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Her loss. My wife absolutely loves her 2005 Buick LaCrosse. You would think she had a Mercedes E-Class or BMW 5-Series the way she talks about it. Wifey was 38 when she bought hers - hardly old!
How so, she loves it and she's put almost 140k on it with out an issue. Plus that 3.0 Toyota v6 even with all those miles was more responsive and far more refined than that of what I won't bring up (but it was a car my wife had with a certain engine/trans combo I don't like and was used in an '05 LaCrosse). Not even comparable. Reliability may be similar but that's about it. It still makes the 3.5 in my wife's new Taurus feel a bit crude.
That's awfully grand of you :P
One thing I'll say for the Buick though...at least they use a lot more insulation and sound deadening and so forth, so even if it's not refined, at least you don't hear it as much!
That's what I meant. Oil that is recycled and re-refined into "new" oil. Almost all bulk oil these days at the $19.95 oil change chains is processed like this (or has some in the blend) as it's just as good as the original in almost every case. But there are a few instances where it's not a good choice or there is a defect in the engine design that makes it critical that you change your oil regularly. You can abuse new oil more than "re-refined/made new again" oil. It's really not a huge concern unless you are a doofus who changes their oil once a year.
note - Porsche Boxters are another design that doesn't tolerate this sort of oil OR low-zinc oils. Run the wrong oil in it and it'll toast the engine in 40-60K miles almost like clockwork. Toyota's problem was that they got unlucky with that one engine. Since then, they've been more or less fine.
note - if you are running your car a year between oil changes, you've likely got worse issues in your life than an engine that's slowly grinding itself apart due to the grit and sludge in the oil after a whole year.
...The union may seek a deal with Government Motors first, one of the people said.
UAW President Bob King favors an early agreement at GM to avoid an attempt by Ford to gain concessions that workers at GM and Chrysler granted before the companies went bankrupt in 2009, the person said. Ford, which avoided bankruptcy and earned $6.56 billion last year, is the only U.S. automaker whose workers refused to accept limits on strikes over wages and benefits.
“Bob will go to GM first because he couldn’t take a rich Ford agreement to GM and Chrysler,” Sean McAlinden, chief economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said in an interview yesterday. “It would be almost impossible to sell a Ford agreement to Gov. Motors and Chrysler.”
To break even, the U.S. Treasury would need to sell its remaining stake—about 500 million shares—at $53 apiece. GM closed off 27 cents a share at $29.97
I'm shocked...
We've owned GM's in my family since the '40's. Chevy '49...don't know the model but saw it in a picture. 1956 Belair. Nice Car but blew smoke after 5 years.
1964 Catalina. Rings went and just about made it to the dealer to trade in for '69 Buick Skylark. Tranny went at about 35K but my Uncle owned a tranny shop in Brooklyn and rebuilt it. Used it until sold at 90K.1958 Chevy, 1964 Malibu, 1966 Lemans, engine went at 60K and threw in a 350 and used it until sold at 100K miles. '84 FWB, which was slower than my German Shepard. Traded that for the worst Caddy in history: '88 CDV Junk-Box, bad brakes could never be fixed correctly, head gasket blew, A/C compressor...pure, unadulterated garbage car!
We stuck with GM...1976 GP(parents car) and 1977 GP for me. 1996 Regal, 2001 BPA but after the experience with my current GMC and the continued arrogance of GM DESPITE heading FULL FORCE into failure, I am complete!
No more junk in my trunk!
Regards,
OW
Last I heard, Toyota was back on a 5,000 change interval (or a 5,000 mile filter change). The Cruze, for a GM example, is on a 10,000 mile interval.
"Government officials are willing to
take the lossshaft the taxpayers because the Obama administration would like tosever its last ties to the auto makerdistance itself from the fact that the bailout just propagated a failed company in the industry, the people familiar with the matter said. "You have a CR-V now, correct? According to some posters I'm sure you are dealing with a failed transmission and air conditioning compressor, correct? :P
The last time I had a GM with this many miles and 0 repairs and 0 trips to the dealer for warranty work was..................................................never. :shades:
Regards,
OW
Assurance
BTW, the slow-selling Taurus will be refreshed in 2012(as a 2013 model after only 3 years. Another program GM can't match. :confuse:
Regards,
OW
Ford has been busy for sure. Along with the freshened looks, the Taurus will be getting a turbo 4 for a base engine and an updated 3.5 v6. A new 2013 Fusion will be out sometime in 2012. Unbelievable how quickly they've been updating their product.
Now Ford just needs to do something with Lincoln.
My '01 and '10 GM's have been nearly flawless so far. They depreciate at least 50 times as much as that Olds did, so they better continue having much fewer repairs.
We have put over a million miles on GM's. Ford comes in a distant 2nd at 45k miles. VW is at 12k.
I just did a quick tally on my total miles, and only come up with about 444,000 miles total, so far in my life. 103,000 on GM products and 341,000 on Mopar.
I guess I need to get out more!
I think my neighbor is still holding a GM grudge. He's the one that got an Edge last summer and swore off "government motors". He uses his Bravada for snow days and it's sitting in his driveway with about 20 psi in each of the tires.
Must be one of their customers who bought a GM lemon and then was humiliated further by the government bailout. :confuse:
But GM is on a roll now. Making so much profit, that the past is forgotten, correct?
Regards,
OW
Oops, forgot about the 13,000 miles I put on my '86 Monte Carlo in the 3 months between when Mom gave it to me and when I got t-boned delivering pizzas.
So, make that 341K miles Mopar, 116K GM.
Maybe it'll be a short lived grudge.
Ford 280k, GM 70k, Chrysler 80k, Nissan 60k, VW 35k for a total of 525k.
My wife has the following GM 190k and Ford 252k. Between us we are at 967k over 24 years, so we've basically avg. 40.2k per year between us since we started driving. Yikes. Granted she's been driving company cars for work since '01 and I've had several jobs where I've been on the road a lot too.
A month or so ago I had a Camry rental there. It had 13K miles. It clearly needed control arm bushings as it made a front-end racket at every bump. On the last day, the "Check Engine" and "Traction Control Lights" came on and stayed on. I posted that experience on the Toyota forum here on Edmunds. As of a few days after the post, not a soul had posted anything at all about it. Unlike others here, I don't routinely knock Toyotas on that forum simply because I don't like them and had a genuinely bad experience with one as a rental (and my diehard Ford coworker agreed).
ROFLMAO
You obviously haven't learned that certain foreign cars never, never have real problems. They are essentially perfect. Any problems like with US branded cars are considered maintenance or nonexistent, like sludge and transmissions repaired by Honda.
A great read is the folks in Odyssey forum complaining when Honda wants them to pay 5000$ for a transmission and pretends they are helping them by paying a part even though the transmission is out of the 36,000 mile warranty!
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My wife drove a lot in college too. She was under scholarship with her current employer and they helped pay for her tuition. She worked for them all through college and drove home every weekend to work which was about a 200 mile round trip.
1979 Buick Park Avenue - purchased used with 18K miles in May 1984. Destroyed in accident in May 1989 with 78K miles. No problems.
1979 Oldmobile Ninety-Eight - purchased used with 108K miles in September 1989. Destroyed in accident October 1990 with 148K miles. Replaced battery, brakes, and fuel pump.
1975 Cadillac DeVille - purchased used in May 1985 with 23K miles with Sold to friend of my Dad's in May 1993 with 78K miles. No problems.
1987 Chevrolet Caprice Classic - purchased new December 1987. Traded in January 1989 with 62K miles for new 1989 Cadillac Brougham. No problems.
1989 Cadillac Brougham - purchased new in January 1989. Still own with 158K miles. No problems.
1994 Cadillac DeVille - purchased new in November 1993. Traded in January 2002 for new 2002 Cadillac Seville with 96K miles. Blew out passenger's side door speaker playing music too loud - only problem.
2002 Cadillac Seville - purchased new in January 2002. Traded for new 2007 Cadillac DTS Performance in November 2007 with 68K miles. No problems.
2007 Cadillac DTS Performance - purchased new in November 2007 - current ride. No problems so far!
THERE WILL BE A LOT MORE GM CARS IN MY FUTURE!!!
At your age how do you remember all these dates, places, and autos? 1974 man that's like 37 years ago.
I was still crapping myself in 1974;)
At least I don't spend time in there trolling and posting to them how bad their Hondas are all the time.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If you'd like, I could pop over there and talk about what a turd my friends' '94 Civic EX was. :P
I think that would be great.
Those are the best cars ever made, to listen to the owners. But then when people post about a problem, the response often is that it's a known problem. Strange about all this "knowing" about problems but the cars never have any problems (beyond normal 'maintenance.' I actually feel sorry for the owners but I find interesting their plight with VCM, transmissions, rear brakes, etc.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Spend some time at GMI or C&G. You'd think the automotive world actually revolved around Government Motors...
Yet folks over there own 5 or 6 of them and are trading every couple of years on other GM vehicle (poor resale values limit options their options when nobody else wants your car but GM) so they don't keep them long enough to realistically judge longevity... and have never even considered, nor even experienced anything outside of the Detroit 3.
lol, typical Gov. Motors fan:
"Camry sux, it's boring" But the Rentabu is amazing...
"The (9th generation, highly regarded) Civic is overrated, the Elantra is ugly, the Corolla is boring, but the brand new Snuze (zero reliability or reputation data) kicks it's tail, greatest car ever!
' "CR sux beczuse they don't like Government Motors"
All automotive magazines are worthless because they don't like GM
etc, etc, etc. Yup, we all have our biases. Some based on real world experience, some based on internet forums... :P
They asked me my opinion on smaller cars and, almost without thinking, blurted out "Honda Civic". One of our mutual friends, a die-hard Mopar fan at the time, was miffed at me for saying it; he was trying to steer them into something like a Sundance or Shadow!
Well they bought the Civic, and sold the Malibu for $75. I helped them get $90 for the Hornet at a junkyard.
I think the Civic made it to around 85-90,000 miles, but along the way blew one head gasket, needed a/c work (not sure how major) and when the second head gasket blew, they sold it for $4,000 to a dealer, and then bought a new Saturn S-series. Probably one of the few times that an import sent someone running and crying back to the domestics! :P
I dunno how long the Saturn lasted. They got it in late 1998, around the time I got my '89 Gran Fury, so it could've been a '98 or '99. I just remember my friend being scared that I was going to come up behind him sometime in my ex police car and try to pull him over! He was the nervous type like that.
Haven't seen them in a few years, but the last time I drove past their house, a few years ago, they had an '03-08 style Corolla, in a nice shade of light blue.
To be fair, I also gotta confess that I knew someone with a '92 Civic, stripper model with a manual, who abused the hell out of it, and the engine finally went to hell around 250,000 miles.
Oh, and after that incident with the Civic, I learned to stop recommending cars to people.
An older fellow who is at the local quick market where I stop for coffee says his 95 or 96 Saturn has 300,000 miles on it. It's an automatic.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
But the thing was so flimsy and rode so horrible it was embarrasing. I drove it to the beach a couple of times and anything over about 70mph was downright scary. The thing wandered all over the place, and the panel gaps made the interior so noisy, it might has well have been a convertible!
There was no need for A/C in that car, and the heater was never powerful enough to overcome the drafts in the wintertime, lol.
But they were pretty reliable in their early years, before being forced under the GM umbrella and sharing more and more parts with their GM cousins. I liked them because for their time they had the most domestically sourced parts on the market (I believe there was only 2 components that were made in Japan)
Between the rock bottom prices (dumping perhaps?), the plastic body panels, and the solid if not crude workhorse under the hood, it was easy to understand the cult following they had.
I actually do not feel sorry for the owners but find it interesting that even one model of each even sold.
Check out the Worst Made Cars on the Road via Forbes...4 of 7 from GM...what a SHOCK!
Escalade, Aveo, Colorado and Canyon.
Worst Made OTR
Knock yourself out berating the rags like CR but even GM has finally decided to take notice:
We got past the debate three years ago in the company about whether or not we were going to listen to this survey or that survey, whether it was Consumer Reports or J.D. Power. And we decided we better win them all. We won't rest until absolutely every product is at the top.
When we build our cars today, we actually take Consumer Reports test procedures and we integrate them into our vehicles as we build them, so we've changed our whole philosophy on how we design and build cars over the past few years, which I think is one of the reasons that we're selling them. Because we've listened to [the test reports], and now it's starting to pay off.
How long did THAT take?
Regards,
OW
IIRC, Consumer Reports actually rated the Vega as "Better than Average". Its first year, at least. Didn't take long before all the problems reared their ugly head, though.
I knew someone who had once owned a Vega, and he said that it actually wasn't that bad. Over the course of around 90,000 miles, he had to have one cylinder sleeved, but other than that, no issues.
Oh, and my neighbors with the bum '94 Civic? For years, one of their neighbors had a Pontiac Astre, the Vega's upscale sibling. I last saw it a few years ago, and believe it or not, it actually appeared to be rust-free!
Now that must be a rarity. I'll see Vegas once in a blue moon at classic car shows, and even at these events they usually have some rust on 'em.
The Aztek may have been ugly, but no sane person can say it is one of the worst vehicles made. It actually even did respectfully in CR's reliability ratings, if you buy into them.
Same with the Escalade. Dumb concept, but worst car? Sheesh, do your homework.
What things have gone wrong with the car?
The engine got noisy at about 15,000.
The dashboard plastic broke up from the California sun, and the carpeting & upholstery pretty well disintegrated at the same time.
General comments?
It was fun to drive. The manual transmission (3-speed) was geared rather high so it would cruise well on the highway, and the steering was pretty articulate. Brakes average. It was comfortable.
When the car self-destructed, the local Chevy dealer (now out of business) basically dogged me and stalled till I went away. I was really young & stupid. I get steamed every now and then, and write to General Motors to tell them about my experience, but they never respond.
I sold the car which had quit running after 1 1/2 years for $500, and the kid that bought it never got it running. I have never AND will never buy a GM automobile.
I then bought a 12 year old Toyota Stout pickup that ran for 10 years, and was running when I sold it. Big difference.
Not my words. Just another countless GM customer complaint.
Regards,
OW
Cadillac Escalade
Segment: Luxury SUV
CR Predicted Reliability Score: Fair
CR Value Score: Rated among the worst in overall value
CR Safety Score: Rated among the worst in safety performance
CR Overall Score: 61 out of 100
J.D. Power Dependability Score: 2 out of 5 Power Circles
MSRP: $62,495
Regards,
OW
Ditto my experience with American lemons vs. Honda/Toyota.
Even the Germans reliability and dependability makes US makers look like a joke in the automotive world. (at least in my experience).
I don't know how bad of an experience your Toytota rental really was. Afterall, it got you everywhere you needed to go. Who cares if a few lights go on in the dash.
I'd rather have check engine lights and traction control lights go on and still have a driveable workable car, then get something that leaves you stranded and needs a tow truck like MOPAR products.
Duh...EXACTLY!
Regards,
OW
Well, with the way the stock market goes sometimes, C&D minght not do any worse than any of the so-called financial gurus! :P
Funny thing about the Vega, though, is even once word was out about its reliability issues, it continued to sell well. Even in the final year, 1977, they sold about 100,000. And by that time the Monza and Chevette were on the scene, not to mention a whole slew of Japanese competitors.
I've heard that later-year Vegas actually weren't too bad. And the later Monza/Sunbird offshoots were quite popular for awhile, although the Starfire/Skyhawk versions weren't. Olds and Buick had no business selling that type of car, though.
LOL, I was thinking the same thing!
'79 Olds 98 - again, who's fault was the accident?