30th Sep 2007, 12:49

You went from a Toyota Supra to a Dodge SRT-4? They are not even in the same class. I suspect you owned the late 80s/ early 90s model Supra and not the last generation before it was discontinued. The age on the old Supra would warranty higher repair costs due to wear and tear versus your brand new SRT-4. I guarantee you if there was a SRT-4 made back in the early 90s, you would have tons of problem with it now and you would never buy another Dodge again.

15th Aug 2010, 09:12

I have to agree that this review paints a picture of serious owner abuse. The engine failure could be the result of a defect, but it is harder to rationalize the early clutch failure, and the refusal of warranty coverage, as a sign of defect. It appears the driver destroyed the car.

15th Aug 2010, 13:12

When a domestic car has problems, it's always a "crappy car". When an import has problems, it's "owner abuse". All our cars have always been treated exactly the same (aggressive driving, but meticulous care) and the imports have always proven far less reliable than any of our domestics. Japanese cars simply cannot stand up to aggressive, hard driving. Ford, GM and Chrysler can.

16th Aug 2010, 18:05

"Japanese cars simply cannot stand up to aggressive, hard driving. Ford, GM and Chrysler can."

I own both a Subaru Legacy and a Toyota Corolla. The Legacy has been abused its entire life, as the man I bought it from drove it hard and did almost no maintenance. "It's a beater," he said when I bought it. It has 161,000 miles on it, and the only real serious issue was a water pump that failed, causing the engine to overheat once. It still runs smooth and quiet, and doesn't use a drop of oil.

The Corolla has 183,000 miles on it. The man I bought it from worked 2 miles from home, so it was used for only very short trips (which is hard on any car), and it too received almost no maintenance. To this day, it still has the original timing belt. My teenage son currently drives it, as his previous vehicle did not hold up. It was a '95 Dodge Neon with only 90,000 miles. The engine was totally shot by then, and for no good reason as it WAS taken care of (I bought it from a man who used it for his daily commute. He was clearly not somebody who drove his cars hard, and he also gave me all the receipts and maintenance records for it. It was meticulously maintained.)

Don't even get me started on GM. My '95 Lumina was dead at 40,000 miles. A good friend of mine is now looking for ANOTHER new car because his 2008 Chevy Malibu bit the dust at 35,000 miles. My neighbor has a 2006 Chevy Malibu Maxx, which now sits undriveable in her driveway because the steering is dangerously loose and loud (it clunks and bangs).

As for Ford, I hold a personal record (and maybe it's a world record, who knows) of owning a new vehicle for the shortest time. It was a '93 Ford Escort that I owned for about 15 minutes. With 10 miles on the odometer, the automatic transmission was fried.

I've owned only one domestic vehicle that made over 100,000 miles. It was a 2004 Ford Focus. It made 143,000 miles, at which point it began burning oil severely. For me, Ford, GM and Chrysler have been the worst vehicles I've ever owned. My imports have been great.

17th Aug 2010, 09:01

The same is true for me. I would love to know where all these mythical GM vehicles are that run forever with no repairs! I had pretty good luck with Fords having had two 5.0 Mustangs but my best overall cars have always been imports from Saab, Subaru, Toyota and Honda.

13th Apr 2011, 21:48

Won't go as far as hating Fords. I still drive my 83 F150 with over 300,000. Still, they have no clue how to make cars! Honestly, you get what you pay for, and the Japanese get my money when it comes to cars. Power and good MPG that no domestic car I've ever seen or heard of can match. Still would love to see Ford or any other match the hp and mpg of the WRX STi, and still have it last 300,000 miles...

14th Apr 2011, 11:52

We've had a few imports (Japanese and German). None made 100,000 miles without very serious problems. We now drive only Ford and GM vehicles. None of our domestics has ever required a repair before 100,000 miles. I just did a bumper-to-bumper 100,000 mile check-up on our GM, and after 8 years of hard driving, it looks, drives and runs like brand new. We have not even replaced the original brake pads yet. Our only expense has been oil changes, 1 battery and 1 set of tires.

19th Jun 2011, 23:43

I thought it was your son's 2008 Chevy Malibu that was scrapped at 35,000 MI?