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Comments
Mine has a bad little habit, when the fuel gets low enough, suddenly the needle will shoot back up to Full, and give you a false read! It usually only stays there a few minutes, though, and then falls back down towards Empty. But, to make matters worse, it gives you a little chime to warn you when you're getting low on fuel. It sounds kinda like you're playing "Donkey Kong" or something like that, and about to run out of time. And it makes that chime EVERY SINGLE TIME the needle drops back to E! Oh well, at least it's annoying enough that it usually makes me fill up ASAP, so I don't have to worry about running out of fuel!
As for mileage, I'm up to around 69,500 now. Still low mileage for a 2000, but not quite the 56K mile "cream puff" it was when I bought it. I hope it behaves itself better between 70-100K than your Granddad's did!
A buddy of mine has a 2006 Xterra, with around 72-73,000 miles. It hasn't needed anything other than maintenance, although he does get seduced into going back to the dealer and they probably over-sell him on a lot of un-needed maintenance stuff. I was impressed that he also got around 65,000 miles out of the first set of brake pads, and around 70,000 out of the first set of tires. I've NEVER gotten that kind of mileage out of either! Heck, I was impressed that the OEM brake pads on my 2000 Intrepid made it to 39,000 miles!
I think most of the people who originally bought Buick's in the 80's and 90's are with God now.
For such great cars they sure presided over Buick's continued market share decline.
The Century certainly was a reliable car. A friend of mine's mom gave her a late 80's century with over 150k on it while were were in college. I believe she drove it to over 200k. Though, when she graduated from college she went straight to a Honda dealer and bought an Accord and to this day that was the last domestic car she's owned.
I noticed that as well. My father's 1996 Park Ave was bulletproof and great inside. Super soft seats as well. The 1997-2005 models were noticeably poorer in terms of fit and finish as well as things like knobs, switches, and so on. And the seats weren't close to the older ones.
I think what happened is that all of that quality got transferred into the de Ville. Those are quite nice even today.
Every SUV I've had has been good on tires and brakes. I had an '01 Pathfinder which the brakes and tires made it to 60k. My Expedition made it to 70k on the first set of OEM Continentals and I had all four brake pads replaced then for the first time. Pretty much the same for my Suburban.
City driving is probably harder on tires and FWD cars tend to be harder on tires too I think. Particularly if you not good about rotating.
I've always liked Nissan's too. My brother has owned several and never had issues with any of them His '06 Maxima was my favorite. It was refined and fast (for a fwd sedan) though the styling was out there and some of the interior materials were a bit cheap.
I've only owned one Nissan (Pathfinder LE), but it was the best built vehicle I've owned. It was rock solid and actually drove like a sports car compared to my wife's 01 Impala at the time, which felt like slow and sloppy in comparison. GM's 3.4 was a joke compared to Nissan's 3.5 at the time (actually that would apply to any GM v6 back in 01).
I think Nissan has cheapened up a bit since 01, but they were losing money back then and are doing much better sales wise now. I'm mixed on the Maxima. So many good cars in that segment. It would be hard to choose.
Regards,
OW
Wow. Now there's a left handed compliment if ever I heard one....
Being that this is a GM thread, I thought I should at least mention something regarding GM;)
Well, looks like some in the rags would disagree with you somewhat...in reality the car is an under achiever but looks like the efficiency is great.
The Difference between Paper and Reality
That brings us back to that bit about comparing well on paper. Despite the attractive exterior and high-class interior, some of the Cruze still feels as if it were designed by the old GM, which would engineer cars to a benchmark that, by the time the GM product came out, had already been advanced by the competition. This could be due to the fact that the Cruze is already old, having debuted in the rest of the world back in 2008. The Cruze is so much better than the Cobalt that Chevy is justified in ditching the old name, but that’s not saying much. And if you’re shopping on price, as many of the buyers in this segment do, the Cruze will make you a happy customer. But if GM wants to make it to the top of the economy-car pile, it needs to improve the intangibles, such as driving enjoyment.
Regards,
OW
Yeah, no kidding. I've seen base models advertised as low as $26-27K from time to time. Now, I'm sure the base model gives up a lot of features, but you still get a sunroof, alloys, trip computer, etc. No leather, but I can live with that.
If you were to adjust for inflation, that's probably less money than I paid for my base-level Intrepid, over 11 years ago!
For Chevy, '01 was the third year of production and the bugs were worked out of the all new truck by then. 4 door automatics were standard with the ext cab in '01. Autotrac was new and only available from GM. Ballpark? CG wasn't even in the right city with that 37/100. They gave 'best in class' rear room and comfort a 0/10 rating. Have to think typo because nobody can be that biased.
Still, I'm impressed with the Cruze numbers so far. GM has a nice little string of releases going now.
One of these is starting to look good in light of insane fuel prices. Wonder what the MSRP will be and what they will actually sell for. It might not be a bad idea to have something like this stashed in the corner in light of sociopathic fuel prices. If you actually see me driving one of these, you will most definitely know the crap has hit the fan.
lol, got behind a Traverse that reaked of petrol from near my house to the highway onramp this morning. Even hanging back a dozen car-lengths didn't help...
I popped probably a half dozen Tylenols to get rid of the headache from it :sick:
You should wait for the inevitable Buick version.
Having said that, it's kind of good-looking, in a butch sort of way. Wonder what the engine options and MPG estimates will be?
You mean the Buick Pimpet? :P
the Tundra is more expensive to repair than the same year Silverado.
The Tundra lists the same number of problems.
The Tundra rates a 50/100
The Tundra has rr drum brakes, 25 less V8 HP, less towing, much less rr seat room, and requires premium gas.
The Tundra was tested as an ext cab. The Silverado was tested as a reg cab. They gave the Silverado a 0/10 for rr seat room because the test vehicle was a reg cab model. You keep believing the spun stories though.
CR is barely worth the paper it's written on. I remember looking at several instances where the raw data claimed that it was normal reliability and the rating that they printed was "terrible", instead. They cook data, ignore data, and have a known bias.
As I write this, there's no mention of Hondas(as an example) having transmission problems. Yet if you talk to a company that does the rebuilding for the local auto shops and dealers (ie - the guys who do the actual work several layers down the food chain), they all say that there's a problem with several models of them right now. They'll rate a car low for a feature or some sort of interior that they hate and yet ignore important things like a $3500 transmission repair.
Of course, they are no different than any of the other magazines. Fair enough. But I guess what really bothers me is that they try to pass themselves off as if they are having some sort of statistical methodology in their reviews. And, of course, their hubris. It's amazing, actually, how large their ego is. You expect a little of this from most companies, but we're talking about reviews, which are by nature quite subjective.
I always thought it was because the owners tended to be older and not as rough on their vehicles! But yeah, I guess it's possible they weren't as picky, too.
Perhaps the old Buick owners were only averaging 5K/year while more mainstream owners average 12-15K/year.
Yeah, good point there. My 2000 Park Ave only had 56,372 miles on it when I bought it back in December '09, so it was only averaging around 5600 per year. I've had a few comparatively minor things go wrong on it since I've owned it, and one of my friends commented that the old lady who owned it before me knew just when to bail out on the car!
But, she had traded it for a new 2010 LaCrosse CXL, so I guess she was happy with Buick!
The local transmission shop where my dad had his Park Avenue's transmission rebuilt recently (after 16 years, mind you) was telling. 80% of the transmissions in the shop at that time were Honda and Chrysler in the 40-70K range. And, no, the shop didn't have any special arrangement with the local Honda dealership, either.
And, of course, their idiocy like rating different models of the same vehicle differently. And often the ratings for the car itself and the data don't jive either. Sometimes they will give a car poor reliability and yet it will show all above average in the actual data. This happened to many GM and Ford models over the years. They'll forgive Honda or Toyota for having "issues" and yet it takes ten years or more of solid work for them to begrudgingly recommend a domestic vehicle.
To be honest, I trust Edmunds and MSN Autos and similar sites a dozen times more than CR. And it's free as well. I can't imagine why in this age of computers and instant internet access that people still pay that much for a printed magazine that often recommends and reviews things that aren't even on the shelves any more by the time it's delivered.
Well my Acura TL '05 has 250hp and I'm at 106K and the auto trans is still fine. i guess that means that it should be failing at half the time and that is at least 212K!
The repair shop owner pointed me to 20 or so transmissions that they were working on and said, and I quote "12 of those are from 6 cylinder Odysseys and similar V6 Hondas. Most auto makers don't actually make their own transmissions but Honda does. They are designed for 4 cylinder engines and Honda hasn't built a new transmission for the V6 models but uses the same one that they use in their 4 cylinder models" When I asked for a clarification, he said that while the part numbers might be different, internally, the clutch packs and internal parts are identical and are NOT heavier on the V6 models. Honda is cost-cutting. (well, to be fair, all makers are)
Quote 2: "So you get an Odyssey with 6 big Americans in it or that's being used to haul stuff around and the clutches wear 6 thousandths of an inch, and it starts to slip, and you're done."(yes, he spoke in run-on sentences like that
He had a Honda himself. With a 4 cylinder and a manual, though. :P He recommended to always get the 4 cylinder model in any case as it works nearly as well and has no such issues. And gets better gas mileage.
Oh - on GM and Ford:
He rated GM#1, btw, in this category (drive-train), but terrible otherwise, especially on electricals and accessories.
Ford was the most reliable here in his book as far as construction. Drive-trains were average.
The gist boiled down to Ford is better to drive but the transmissions are average - not bad or good, really. GM is good for a beater/cheap used car or commuter as the engine and transmission are hard to kill.
He said he sees maybe 1/10th as many GM and Ford transmissions as he sees imports these days (he loves Chrysler and Mercedes, especially from the days of their merger!), and when he does see GMs come in, they're from old cars with a lot of years and miles on them.
Given the cost of a transmission these days, you'd at least think that CR would weigh engine and transmission problems a lot higher in their data than cup-holders and if the window stops working.
The cheapest to fix was Ford. GM was a close second. But the things are real hit or miss on the car itself. Kind of like old Mercedes, in fact. ie - the engine turns over and it runs. That's never an issue. The rest of the car, though, well, it's falling apart at ten years, and by 15 years, it's crumbling and being held together by corrosion, rust, hardened glue, and a bit of luck (Probably the suspension being so soft lessens the vibration - :P )
That said, my four best cars to date were:
1967 Mercedes 230S - 167K miles. I6 /manual. 40 years old when it died.
1975 Volvo 164E - 270K miles. I6 /automatic - died at 20 years old.
1990 Volvo 240 - 325K miles. I4 /manual(original engine). - still running last I heard.
1987 Toyota 4Runner - 390K miles, 2nd engine. I4 /manual.- Sold a year ago, apparently still running.
My V6s, V8s, and other cars have done much poorer. The 164E had an automatic out of a military transport (Volvo 303) , so it was bulletproof. Otherwise, I've owned only manuals for any length of time - automatics as a rule break and have issues by comparison. I'm a big fan of inline engines as well.
The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder if GM's problems are more the service departments than the vehicles? I've lived around the country a bit and can say my experience has been consistently lousy GM service departments. They seem to have problems fixing things, especially on the first visit. Don't know why, maybe just a quirk I've unfortunately experienced too many times.
I know for the W210 E55 like I have that puts about 400 lb/ft of torque, MB didn't bother beefing anything up, simply dropping the V12 transmission into the cars. And even then, if you go past 60K or so in changing the fluid, you are playing Russian roulette.
My fintail is an automatic, the first in-house unit by MB which uses a fluid coupling instead of a torque converter. They are apparently extremely durable, maybe because of that.
My experience with Ford was a lot of litt;e annoying things before it hit 80K. After that it started self destructing.