Posted on 06/17/2011 6:40:06 AM PDT by Mikey_1962
10) Olds Cutlass Ciera(GM A-Bodies)1984-1996
9)Geo Prizm 1989-2002 The what? Here’s the story, in short: It’s a Toyota Corolla with a different nameplate, and everyone knows Corollas last forever.
8)Subaru Wagons(All of Them) 1990-Present If all of these failed to start tomorrow, thousands of college professors in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest would have to walk to class.
7)Volvos (Rear-Wheel-Drive Ones)Dawn of Man-1996 To some extent, these are the Subaru wagons’ spiritual and actual predecessors. Volvo's secret? It basically built one car for 25 years under a variety of nameplates.
6)Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury Marquis 1992 - 2011 If these can handle police pursuit and taxi duty, they can handle you.
5)Fiat 500 (in Europe) 1957 - 1975 basically, a lawnmower with a roof. Only a handful made it to the states since they top out around 50 mph.
4) Mercedes 300D/300TD 1975-1985
3)Honda Accord 1976 - Present
2) BMW 3-Series 1982 - 1990
1) Jeep Cherokee 1987 - 2001 We’re going to make an exception to our ‘no-trucks’ rule for the Jeep Cherokee. For one thing, it’s not really a truck — the first small crossover SUV, it did not have the traditional body-on-frame construction. But it did have plenty of the Jeep toughness (and a straight-6 engine) built in, and many of these are still roaming America’s secondary roads — and Europe as well, in a turbodiesel variant. Interestingly, even as Jeep came up with the upmarket Grand Cherokee (somewhat less reliable, natch), it kept cranking out the old model, basically due to consumer demand. Oh, one more truck exception? The original Toyota 4-Runner.
(Excerpt) Read more at kiplinger.com ...
Well, I'm pretty sure it's the cat, I got down under the vehicle while it was idling, and the sound is coming from the cat, it also rattles a bit when you bang it with something. The rattle is bad at idle, but goes away upon acceleration. I'll take a look at the heat shield, though.
1982 Dodge/Mitsu Colt. Bought one used (25K) put over 100K on it before we sold it to friend. They put an additional 150K on it before I lost contact. It got 35+ MPG on the highway and never had any major work done on it. My friend did replace the drivers seat at 200K.
Yeah, I think I'll go that route.
See my posat # 50
“Toyota Tacoma : The Official Vehicle of the Taliban.”
I made a bumper sticker on Zassel with that on it.
It is on my 1999 Tacoma right now.
My wife did not see the humor in it.
Right on on the gaskets, but that sucker could flat boogie. My wife’s dad had one. After he died we inherited his Seville. I hadn’t driven a big American V8 for a few years. Boy was it fun. Ran like a scalded cat. It did my 40 something heart good every time we took it out on the highway.
As a 90’s dude, I had my own “ricer” in a Honda Civic VX, which is the rarest model of the Civics. 5 speed manual was a dream especially if you soup it up with NOS. ahhh, high school. The girls I had just by having that car. Now I drive an F150 and Mercedes AMG.
Not any more the idiots at FOMoCo effective this year will no longer build Crown Vics or Lincoln Town car the car that lasts 300,000 miles ask any taxi cab driver that is a non-yellow cab in any Northeastern City....Thats all you ever see is Town cars. My wife hit a garbage truck and the Insurance Co wanted to total it because repairs would cost more than 80 percent of the value 4500 bucks got a local body and fender to give me a estimate for $1900. Did the repairs myself for $600 dollars..........Give me a town car any time.
Bye the way in closing when was the last time you ever saw a advertisement for the Town Car? Ever wonder why? Simple they are all sold before they are made......Idiots at Fo Mo Co.......they must work for Obama!
We bought our son a 90 Cutless Ciera because it was cheap. He called it a “Grandma” car and a POS car. It wasn’t pretty but it ran great.
He had a head-on collision (not his fault) and that was the end of his POS car, but that car probably saved his life because it was so well built. The person that hit him head-on died at the scene. He was in a Ford Tauras.
Thankfully our son is alive but he did have some major injuries. I love that car because it saved my son’s life that day!!
My 91 has 300K on it and going strong. It still has all the original Nissan parts except front brake pads. It get regular oil changes and fluid checked. I checked the compression on it for the first time a while back and it had less than 4lbs range from low to high cylnders. The truck is known to be good for at least 500K and I know of 2 with 1m on them. My wife thinks that her Buick with 200K is really doing something. Any car with less than 200K is not even worth talking about yet.
Ricers...blah.... destroyed my faith in you! Turn in your man card!... But you said you have an F truck so my faith is restored.
The AMG didn’t hurt either ;)
Normie,
80s dude
No, they’re pushing that Interceptor AWD wonder car to replace the Vics...at aboot $60K a pop. Pure capitalism there.
Sweet ride, but I foresee great maintenance costs in the police dept’s future.
Shudda just went back to the 5.0 mustangs ;)
Wow, I’ve owned 5 of these. (If you can count a slightly earlier Crown Vic.) I’ve come very close to owning at least two more of them.
There are some reservations regarding the Subaru Wagon. They can have top end oil leak / oil spray problems. That’s from seeing under the hood of many dozens. If the owner doesn’t keep after them, the oil spray will age—make brittle and cracked—every piece of plastic under the hood. That’s very expensive to repair, so look under the hood and examine the plastic.
I also might say that the Volvo, BMW and Mercedes parts and repair—when needed—can be quite expensive. That’s the main reason I haven’t actually committed to ownership on any of those.
“Have to agree with the Volvo and Subaru’s, boring cars but they just run forever”
You couldn’t prove it by me. My dad drove a Volvo company car back in the 1960’s — it was constant trouble. Dad called it his “health car”. I asked why. Because he got exercise pushing it, or at the very least, got fresh air from rolled-down windows because the A/C never worked.
Wow. I have an Olds Ciera, 1996. Didn’t know it was a Corolla!
The cars that won't die....Any Chevy in-line 6, Small block Chevy V8s
Had mine for 15 years, about 130k total mileage. Drove it regulary for 5 years, then used it as a station car for the next 7..then taught both my daughters to drive using it, and it was the first car for each of them. It was a 5 speed..so never any tranny problems..
Mine was a five speed also. The pinion bearing housing broke and that left one end of the mainshaft flopping around. What was amazing was with the amount of damage inside, I was still able to get it home (about 3 miles). This was at about 85,000 miles. It cost me about $2500 to get it fixed. The bill would be much higher today, of course. You were probably lucky to have sold yours when you did, there was a timebomb ticking inside your tranny.
The engine on the Toyota Sienna minivan sludged up. Very typical problem Toyota had with that 6 cylinder engine. Everytime we started it up, it threw a blue oil cloud big enough to cover a small city. Toyota was terrible on repairing these engines under warranty — the slightest infraction and you would not get coverage. If you were 5 miles over the required oil change interval, they would invalidate the warranty!
We finally were able to sell it. They buyers took it to the shop which reported that the transmission had been changed! We were the original owners and had never had any transmission work done to it. We were at a complete loss to explain the change-out of the transmission.
Toyota is a “never again” in my book based on that thoroughly rotten experience.
I had a 240 DL with a factory CB in the thing, also got t-boned and had to retire it.
Have had several Subby wagons, just do not let them run hot, even then one had a cracked head and still ran fairly well.
Great car, Sube or rebadged as a SAAB. But, watch the turbo prior to '07 back to about '04. Subaru is an engineer-run company and it shows in oh so many ways, most very nice, sometimes quirky but always useful. But, they stepped in it with those. Install an aftermarket performance up-cat and easily resolve the problem, which was/is sucking pieces of catalytic converter into the turbo. Kaboom.
'07 and later, the issue was completely resolved on factory stock, no problem at all. I've got an '07 Legacy GT turbo wagon, fantastic car. Consider also an aftermarket pro-tune, Cobb is the primary favorite with their AccessPort. Contains on-the-fly, programmable ECM tunes, five of them, from no-boost run it on regular 87 octane unleaded, on up to pretty wild performance on 110 octane racing gas. Or set it and forget it midpack on stock 93 octane premium and it smooths the car out, making an already fast car even more livable and enjoyable. No flat spots in acceleration, upshifts and downshifts right where you want them on an auto, really nice.
That Sube flat four Boxer engine is a great one, nice thrum but generally very quiet and well balanced. You'd never know it was a four except under very hard acceleration with a non-turbo. Turbo variants honestly feel and sound like a V-8 under acceleration, especially if you finish it off with a Borla catback exhaust (almost stock external appearance, no juvenile fartcan exhausts, those).
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