Every American made car I’ve owned has been a piece of shit constantly falling apart and needing repair and maintenance. I thought that’s just how cars were for a while. Then I started buying Asian and German cars and realized Americans just can’t make a good car.
It’s all in whether management lets the engineers make a good product or pushes for cost reduction above all else. American made Toyotas are just fine.
A similar thing is true with Chinese made goods. Companies that care enough to implement proper process and quality controls can have perfectly adequate quality come out of Chinese factories. It’s just that the companies that were quickest to export production cared more about minimizing every last cost than about quality.
I had an American-made 2001 Honda Civic that didn’t start having significant problems until it was well over 100k miles. Had an American-made 2007 Accord that never had a major issue with 116,000 miles. Now have an American-made 2023 Integra, and I hope it fares the same.
Edit: but our American-made '96 Astro was a total piece of shit.
I had two ford Tauruses and both were gems. However the Chevy Malibu Hatchback I had was garbage.
My dodge durango was the absolute worst. My bmws are amazing.
98 Volkswagen Jetta. Rampant problems for everyone, not just me. Body molding falls off, window motors fail, water pump fail, wiper motor fail, 3 starters and an alternator, frame problem wearing out at the wheels, and the clear coat peeled.
When my third window motor failed, I drove my pregnant wife and her sister (who were in the car) to a dealer instead of whatever plans we had. I bought a Highlander on the spot and drove home in that. My wife drove that Highlander for 14 years.
I went from one extreme to the other! :)
I had a 2006 Ford Taurus that would’ve been stronger if it was built with Legos. Water pump fell off one day - like… just… fell off. The brackets weren’t broken or misshapen or anything like that, it just fell. None of the bolts were loose or unthreaded or anything. I know that doesn’t make sense. I KNOW. It makes even less sense that it happened twice.
There was also some kind of electrical issue that I could never isolate, but it was causing fuses to blow out every couple months, and would burn out the starter about once a year. I had to replace that starter so many times that I stopped needing to refer to my Chilton book for the steps. Sometimes the power steering would just stop working and then start working again with no warning.
lol. Wow.
I can’t recall the year, but it was a Dodge Aries K-car, to pin down the era. Jesus. It was a replacement for when my 1970 VW Beetle died in an accident. It was not as good as the Beetle, which says a lot.
I did once for a job briefly drive a Chevy Chevette. That might have been worse than the Aries.
My parents bought a Plymouth Reliant K Car. It was so bad that no one in my extended family has ever considered purchasing a Chrysler product since. I don’t understand how Iacocca saving Chrysler with the K car was not prosecuted as fraud on the American people. That thing was a piece of shit. My favorite feature was how the air conditioner had a condensation collection tray that would fill with water as it operated. Then when you stopped the water would slosh out onto the feet of the front passenger. The floor in ours eventually rusted from the AC condensate. (Lived in Houston which is both humid and hot requiring year round AC). It had plenty of other problems too (shitty carb, bad brakes, lots of squeaks and rattles). My parents sold it before I was old enough to drive.
My favorite feature was how the air conditioner had a condensation collection tray that would fill with water as it operated.
That seemed to be a thing for that time period of cars, as I can recall others that did the same thing. How was that better than just a tube to the outside? Why?
Also a feature of cars then, having the vent to recirculate air close from the inside. Why is that a problem? Well, it isn’t until the car is moving fast, and then air pressure from the outside pushes the door open just enough to whistle. Again, was money saved by doing it wrong?
I had one of those that was grandma-owned but the transmission shit the bed within 5k miles. What a pos.
I had a Pontiac Fiero. It really was terrible in every way but I love that piece of shit. It has been the only car I have owned that appreciated in value. I sold it for almost double what I paid less than a year after I bought it.
1985 Ford Tempo. Everything broke.
Ugh. Late 80s ford ranger 4 cylinder here. Everything broke, and top speed (downhill only) of about 65 mph. Good luck trying to go 55 up a hill.
Ohhhhh man. My friend’s father used to drive a Tempo to work. That thing was a steaming POS.
2016 Chevy Volt. Needs an EGR valve.
Chevy: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No.
Maybe I’m totally wrong, but doesn’t EGR stand for EXHAUST Gas Recirculation? Is the Volt a hybrid? I thought it was an EV and thus had no exhaust.
Edit: This was a joke, wasn’t it?
The Volt is a PHEV, I think the Bolt is the pure EV. I was considering its Vauxhall badged version years ago as a choice for a company car.
The volt is hybrid both gas and electric
The Volt is a hybrid gas & electric. The gas engine is there in part to charge the battery, and in part to power the electric drivetrain.
Under normal drive conditions, the gas engine short-cycles and doesn’t really come up to operating temp, which gums up the EGR valve causing the valve to pull too much current and start blowing fuses that power other critical parts of the battery charge control circuit. Left us stranded on an interstate this past spring until I could limp it to an auto parts store off the next exit to buy a replacement fuse. It ate two more before we could get home.
(edit: the OEM part is no longer manufactured, and what OEM stock is left is unobtainable. What’s left is remanufactured, Chinese aftermarket, or a scam. Install at your own peril.)
The workarounds to disable or bypass the EGR (for now) can cause other potential issues with the engine in the long run. Simply disconnecting the EGR keeps it from blowing fuses, but then the car isn’t road legal in many states because it fails emissions. Also, the EGR is part of the combustion engine’s cooling system, so not recirculating hot crank case gases works the rest of the cooling system harder, and potentially damages the pistons & cylinders.
The whole situation is a mess. Thankfully we have a second vehicle that’s a regular gas engine, so we use that one for distance driving, and can just use this one for around-town driving while we figure out what to do next with it.
Do they not make the valve?
The OEM part is, as the service manager at the dealer put it, “on intergalactic back order.”
They don’t make the OEM part any more, and anyone who has new stock isn’t selling it to other dealers. You might be able to find a Chinese version, but if you have a warranty or service plan, you’re rolling the dice with it.
It’ll be a class action suit one day, I feel it in me bones. 🏴☠️
Should be a class action suit now. Isn’t it typical to have 10 year part availability?
That’s when you put in a block off plate instead.
Not a car I personally owned, but I knew someone with a 2010’s Audi (don’t know what year/model) where the trunk lock was always broken in a way they couldn’t repair, the fuel gauge had a mysterious not working issue for like a year plus, the windows didn’t work, and the transmission, while automatic, would stall out on you like a manual if it was hot out, just stranding you in traffic. And this was a new lease FROM Audi, not like a used lemon.
2010s* Audi
I had an '82 Ford Escort. Those things were notorious for lunching the motor if the timing belt ever broke (which they did every 45,000 miles like clockwork) while you were traveling down the road. The valves would stop in whatever position they were in at that instant, and then the momentum of the car would keep the pistons moving up and down, bashing the piston tops in to whichever valves were unlucky enough to still be open, ruining pretty-much everything. At the same time I owned that car, my best friend owned an '82 Chevy Cavalier. We were constantly one-upping each other over who owned the biggest turd…
To be fair, that’s the expected outcome for any interference engine that loses the timing belt, which is almost all modern engines as far as I know. 45k is a really short lifespan for a timing belt though :/
actually now that I think back it was the water pump that regularly went out at 45k, and it was run by the timing belt. The noise coming from the water pump is what usually alerted me and I was able to replace it and the belt at the same time, which spared me from ever losing the motor. I drove that thing til it had over 160k on it, which was a lot for one of those…
my 2011 toyota camry.
it’s also the best car I’ve ever owned, probably because it’s the only car I’ve ever owned.
A ten year old 1995 Kia Sportage. All sorts of electrical problems, the four wheel drive didn’t work and I could never figure out why.
I will say the engine was surprisingly durable. I got it stuck in the mud and a friend of a friend tried to help get it unstuck by trying to drive it out, but only managed to get it stuck deeper and cracked the block. I had to add new coolant every day, but I drove that car gor another 6 months with a cracked block and only had to spend a few minutes trying to coax the engine to start when it was cold.
Pro tip: Never buy the first year of any car, even used.
I had a 1995 Kia Sephia and my dad happened to be the parts manager at a dealership with a Kia franchise. Found out the transmission was made by Mazda. I think that or 1996 was the last year. You might have had the same thing.
Wikipedia says the sportage was a Mazda with kia branding back then. Which probably explains why I only ever had electrical problems that weren’t from unrepaired damage.
I owned a Ford Escort that ran with a similar program of trade between Ford and Mazda (I think it was 96 or so). So the engine and such was Mazda in a Ford body. It was worn down from past abuse, but it ran a long time regardless before it gave up. Apparently the flip side of Mazdas in Japan that got the Ford mechanics were terrible, so I count my blessings.
An Audi TT.
FUCK Audi. Never again. Nothing but problems with that heap of shit, and repairs cost more than I paid for the car.
Hyundai sonata 2017
The door hinges do not hold the doors open. If the car is on a slight incline or a very slight wind the doors will slam shut. Better not have an arm or leg in the way.
The rear view mirror is set so low in the window that it blocks view of front right of the window.
The seats are hard as rocks. You can literally feel a metal bar that goes left to right through the seat. It’s right under your butt.
I’ll never buy another Hyundai again. Zero chance.
I’ve only owned two cars. So the worst by default was a 1987 Ford Laser I owned in 2003.
It was the “Ghia” model. So central locking, sun roof. My uncle had modified the wheels, steering wheel, carbon shifter.
I actually loved it and it handled so well on gravel roads. But eventually the cv joints went, repaired, they went again, leaving me stranded 30km out of the nearest town.
Not a direct answer, but if you ever get a chance - go walk around a self-serve junkyard. This is where cars go when they finally just aren’t worth fixing anymore. It is eye opening. There are cars that you will still consider ‘new’ that have already given up the ghost (mainly Dodge/Chrysler, Hyundai/Kia, & Nissan). And you can’t help but think - WTF are these cars doing here, aren’t these still for sale at the dealership?
Conversely, there are also cars there so old you hardly recognize them (usually Honda, Toyota, and full size pickups from Ford/GM).
