Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Is There Really Such a Thing as a "Lemon"?
This discussion has been closed.
Popular New Cars
Popular Used Sedans
Popular Used SUVs
Popular Used Pickup Trucks
Popular Used Hatchbacks
Popular Used Minivans
Popular Used Coupes
Popular Used Wagons
Comments
Northstar Head Gasket Issues
Also cylinder head studs can pull.
Biggest problem with the Northstar is that very few rebuilders will rebuild them. Even Cadillac won't.
Truth be known, on a modern car, by the time the needle hits the red, you're already toast. These alloy heads warp on the snap of a finger. They aren't Chevy 350 iron blocks, that's for sure.
I think it was Audi (please correct me if I'm wrong here) that installed an AUDIBLE overheat alarm at some point.
An ear-splitting shriek would be more like it.
But then I knew someone else who had a 1992 Civic and ran the hell out of it. Mostly highway driving so the brakes lasted forever, but he'd still find ways to dog it. The engine was on its last legs by around 180,000 miles, when he got into a minor accident with it. The mechanic said that, with the condition the engine was in, it wasn't worth putting any money in it to fix it, so I think it got junked.
And as shifty mentioned, up until at least 2001 or so, the Subaru 2.5 had fairly systemic problems with head gaskets.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
But all these cars come with a fix--you install the improved gaskets and you have a good car again, or in the case of the Northstar, new head studs, etc.
Or is it really more of a luck of the draw type of thing? Perhaps in some cases, the gasket might get caught before it's totally failed, and then it's a minor repair, but if it blows out at 80 mph on the highway, your engine is toast?
Late model VW/Audi cars all have a warning shriek that will go off when the low fuel warning comes on. I assume it will go off for an overheat, as well. Nearly scared the crap of me the first time I experienced it!
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
They certainly can. Awhile back, my uncle's '97 Silverado had to go back to the dealer for transmission work. I forget how many miles it had on it, but remember it was out of the factory warranty, but covered by an extended warranty he had purchased. They had that truck damn near a month, getting it fixed!
I bought my Intrepid from the same dealer. Around the 87000 miles or so, the oil pressure light started coming on. It would only do it at low rpms, one fully warmed up, in situations like idling at a traffic light. Well, my '67 Catalina used to do the same thing, and I pretty much "solved" the problem by just bumping up the idle a bit and putting in a heavier weight oil, at my mechanic's recommendation. Probably not a good idea to just throw thicker oil in a modern engine, though!
Well, it took the dealer three tries to fix that sucker. And the third time I took it back, I had found a TSB on just that problem, and printed it out for them.
I was down at that dealer for something else awhile later, and was chatting with the guy that sold me the car. Another salesman, a younger guy, was standing there with us. I had mentioned how it took them 3 tries to get the Intrepid fixed. My salesguy just gave me a sad look, and indicated that their repair shop was starting to get a bad reputation. Meanwhile the young guy just blurts out "Yeah, our repair shop SUCKS!!"
They may be better nowadays, though. I think customer service sort of comes and goes in cycles. If it gets bad enough to hurt them financially, they'll wake up and take steps to improve it, but once they're riding high again, it can be easy to just slack off again.
Early Subarus were crappy cars, it's true, but by the standards of the 1970s, they weren't as bad as they look to us now.
Part of a good dealer network, supported by the factory, is to identify defects in new models and get out the fixes for them ASAP.
What makes people think they have a "lemon" (aka a TOTALLY defective, cursed, hopeless car) is more often that not the failure of the factory and the dealer to rectify what is truly rectifiable.
In a way, a tale of woe about a "lemon" is really a mystery waiting to be solved.
What caused repeated failures of the same component?
How good is the dealer?
How good is the owner?
How good was the engineer who designed this part?
It's quite fascinating, really, to go from generalizations to the "real" causes.
Sometimes I guess one never really gets to the truth of the matter.
I was rating it by the Datsun PU truck I also owned at the same time. It was NEVER in the shop the whole time I owned it. I sold it for $400 less than I bought it for new 6 years earlier. So I had a benchmark that I expected other Japanese vehicles to live up to. Unfortunately that 1970 Datsun must have been their peak year as the 1976 I bought to replace it was not as good of a truck. I mainly steered clear of Subaru because of the Anchorage dealer. I think they were tops in sales for the US. They were bottom in service. I think Subaru sells good because it is a cheap AWD. With an emphasis on CHEAP.