It’s not even a new issue. I had the same problem with a ‘96 Dodge Dakota when it was three years old. I went round and round with Dodge with no luck. Several other issues with that little truck led to it being traded in disgust in ‘02 (for a Nissan Frontier that was worse…). I’m disturbed that they were doing this for at least six years though.

My current ride is an ‘01 Windstar (ex wife’s choice, not mine). I’ve had the heat fail twice, in 70K miles, from a poorly designed part. Ford covered the first failure under warranty (42K miles) and told me to pound sand when the heater failed again at 65K. I fixed it myself and used some redneck engineering to ensure that it won’t break again. If a backyard mechanic can do this why can’t factory engineers?

While I’ve had some very good domestic products (’84 Cutlass, ‘85 F150, and a ‘96 Crown Vic P71) most of them have been a poor investment. I’m counting the months untill I get rid of the Windstar (home of many wayward electrical gremlins). I’m going to have to think long and hard about buying another big 3 product.

Most recent – we have a bad weather seal on the sliding door of our Sienna that is three years old. It’s past the 36,000 mile mark, and the wonderful extended warranty we paid through the nose for doesn’t cover “cosmetic” items like weather seals, so their attitude is “It’s your responsibility as the owner to pay for any repairs.”

Flat out will NOT discuss it with us, that a three year old car (regardless of mileage, since the door seals aren’t a drivetrain component) shouldn’t be falling apart. In fact, they wouldn’t even give us a price, but they recently charged my wife $300 for a spark plug change, so I don’t think we can afford it.

Our next car will not be a Toyota. We can’t sell this one soon enough, no telling what else won’t be covered due to the fine print on our warranty. If we want to get verbally abused by the service manager, we’d have bought a Chrysler.

I think as car sales continue to decline, we may see more of this, regardless of “import” or “domestic” label put on a dealership. They’re only human, after all, and need to make their money somehow.

BMW’s Customer Relations department in Canada clearly confirmed my suspicions. When the warranty is up, you are on your own regardless of what happens with American customers.

Free dash pixel repairs for U.S., $1500 charge for Canadians.

Very true – friends who have the 3.0 V-6 have had no trouble hitting 200,000 miles with those things. Unfortunately, it is a coarse, unrefined beast.

Another problem was that the transmission couldn’t handle the additional power put out by the 3.8 V-6. So unlucky buyers who shelled out the extra money for the 3.8 V-6 were guaranteed to experience a blown head gasket AND a faulty transmission. This didn’t happen on cars equipped with the 3.0 V-6.

Our experiences with domestic cars have been mixed. My wife had a 1999 Cavalier before while we were dating, and the air conditioner died at 50,000 miles (which seemed to happen regularly with Cavaliers), and the engine was shot at 113,000 miles. It also left her stranded twice.

Her 2005 Focus SE has been very reliable so far. It now has 77,000 miles on the odometer. It has had two problems – a faulty wiper motor, and a blown accessory outlet fuse. The first, however, may have been related to the time my wife hit someone from behind, and did about $4,000 worth of damage to her car. So, based on this car, and validation of Ford’s improving reliability in Consumer Reports, we will definitely consider a Ford when it comes time to replace the Focus.

We would not, however, trust GM cars. My friend’s Cadillac Seville wasn’t especially reliable, even though he swears it was perfect. I’ve also heard too many stories of Northstar V-8s croaking at around 100,000 miles. My mother-in-law’s two Malibus – a 1999 model that was basically shot at 99,000 miles, and her current 2004 model – haven’t been too impressive, either.

Uh, the 1994 Sable you refer to only came with a 3.0 V6 (The Vulcan- makes 200K w/o issues) and the 3.8 V6, known for weak head gaskets…I still use a 92 Sable 3.0 for a station car…

Oh, yeah, sure, I’ve read about a half-dozen reports from people who have had a bunch of Detroit iron but no problems whatsoever. I just figure that these people have very poor memories, or are just lying through their teeth.

Hehehe. Not really, but it’s “anecdotal at best.” In the end, the news about Detroit (er, quite often “Mexico” these days) vehicles remains utterly abysmal. There is just no way on Earth I’m going to spend that kind of money on an almost-guaranteed piece of junk.

“May the ‘big three’ continue their swirl down the toilet,” and I have contacted my Congressional representatives to register my belief that the utter morons in charge will just piss my tax money down the toilet, should they give any of it to them.

These companies have FAILED. Let’s just get on with it, and stop paying the freaking morons who have driven them straight into the toilet the millions of dollars they’ve been paying themselves. What rubbish!

Do you not have Tim Hortons where you are? When I started as a network operator and moved to datacentre supervisor post-2am meals at Tim’s comprised a big chunk of my salary.

Cleek I work 5 PM to 1:30 AM so 10 PM is my normal lunch time. I don’t think its too much to ask a major fast food chain that closes at 2 AM to not run out of beef five days in a row four hours before they close.

ic. lunch. makes perfect sense.

Last night we went out to the autobahn for a drive, hit 160 km it was still purring fine, going straight as an arrow except front wheel may need balancing or new shocks.
Only real complain was high costs for fuel, average 10 MPG in city driving.
But he got more enjoyment out of driving this, reminds him of the muscle car eras, the power plus fine handling at 60 MPH plus, better brakes, handling altogether. This things can climb up to 160 in very short time, although is not going to run 8 secs at the brackets. Not long ago a small Honda thought this was a has been decided to out run me from the right lane at the stop light, little that he know these Panzer wagens can still move pretty fast.
His old Sunbird cannot let him drive for more than 1/2 hr without some serious cramp to his legs.

For instance here is my miracle story. I purchased a 1994 Mercury Sable station wagon in 2003 with some 100k miles on it. On my way home after I bought the car it overheated. But because I was on a highway, it was very cold outside (-15C) and I had my 2-year old son with me I decided to drive on home for another 10 miles with the engine temperature going beyond red. In the evening I took the car to my mechanic. He said the transmission was gone and he thought the engine was most likely gone as well. He also told me that if I asked him before I bought the car he would have told me to stay away from this model and engine type because it was well known for engine gasket failures. In fact he thought that the car had the failed gasket already that’s why it overheated.

After that I read up on the issue on the internet. It confirmed what my mechanic said; Ford 3.4 engines gaskets always fail, it’s just a matter of time. When they fail and the engine overheats if only for a moment, the engine would crack with 100% certainty.

It turned out that in my case neither the engine gasket nor the engine itself failed during this journey. I kept the car for another 60k miles until the replaced transmission (purchased as rebuilt) failed. The fact that the engine didn’t crack despite being driven for at least 10-15 miles while being overheated goes again everything I read anywhere but it’s true.

1169hp regarding my Taco Bell experience, the store served beef before 10 PM and after 10 PM always said that they ran out of beef.

What substance drives a man to aggressively demand to ingest Taco Bell beef after 10pm?

You must possess a cast iron constitution

My boss’s Chevy Trailblazer is a lemon of epic proportion’s and if GM had any decency they would have bought it back ages ago. Instead, they waste countless hours of his time and drive him crazy. I think the ‘threshold’ rule is a good one; along the same lines, the D2.8 should have their own lemon law, rather than forcing mortal enemies, er, customers to pursue them through the courts. At some point, just take the damn car back, and at the very least provide an equivalent vehicle at an equivalent price. Then the manufacturer can dissemble the car, figure out what is wrong, and part it out (do not, under any circumstances, let it back on the road).

Actually Toyota lost a class action suit for engine sludge.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070207/AUTO01/702070349/1148

My thesis: Ford products + extended warranty, purchased at a significant discount relative to the Japanese products, provide good value.

If the consumer can pay an extra ~2.5% of MSRP at retail for a no deductible 5yr/75K mile extended factory warranty, can’t the mfg or even the dealership bundle the package up front? Just think of what it would do for residual values.
Why doesn’t this happen? Is it because the back of the house is where the real money is made? A Finance vs. Sales issue?

This seems to be a common thread here, but why is my (large) family’s experience so different? Collectively, we have no brand loyalty, with a mix of “domestic” and “import” vehicles. Some did get caught up in true defects (Toyota engine sludge and GM 3.1 intake gaskets – both dealers initially said tough luck-Toyota eventually did come through; class action suit for GM) but all these horror stories. Naturally, the personal biases here are slanting the mix toward spilling the beans against Detroit, and it seems that an average domestic vehicle is, by these postings, good for 100K, not much more, and you better plan for some big repair bills. Most of our extended family members run their cars well beyond the arbitrary 100K mark, some (myself included) push beyond 200K. Costs and frequency or repair for long term operation don’t seem to be much different between our domestics or imports. I am talking cars built from late eighties on. I really would like to see a scientific study on this, as the topic becomes colored by personal biases or isolated cases of extreme failures.

When it comes to service departments, however, I couldn’t agree more. Far and away, the typical domestic dealer is much worse when it comes to service. And this is based on mostly routine service. I can’t imagine what it would be like for a serious repair. And to add a final note, i am steadfastly opposed to a bailout. Detroit made a ton of cash in SUV’s. They should have plowed those profits into making a balanced portfolio of product.

One thing that would be an interesting change would be to stop paying commission to service writers/advisers (dealers as well as many independent shops to be fair). These are sales people as well as the customer interface with the dealer/manufacturer, and are the face the public deals with.

I am constantly amazed that people do not know these advisers have incentives to increase the customer’s cost by selling stuff that is unnecessary or maybe could be covered by warranty. I once watched a MINI service adviser sell a hapless customer an overpriced runflat tire because hers had a nail puncture. I had the same problem solved free by my local Goodyear dealer under their manufacturer warranty.

I agree with earlier comments that the availability of information, mostly via the internet, has been a game changer that the auto industry has not taken in to account. I always check the forums for insider information before approving any surprise work on any of our cars.

And sending those profits straight to Japan and Germany while the home teams suffer thank you very much!

In a market-driven economy, they have the right to send those profits wherever they damned well please.

Your sentiments are misplaced. This is NOT the customer’s fault!

They gave franchises to the same Americans that owned domestic dealerships who in turn hired the same techs, salespeople, etc that worked in the domestics.

And yet… and there are exceptions to every rule … decades of anecdotal evidence, and possibly statistical evidence as well … point to overall better “customer care” at the hands of the imports.

Quality obviously plays a role… quality on Day 1, quality after 3 years …. manufacturing repeatability quality (roughly meaning all the cars have the same high level of quality), etc.

But the OEM field operations departments responsible for the dealer body; implementation of warranties, recalls, owner notification programs, “goodwill” budgets, etc. has done much to set the tone of customer treatment over the years.

Bottom line… the dealers get their direction and take their cues from their manufacturer.

But no amount of money spent licenses one to be loud, obnoxious and disrespecting.