), and its average transaction price of $26,343 is about $2,300 more than its rival from Toyota.
The Fusion's popularity has helped Ford improve its sales in California; the Dearborn-based automaker has a market share of 18 percent in the state, which is just a fraction of a percentage behind Honda. And this popularity should continue as Ford ups Fusion production and expands the model lineup even further for 2014 with a new 1.5-liter EcoBoost engine soon to become an option.
.. if I have transmission issues before 100,000 miles, I'm not going to exactly be a fan. Hell, if a 1980 Malibu with the troubleprone THM200C transmission can go 100K+ without failure (that was when I sold it), I figure anything should be able to!
Agreed. Transmissions have been around a long time and are a most basic part of a vehicle. Really no excuse IMHO for a transmission to not last a long time unless you are abusing the car.
I've driven different specific cars the following distances:
Many of the cars I've owned were bought used, sometimes VERY used, so I don't know their whole history. But, of the cars I've had, I do know of four transmission rebuilds...
1982 Cutlass Supreme, 62000 miles. And this was the sturdier THM350C transmission, bolted behind a fairly weak 231 V-6! To be fair though, I bought the car for $800 in 1993, and that was plenty of time for neglect. Also, it didn't fail completely. It started holding the gears too long and shifting roughly. The guy at the transmission shop said that grit, metal shavings, etc, were clogging up the filter, and that he could get it to work okay again for about $150, but couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen again in about a year. Or, he could rebuild it for around $675. I went for the rebuild, thinking I'd keep that car a long time. Unfortunately, the engine started going bad around 72,000 miles...
1979 Chrysler Newport: Bought this thing from the junkyard for $250 in late 1996. It had about 230,000 miles on it. Transmission seemed okay at first, but then started slipping and finally failed. Ironically, it failed about a half-mile from a transmission shop. I had it towed there, and the owner told me they actually had that car in the shop a few months back. They told the owner it needed a new transmission and he didn't want to put the money into it, so he left it and they junked it! What goes around comes around I guess! Anyway, that one was $650.
1968 Dodge Dart: Bought it with 253,000 miles on it on April 3, 1992 (I remember the date because it was the day after my birthday). The seller told me he'd had a rebuilt 318 put in around 242,000 miles, and it killed the transmission pretty quickly. I quit driving that thing around 338,000 miles, and the engine/transmission were still fine as far as I know.
1967 Pontiac Catalina: bought it in 1994 with the odometer reading about 45,000 miles. It had a rebuilt, blueprinted, hopped-up 400-4bbl under the hood and a transmission with a shift kit. I don't know if the previous setup failed at some point, or a previous owner just wanted to hop it up. I suspect that it really had more like 145,000 miles on it. But it was in pretty good shape overall, and the price was right ($3775) and well, I wanted it!
As for cars in the family that were bought new and I know their history...
1980 Malibu: sold at 100K miles, and it had the more notorious THM200C tranny! 1984 Tempo (Mom and stepdad's): traded at 160,000 miles for a '91 Stanza that was having transmission issues by around 90K, but they limped it to around 110K before selling it. 1985 LeSabre: sold at 157K miles, had the THM200-R4, which was based on the lightweight 200C, but improved by that time I think. 1985 Silverado: 140K miles 1986 Monte Carlo: t-boned and totaled at 192K miles 1997 Silverado (uncle's): at its first transmission around 70K I think. #2 was around 108K. Used it as a trade with 140K on it for my 2012 Ram. 1999 Altima (Mom & stepdad's): ate the first transmission at 35K, but now has about 340K on it, so it's redeemed itself 2000 Intrepid: totaled at 150K miles 2003 Corolla (uncle's): traded at around 238K miles
That's not the full list of all the cars, but rather the ones that I can think of, that were bought new, and kept for a fairly long time.
The only tranny failure I had was in my 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis LS at 78K miles and, I understand from another poster, that it was caused by the failure of some cheap plastic grommet or something. That one cost $1,070. My current 2005 Grand Maquis seems to be doing fine at 110K+ miles.
One car I kind of regret getting rid of was my '79 Newport. I finally got fed up with it when the water pump went out, around 249,000 miles. It probably had more miles than that, because the speedo and odometer were off. According to the one ticket I got, I was doing 88 mph when the speedo only read 73. Dunno how far the odometer was off; I know it's not a direct 1:1 ratio. I think I've heard that whatever your speedometer is off by, the odometer is off by about half that?
Anyway, the Newport had other issues...some rust, passenger side window that had trouble going down, broken a/c. I replaced it with a 1989 Gran Fury ex copcar with only 73,000 miles on it. I figured being 10 years newer and less than 1/3 the miles, it had to be more reliable. It wasn't. And it required premium fuel (I could cheap out and put 87 in the Newport). It was nice though, to have cloth seats, power windows, and a nice sound system. But looking back, I kinda wish I'd just had the Newport's water pump replaced, and kept on driving it.
The Tercel, Celica, T100, and Corona names were dropped permanently--it's all marketing. The Scion name probably replaced some of Toyota's earlier models.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
Can anyone besides me not be able to figure out exactly who they're calling? Are they purchasers of 2013 vehicles? Are they owners of three-year-old vehicles? Is there no limit to the age of the vehicles? I cannot tell from the link provided whatsoever.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
I have never noticed that similarity before, lemko, but you're right.
Of course, the Buick came out a couple years earlier.
I always felt '74 Dodge Monacos resembled concurrent full-size Chevys--crowned front fenders, sweeping windshield with slim pillars covered completely with bright metal, and cut of the rear door on sedans was almost identical to the Chevy.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
Methodology: The August 2013 ACSI report on automobiles is based on interviews with 4,078 customers, chosen at random and contacted via telephone and email between April 6 and May 22, 2013. Customers were asked to evaluate their recent purchase and experiences with automobiles manufactured by the largest companies in terms of market share, plus an aggregate category consisting of “all other” and thus smaller auto nameplates.
Although the drop in customer satisfaction affects most automakers, Detroit is losing ground to imports. The customer satisfaction gap relative to imports is now the widest in five years. As recently as 2010, Asian and domestics were tied in customer satisfaction, but Asian carmakers have now reestablished a significant advantage.
U.S. automakers may be stretched too thin, ramping up production to meet rising demand. This becomes problematic once demand slackens, making further sales growth more challenging unless customer satisfaction improves. At more than full capacity, it is not unexpected that quality may give way to quantity.
Customer satisfaction with automobiles and light vehicles declines following back-to-back years of improvement, falling 1.2% to an ACSI benchmark of 83. The slide comes at a time when sales of both domestic and import brands are surging. The industry’s sales growth is most likely due to pent-up demand coupled with inexpensive financing and a resurgence in dealer incentives.
I always thought of the Newport as a bit of a cross between a Buick and Mercury. And considering it was styled by Ford people, I guess there's some credence in that. Mine had those same deep-dish turbine style hubcaps, which required that you get the larger 15x7 wheels, which had a deeper offset.
And thanks, Lemko, now I have the Barney Miller theme going through my head!
BTW, for 1981 they restyled the Newport's grille, making it more vertically themed, and it looked even more Buick-ish. At a quick glance, they make me think of the 1982-84 4-door Regal.
Yeah, they changed something. I just say it because a friend of mine had an 03 Accord V6, maintained by the book, promptly at 70K, the transmission puked - 400 miles from home, of course. He had opted for an extended warranty as he drove a high mileage, so it was covered, took weeks to repair.
I can only think of one transmission failure in the family - my uncle who had an early 86 Taurus (3.0) suffered the malady. I was in the car when it happened - all of a sudden, nothing worked but reverse. It had started shifting oddly a few days before, delaying upshifts and not wanting to go into OD.
A friend with an 83 Monte Carlo (305/TH200 or something?) lost one at about 150K miles. I suppose by then, it is not such a big deal.
Oh, my old W126 300SE had a new transmission installed, under warranty, by the first owner (I was the second). Original owner drove it a lot, so it had 100K miles on it at 4 years old, and the unit failed. I bet that wasn't cheap. Rare failure. Speaking of MBs, fintail automatic failures are very rare, maybe due to it not having a torque converter.
If you like that ad, you should see the St. Regis ad with the happy yuppie (before they called them that) couple romping around the Empire State Building. At one point the woman has her hand thrown up as if to say "SCORE!!" Or, are those the keys to your St. Regis in your pocket, or are you happy to see me..."
Unless it was like my '79 Ford Fiesta (no comparison to the current version!) which needed a new water pump every year. What a piece of junk that was! Our first car and last Ford.
True, but it was a truly awful car! Actually, there just haven't been any Ford products that have appealed to me. I replaced it witha little Mazda 323 which we absolutely loved. That started my tendency towards Mazdas, Hondas, and Nissans. But I've had a few other makes along the way too.
Actually, I had an '04 Mazda6 wagon awhile back -- wasn't that when they were partnered with Ford? Does that count? That was a really nice car. Poor fuel economy though. Sold it to a friend who is still driving it and it still looks great.
I don't much buy it either. Seems like most of the other "studies" in the last five year show "American" cars catching up to or surpassing "foreign" cars.
The unhappy newer Ford owners are probably struggling with updating My Touch.
Actually, I had an '04 Mazda6 wagon awhile back -- wasn't that when they were partnered with Ford? Does that count?
Kinda sorta!! The platform was designed by Mazda and used by both them and Ford.
You'd be surprised at how good Fords have become. Having owned a series of Hondas from 1991 to now, I bought a 2011 Explorer. 30K and not one single problem with it. Yes the MFT has been updated but it now works flawlessly.
In reliability? American brands no doubt getting better. Do not see "surpassing" foreign brands yet. What is source for data and reports showing "surpassing"?
Just look around - CR recommending Impalas, JD Power studies, WarrantyWeek reports, plenty of forum posts complaining as much about foreign troubles as GM/Ford issues, no big surprises looking up cars here with our Identifix reliability ratings.
Depends how you define abuse. I would say with all the electronic nannies in a car these days, abusing the transmission is impossible except for neglecting to do the maintenance.
A lot of manufacturers like to throw the word "abuse" around when warranty claims come up, but really it's just an excuse for poor product quality.
For instance, tire manufacturers would probably say doing a track weekend qualifies as abuse of the tires. I would counter that if you are going to have them sold under a "Max Performance" line, or with a name "Extreme Contact," then you can't make the claim of abuse. Sell them as "touring" tires or something.
Continental has excellent customer service however; it was Tire Rack and Discount Tire actually servicing the Continental warranty that made the situation less than ideal.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Saw that Consumer Reports rated Impala at the top. That does not speak to its reliability at 5, 7 years down the road for those of us who hang onto our vehicles for a long time.
Suppose one could check the full red circles in April issues of Consumer Reports from 2013 back to 2004 for each brand and see what is happening. Less full red circles over ten years, about the same, or more? Same exercise for full black circles.
I know, and JD Power typically only goes back 3 years. But I still don't buy the proposition the posted study claimed from their phone interviews that foreign makers are "substantially" more reliable that domestic ones.
I'm rather of the opinion that there's very few "domestic" car manufacturers left anyway - most all of them are multinationals. And they all share lots of the same suppliers.
About all that matters these days is buying what you like.
For your money you can think what you want, but I think it's bad advice for others. No way no how are domestic cars anywhere near the reliability of your typical foreign make.
Have they caught up a bit? Sure, I'll buy that, but now way no how have they closed the gap. I think the problems is a few of you domestic lovers look through rose-colored glasses at the size of the gap, it was not a small gap, but more like the GRAND CANYON.
Want proof; how come when I was looking at the ATS it didn't have GM's infamous 100K mile power-train warranty?
When did that program end? NO thanks! Not going to do it. Stand behind your shoddy product please.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Oh please, I'll see your bad GM transmission and raise you a clunker of a Honda AC. Good luck finding most any component these days that fails more than around 3% of the time. Maybe on Shifty's MINI. ;-)
Hey, Honda is improving quality. My wife's CRV needs new tires with less than 24K on them. The OEM Continentals did outlast the OEM Bridgestones on her prior CRV, they were shot at around 20K. My kid's Toyota Highlander Toyo tires make both of those CRV tires seem like they were premium brands, and the car cost about 10 grand more than the CRV. Japan cost cuts too!
Honda is getting better with their soundproofing though.
Competition at work.
I was amused a couple of weeks ago reading a story about Toyota relying more on American managers since an American would know our market better. One guy they promoted last worked on the latest generation Sienna. All I could think of was that that's the van people complain got decontented.
I buy it because the basic UAW cost structure is still in place and while improvements had to be made coming from utter failure, there is much more improvements to be made on this side of the pond.
While the slight drop in satisfaction isn't "cataclysmic" for manufacturers, companies should still take note and be wary of waning pent-up demand and excess production, David VanAmburg, director of ACSI, said in an interview.
This is especially true for domestic auto makers, which are losing ground to foreign companies in perceived quality, he said.
Sales for U.S. vehicles are rebounding; however, customer satisfaction fell this year. This drop is contributed to previous improvements in the industry, creating greater customer expectations. “Right now, in the U.S. automakers are churning out cars like crazy. There certainly is some risk there that, on the one hand, they could be stuck with a lot of inventory. On the other hand, even if they’re not. What is there to build future growth on? Really, the only thing to build future sales growth on is to do a better job of satisfying customers,” said David VanAmburd, director of ACSI, said in a statement.
Higher expectations from customers are pushing automakers to meet demands, a challenge that some automakers struggle with. Buyers are now expecting more and more from their vehicles, and a failure to deliver or exceed these expectations has hurt some brands in terms of customer satisfaction.
European manufacturers had the highest satisfaction score, earning an 84.7, while Japanese automakers came in a close second with 84.1. American automakers scored an 82.
The index was started in 1994 and measures customer satisfaction with the quality of 20 foreign and domestic nameplates, along with other factors such as purchase price and the auto dealership experience.
Despite the drop in 2013 satisfaction levels, the industry's customer satisfaction score still tops the original baseline of 79 in 1994.
Every new car I've ever had -- you name the make -- has had crappy tires that don't last long. I figure you get through those and then buy real tires. Everyone I know complains about it too.
I had goodyears on my 2000 Intrepid, and they were pretty much down to racing slicks by about 30,000 miles. I remember they had a 300 treadwear rating. I replaced them with some cheap Continentals that had a 460 or so treadwear rating. And incidentally, 76,000 miles is where they had to be replaced. However, at that point one had been worn unevenly, one had two plugs in it, and another had a slow leak. So I think those tires would have lasted longer, if not for the leaks, and the car going out of alignment.
Next was a set of cheap Yokohama Avids that I think had a 700 rating, or something high like that. Had to replace them sort of piecemeal though. Had one flat, one got stolen, and then another flat. But I think the first one went at around 130,000 miles, so I got some use out of those at least.
I think the OEM tires on my buddy's 2006 Xterra made it to around 75,000 miles! I was really impressed by that. When it came time for replacements, I told him to get the same brand/model, if he could, and he was able to find it at BJ's Wholesale.
Comments
Honestly, I think the reason my friends' Civic turned out to be a turd was because I recommended it to them! If I told them to avoid it, and they bought one anyway, it would have been perfect and they'd still be driving it! :-P
Hopefully your friendship survived a bad car recommendation!
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/08/27/auto-satisfaction-detroit/27- 04023/
The decline in customer satisfaction is not a serious threat yet for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, but could quickly become a problem if it continues to drop, said Claes Fornell, chairman and founder of ACSI.
"I don't think Detroit can afford to slip back further," Fornell said. "We know that repeat business is important to every automaker, and that decreasing customer satisfaction makes it that much harder to get customer back."
A closer look at the data show that some domestic brands actually improved from a year ago. GMC rose from 80 to 85, tied with Cadillac — just behind Subaru, Toyota and Honda at 86. Ford matched the industry average of 83, as did Chrysler brand, which jumped from 78 to 83.
The three brands that declined most were Chevrolet (79 from 84 a year ago), Jeep (80 from 83) and Dodge (79 from 81).
For the Fusion, that's an extra 100,000 units compared to the car's current pace, and the article adds that the Fusion is "Ford's best shot" to regain the passenger car sales crown – a title it (or any other US automaker, for that matter) hasn't held since the mid-1990s. Despite hiccups with recalls and fuel economy numbers, the Ford Fusion is still red hot when it comes to sales. Fusion sales are up 13 percent so far this year (compared to a 0.6 percent decrease for Camry), and its average transaction price of $26,343 is about $2,300 more than its rival from Toyota.
The Fusion's popularity has helped Ford improve its sales in California; the Dearborn-based automaker has a market share of 18 percent in the state, which is just a fraction of a percentage behind Honda. And this popularity should continue as Ford ups Fusion production and expands the model lineup even further for 2014 with a new 1.5-liter EcoBoost engine soon to become an option.
Agreed. Transmissions have been around a long time and are a most basic part of a vehicle. Really no excuse IMHO for a transmission to not last a long time unless you are abusing the car.
I've driven different specific cars the following distances:
VW Bug - 235K
VW Jetta - 135K
Mercury Villager - 225K
Honda Accord 110K
Audi A4 88K
Acura TL 135K (so far)
Honda Odyssey 90K (so far)
Mazda 5 90K (so far)
I've NEVER had a transmission problem with any of them.
1982 Cutlass Supreme, 62000 miles. And this was the sturdier THM350C transmission, bolted behind a fairly weak 231 V-6! To be fair though, I bought the car for $800 in 1993, and that was plenty of time for neglect. Also, it didn't fail completely. It started holding the gears too long and shifting roughly. The guy at the transmission shop said that grit, metal shavings, etc, were clogging up the filter, and that he could get it to work okay again for about $150, but couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen again in about a year. Or, he could rebuild it for around $675. I went for the rebuild, thinking I'd keep that car a long time. Unfortunately, the engine started going bad around 72,000 miles...
1979 Chrysler Newport: Bought this thing from the junkyard for $250 in late 1996. It had about 230,000 miles on it. Transmission seemed okay at first, but then started slipping and finally failed. Ironically, it failed about a half-mile from a transmission shop. I had it towed there, and the owner told me they actually had that car in the shop a few months back. They told the owner it needed a new transmission and he didn't want to put the money into it, so he left it and they junked it! What goes around comes around I guess! Anyway, that one was $650.
1968 Dodge Dart: Bought it with 253,000 miles on it on April 3, 1992 (I remember the date because it was the day after my birthday). The seller told me he'd had a rebuilt 318 put in around 242,000 miles, and it killed the transmission pretty quickly. I quit driving that thing around 338,000 miles, and the engine/transmission were still fine as far as I know.
1967 Pontiac Catalina: bought it in 1994 with the odometer reading about 45,000 miles. It had a rebuilt, blueprinted, hopped-up 400-4bbl under the hood and a transmission with a shift kit. I don't know if the previous setup failed at some point, or a previous owner just wanted to hop it up. I suspect that it really had more like 145,000 miles on it. But it was in pretty good shape overall, and the price was right ($3775) and well, I wanted it!
As for cars in the family that were bought new and I know their history...
1980 Malibu: sold at 100K miles, and it had the more notorious THM200C tranny!
1984 Tempo (Mom and stepdad's): traded at 160,000 miles for a '91 Stanza that was having transmission issues by around 90K, but they limped it to around 110K before selling it.
1985 LeSabre: sold at 157K miles, had the THM200-R4, which was based on the lightweight 200C, but improved by that time I think.
1985 Silverado: 140K miles
1986 Monte Carlo: t-boned and totaled at 192K miles
1997 Silverado (uncle's): at its first transmission around 70K I think. #2 was around 108K. Used it as a trade with 140K on it for my 2012 Ram.
1999 Altima (Mom & stepdad's): ate the first transmission at 35K, but now has about 340K on it, so it's redeemed itself
2000 Intrepid: totaled at 150K miles
2003 Corolla (uncle's): traded at around 238K miles
That's not the full list of all the cars, but rather the ones that I can think of, that were bought new, and kept for a fairly long time.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
Anyway, the Newport had other issues...some rust, passenger side window that had trouble going down, broken a/c. I replaced it with a 1989 Gran Fury ex copcar with only 73,000 miles on it. I figured being 10 years newer and less than 1/3 the miles, it had to be more reliable. It wasn't. And it required premium fuel (I could cheap out and put 87 in the Newport). It was nice though, to have cloth seats, power windows, and a nice sound system. But looking back, I kinda wish I'd just had the Newport's water pump replaced, and kept on driving it.
Of course, the Buick came out a couple years earlier.
I always felt '74 Dodge Monacos resembled concurrent full-size Chevys--crowned front fenders, sweeping windshield with slim pillars covered completely with bright metal, and cut of the rear door on sedans was almost identical to the Chevy.
Although the drop in customer satisfaction affects most automakers, Detroit is losing ground to imports. The customer satisfaction gap relative to imports is now the widest in five years. As recently as 2010, Asian and domestics were tied in customer satisfaction, but Asian carmakers have now reestablished a significant advantage.
U.S. automakers may be stretched too thin, ramping up production to meet rising demand. This becomes problematic once demand slackens, making further sales growth more challenging unless customer satisfaction improves. At more than full capacity, it is not unexpected that quality may give way to quantity.
Customer satisfaction with automobiles and light vehicles declines following back-to-back years of improvement, falling 1.2% to an ACSI benchmark of 83. The slide comes at a time when sales of both domestic and import brands are surging. The industry’s sales growth is most likely due to pent-up demand coupled with inexpensive financing and a resurgence in dealer incentives.
Company 2012 2013 % Change
Automobiles & Light Vehicles 84 83 -1.2%
Mercedes-Benz (Daimler) 85 88 4%
Lexus (Toyota) 89 87 -2%
Subaru 87 86 -1%
Toyota (Toyota) 85 86 1%
Honda 83 86 4%
Cadillac (GM) 86 85 -1%
GMC (GM) 80 85 6%
Volkswagen 85 84 -1%
Acura (Honda) NM 83 NA
Ford (Ford) 83 83 0%
Nissan 83 83 0%
Chrysler (Chrysler) 78 83 6%
Buick (GM) 87 82 -6%
BMW 86 82 -5%
Hyundai 85 82 -4%
Kia 82 82 0%
Mazda 82 82 0%
All Others 82 81 -1%
Jeep (Chrysler) 83 80 -4%
Chevrolet (GM) 84 79 -6%
Dodge (Chrysler) 81 79 -2%
And thanks, Lemko, now I have the Barney Miller theme going through my head!
BTW, for 1981 they restyled the Newport's grille, making it more vertically themed, and it looked even more Buick-ish. At a quick glance, they make me think of the 1982-84 4-door Regal.
I'll take it that this is similar to J.D. Powers' initial quality survey, although it's not just about quality of the product.
A friend with an 83 Monte Carlo (305/TH200 or something?) lost one at about 150K miles. I suppose by then, it is not such a big deal.
Oh, my old W126 300SE had a new transmission installed, under warranty, by the first owner (I was the second). Original owner drove it a lot, so it had 100K miles on it at 4 years old, and the unit failed. I bet that wasn't cheap. Rare failure. Speaking of MBs, fintail automatic failures are very rare, maybe due to it not having a torque converter.
I ended up buying a Saturn L300 V6 instead - was swayed by the 0% financing offered by GM at the time.
While I had problems with that car - brakes and BCUs mainly - I didn't have transmission issues.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
IMHO, holding a grudge against an entire brand for almost 35 years is a little much.
Actually, I had an '04 Mazda6 wagon awhile back -- wasn't that when they were partnered with Ford? Does that count? That was a really nice car. Poor fuel economy though. Sold it to a friend who is still driving it and it still looks great.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
The unhappy newer Ford owners are probably struggling with updating My Touch.
Kinda sorta!!
You'd be surprised at how good Fords have become. Having owned a series of Hondas from 1991 to now, I bought a 2011 Explorer. 30K and not one single problem with it. Yes the MFT has been updated but it now works flawlessly.
Cars run lots better than they used to.
A lot of manufacturers like to throw the word "abuse" around when warranty claims come up, but really it's just an excuse for poor product quality.
For instance, tire manufacturers would probably say doing a track weekend qualifies as abuse of the tires. I would counter that if you are going to have them sold under a "Max Performance" line, or with a name "Extreme Contact," then you can't make the claim of abuse. Sell them as "touring" tires or something.
Continental has excellent customer service however; it was Tire Rack and Discount Tire actually servicing the Continental warranty that made the situation less than ideal.
Suppose one could check the full red circles in April issues of Consumer Reports from 2013 back to 2004 for each brand and see what is happening. Less full red circles over ten years, about the same, or more? Same exercise for full black circles.
I'm rather of the opinion that there's very few "domestic" car manufacturers left anyway - most all of them are multinationals. And they all share lots of the same suppliers.
About all that matters these days is buying what you like.
As to buying a Saturn instead of an Accord; good luck at resale time; whatever you saved initially will be lost.
Have they caught up a bit? Sure, I'll buy that, but now way no how have they closed the gap. I think the problems is a few of you domestic lovers look through rose-colored glasses at the size of the gap, it was not a small gap, but more like the GRAND CANYON.
Want proof; how come when I was looking at the ATS it didn't have GM's infamous 100K mile power-train warranty?
When did that program end? NO thanks! Not going to do it. Stand behind your shoddy product please.
Competition at work.
I was amused a couple of weeks ago reading a story about Toyota relying more on American managers since an American would know our market better. One guy they promoted last worked on the latest generation Sienna. All I could think of was that that's the van people complain got decontented.
While the slight drop in satisfaction isn't "cataclysmic" for manufacturers, companies should still take note and be wary of waning pent-up demand and excess production, David VanAmburg, director of ACSI, said in an interview.
This is especially true for domestic auto makers, which are losing ground to foreign companies in perceived quality, he said.
Sales for U.S. vehicles are rebounding; however, customer satisfaction fell this year. This drop is contributed to previous improvements in the industry, creating greater customer expectations. “Right now, in the U.S. automakers are churning out cars like crazy. There certainly is some risk there that, on the one hand, they could be stuck with a lot of inventory. On the other hand, even if they’re not. What is there to build future growth on? Really, the only thing to build future sales growth on is to do a better job of satisfying customers,” said David VanAmburd, director of ACSI, said in a statement.
Higher expectations from customers are pushing automakers to meet demands, a challenge that some automakers struggle with. Buyers are now expecting more and more from their vehicles, and a failure to deliver or exceed these expectations has hurt some brands in terms of customer satisfaction.
European manufacturers had the highest satisfaction score, earning an 84.7, while Japanese automakers came in a close second with 84.1. American automakers scored an 82.
The index was started in 1994 and measures customer satisfaction with the quality of 20 foreign and domestic nameplates, along with other factors such as purchase price and the auto dealership experience.
Despite the drop in 2013 satisfaction levels, the industry's customer satisfaction score still tops the original baseline of 79 in 1994.
The Hankooks on my Cobalt went 40K and had more than half the tread left. GM put quality tires on the car.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I still have the original battery in my Cobalt...63 months, 69K miles.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
Boy, I wouldn't have guessed that by all I've read here!
Next was a set of cheap Yokohama Avids that I think had a 700 rating, or something high like that. Had to replace them sort of piecemeal though. Had one flat, one got stolen, and then another flat. But I think the first one went at around 130,000 miles, so I got some use out of those at least.
I think the OEM tires on my buddy's 2006 Xterra made it to around 75,000 miles! I was really impressed by that. When it came time for replacements, I told him to get the same brand/model, if he could, and he was able to find it at BJ's Wholesale.
Dealers have to discount cars in August???
Shocking!!