Posted on 04/12/2010 8:05:57 AM PDT by throwback
I was rear-ended by an older Dodge Neon last year while stopped in Bloomington Indiana (IU hometown) and the girl who hit me had a couple of Obama stickers still on her car. She managed to hit me directly on my Free Republic bumper sticker, which I kind of found funny because they had to tow her car away and as you can see I didn't bother to fix mine, in fact she didn't even tear my bumper sticker.
Your example is another reason why I like my Jeep Wrangler:
As far as I know both the GMCs and Chevys were called Suburbans back then. The Crew Cab trucks were/are pickups, not SUVs.
LOL:^)
My ‘96 Tahoe is still driving like new at around 100K miles. And if GM remains Government Motors it’ll be the last of their vehicles I own. ...unless I buy a vintage one and fix it up.
I hear ya about the the name “SUV.” But I wanted to use something that would distinguish it from a pickup, and that seemed convenient enough.
Two things really doomed the 6.4L Powerstroke. First, it was the first revision of the Powerstroke to use exhaust gas recirculation to meet emission standards. The EGR coolers were problematic themselves and it caused the engine to run hot. It would "puke coolant" as the owners say when towing. The second factor was Ford pushed the engine power wise in an effort to keep up with the Duramax and 6.7L Cummins in the power race. In a diesel, all you have to do is add fuel and you get more power, which Ford did, but you also work your way to the next weakest link in the engine. In the case of the 6.4L, it was head gaskets.
My newphew has a 7.3 Powerstroke in an F250 that has 340K miles with no major engine or transmission related failure. It just runs.
I currently have an '09 Duramax which I have removed all the emissions from. I get in the mid 20's on the highway, almost double what it left the factory configured to do. I am going to be watching the new Ford Scorpion Diesel closely. It is a Ford built engine, so any issues should be resolved quickly. I think it will be another good product for Ford.
The “data” I am using is personal experience, I have never had a bad experience with my GMC trucks and I have owned several. I traded in one with 165,000 miles on a 1999 that now has 235,000 miles and I also own a 2005 truck with 112,000 miles. I have found them to be of high quality and extremely reliable. Certainly more reliable than Consumer Reports has been in recent years.
Oh wow Bessie, you found her! LOL! Yes, as near as I can remember that is Bessie.
My husband is not of the auto mechanical type and he is not big on fixing up an older vehicle to keep it running like new. We put on new tires and batteries and do all the oil service right on schedule. So when our cars/trucks get some miles on them we trade them in. Consequently we never have car trouble and have to put them in the shop for major repairs.
okay, that is not data....that is an anecdote. anecdotes have a sample size of one and cannot predict quality.
Solidly built trucks/jeeps are great in fender benders with regular cars, but if you’re ever in a serious collision with another vehicle or solid object you might wish you had those crumple zones that the cars have. This is the reason that many of those types of vehicles rate poorly in crash testing. If the vehicle doesn’t absorb the impact, your body will.
I miss my old Volvo 245 wagon, which was a gutless piece of crap in many ways, but had really solid bumpers on it that could take repeated fender-bender type impacts without any damage. I wish they still made cars like that, but styling, weight, and aerodynamics concerns have given us the type of bumpers we get on cars these days which are destroyed if you even look at them the wrong way.
I was driving down a 4 lane city street in San Leandro, Ca many many years ago in my 1974 Chevy 3/4 ton PU in the RH lane doing the speed limit of around 35mph when a station wagon driven by a Vietnamese pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me traveling from my right to left to head the opposite direction on the street, I T-boned the car right behind the drivers door just missing the driver and shoved the door in at least a foot twisting the whole body.
It wasn’t a big car but it was totaled, I had two fog lights on the bottom of my bumpers after market push bar the one with the horizontal big tubes that were not even scratched, pushed one RH section of the bumper down but overall almost no damage at all on my truck. It straightened out with a pipewrench.
The officers on the scene told me, whatever you do don’t ever sell that truck, its indestructible. This was back around 1985, I drove that truck across the US twice and eventually to Alaska, I still have it though its on blocks and hasn’t turned over for over 10 years now.
I owned 3 GMC trucks total, back to back without any quality issues, so it works for me. Like I said, much better than the recent track record of Consumer Reports, Amazon.com reviews are better rated by most folks for accuracy than they are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
