15th May 2010, 15:35

I know you are trying to make the point that domestics are better, but not one single repair on ALL of your domestic cars??? You better play the lottery as you, my friend, are the luckiest person alive.

I have had all kinds of domestics and imports and ALL of them have needed some kind of repair at some point other than normal maintenance. Unless you drive 100 miles a year, you gotta be padding your story a bit here...

16th May 2010, 05:02

I also had Hondas all new and after 2000. They really were the reason we quit buying. I have new GM s now and agree with other poster. I love the domestic V8 ones. Mileage is good as well. Maybe the import poster has not driven new ones. Why would we have quit buying 1 Honda after another.

16th May 2010, 11:12

If I had ANY repair on ANY domestic in less than 100,000 miles I'd be very upset. I have never had anything beyond routine maintenance on any domestic I've owned in the past 40 years. Where people come up with the idea that Ford, GM and Chrysler are, or ever were, "unreliable" is beyond me (though I strongly suspect misinformation campaigns by Japanese car companies).

Our first new car was a 1972 Plymouth. It was sold at 165,000 miles with never a repair. Since then we have put over 300,000 miles on a Ford, and over 200,000 miles on a Buick and Dodge with no repairs beyond routine maintenance. I am now retired and drive less, but our current GM vehicle has 90,000 miles on it and has had ONE battery and ONE light bulb replaced in 8 years. The brake pads haven't even been replaced on it yet.

It seems funny that this whole myth that domestic vehicles were "unreliable" never really came along until Japanese car companies started spending millions of dollars in advertising and media manipulation. Even we were swayed to try Japanese cars in the 80's. Both were absolute garbage. They were the most unreliable vehicles we ever drove. They cost us more in repairs than all the domestics we've ever owned combined.

16th May 2010, 16:37

I agree with 15:35.

I have owned both imports and domestics, and all of them needed a repair at some point. My domestics however did usually need more repairs than my imports.

17th May 2010, 14:49

"My domestics however did usually need more repairs than my imports."

I guess we could say our Honda required "less" repairs than some domestics. We've had to replace door handles, light bulbs, radios, pieces of trim and that sort of thing on a few domestics. All we ever replaced on the Honda was the ENGINE. Does that constitute "less" repairs??

18th May 2010, 07:33

My imports needed engine trans work meaning replacements vs newer domestics. With my newest only needing a seat belt retractor on one of my GMs.

18th May 2010, 08:04

@16th May 2010, 11:12

Domestics doing 2-300,000 miles with next to nothing in repairs? It's in no way representative. I hear about these kinds of stories all over the place, but in the real world this seldom happens.

Not that the "big 3" doesn't make any good cars, the problem is that a lot of what they've been churning out lately is junk. I too had a Ford LTD from the seventies that was incredible good as well as a Chev Caprice Classic, bought in the eighties. A lot of stuff did not work on them, like the A/C etc, but they were both simple and solid cars that always started and always ran, even beyond the 200,000 miles with no work being done on the engine or the trans.

But both had understressed all iron V8s with massively oversized transmissions, body on frame etc. My full size cars were not necessarily very well built, but they were oversized in every respect, hence they lasted. Enter the eighties and nineties, and things start to crumble. I went through half a dozen of Detroit junk and it's nothing to cheer about. Then I went all Toyota and I haven't had any regret doing so.

My family haven't had a single "big 3" car the last 20 years that did not require some kind of major work within 150,000 miles and some even failing as early as 50,000 miles like my Ford Sable and Probe (what a piece of junk!). Or what about my Chev Corsica, changing head gaskets after about 50,000 miles only to find out a year later that the whole engine needed replacing due to a defect engine bearing? And of course a year after that the trans started to slip.

In that respect Toyota DO make better lasting cars. At least they did in the past, I can tell you that. Even after owning a couple of full-size US cars, my best car will for ever be a 1991 Camry bought second hand for pocket change and drove for many years as a commuter with no problems. THAT car was seriously good.

18th May 2010, 12:37

I was very upset... My Chevy Trailblazer became so unsafe to drive due to failing tie rods at 30K miles. The dealer service manager wouldn't let me leave before it was fixed. A bit more than routine maintenance wouldn't you say? Of course it could have been the really tough highway mileage I put on it.. .LOL. I traded it when the rear end started coming apart at 36K miles. Do you consider $6,000 + in repairs to an Olds Cutlass before 100K miles unreliable? How about a Ford with 8,000 miles having to be flatbedded to the dealer because the Sync system failed, draining the battery to the point where it couldn't be jumped. That's reliability huh? Ask my boss after I called for an extra day off because I had no car to drive... Of course, according to you Toyota and Honda made me think my cars were unreliable and these experiences never really happened.

It is highly unlikely that anyone would have any brand of car that doesn't require some kind of repair before 100K miles these days. I know of no one who has had that much good luck with any car. I am in no way saying American cars are more or less reliable than foreign cars. They are all pretty much the same in my experience.

18th May 2010, 14:00

Technically yes. However, my domestics were the exact opposite of that. I had serious engine issues with domestics before 50,000 miles. If they made it beyond that, the transmission usually failed before 100,000 miles. I did have one (count them: one) very good domestic, it was a 2004 Ford Focus that made 143,000 miles at which point it was pretty worn out (burning oil, transmission was a bit rough). But up until then it was great, no issues with it beyond needing brakes fairly often (every 30,000 miles or so).

That being said, My Honda's have all made 250,000+ miles without any issues as well, and they still had plenty of life in them even at that high mileage.