They're still awesome. I owned an unreliable Audi before my Acura. I think about the Audi all the time. Reliability is important, but it's not particularly sexy.
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The Car Thread ... !
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Not a stupid question, a very practical one. The cars weren't purchased for reliability, it was purchased because it was what he liked. If everyone's only desire was top reliability, they'd buy a Toyota (and many people do).
Land Rover is quite literally always at the bottom on the reliability ratings and is also known to have one of the highest repair costs. The 2000 Range Rover was bought new and my father kept for a year. After 12 years LR's reliability has improved, so my father decided to give it another go. The 2003 Discovery was my brothers, my dad wasn't keen on it, but figured it since it's a complicated vehicle, it wouldn't be as bad, and it wasn't. He bought it used so I suppose some of the kinks were already worked out. IMHO it wasn't any better or worse than the Audi A4's my bro owned before or after it.
Back in 2000 when my dad was driving into NYC everyday and had a broken car every other week, it wasn't a practical. He didn't realize how terrible that one car would be and putting up with bringing it to the dealer was not tolerable. My brother didn't drive his car nearly the same amount. Now my dad is semi-retired, so he doesn't do as much driving as it is. Ironically, the 2012 has had very few problems so far.
The door locks are manual. You can lock/unlock the doors if there is no power to the car. You can however "double lock" or in LR's terms "super lock" the car, whereby double pressing the lock button on the keyfob essentially electronically deadbolts the doors. That makes it so that if someone breaks the window they can't open the door (or you can lock people in your car
). I believe you can program the car to always double lock. Anyways, it's not a feature I use. If the battery dies or lock fails, then you have a problem. 
I never would. I dont trust toyoters. Knowing my luck i get behind the wheel and I would be a SURA victim, that or one of the 100s of other problems they have making them rolling death-traps. When my friend said she got a 2014 RAV4 i said thats not a wise choice with the SURA problems.
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Toyota? death trap? Are you serious?
You don't trust the most reliable automotive brand? What a joke.
No, I don't. Not with knowing that getting behind the wheel of one could (and knowing my luck WILL) cause me to have no control as the thing flees down the road at 80 and no way to stop short of putting in in nuteral or turning off the ignition. Beemers in the early 90's had the same problem
I don't call SURA or the several other of major safety recalls toyota has to be "reliable" Reliable is KNOWING when you get behind the wheel you don't have to worry about your car's computer killing or seriously injuring you.
Yeah, my pesky BMW does that all the time. Gas pedal gets stuck and the brakes don't work.
Come to think of it, my Audi does that too. I wish both of them could be more like Daewoos!
My advisor had a 1999 Camry that we always gave him a hard time about.
The car had 260,000 miles, broken AC, a side view mirror zip tied on, and plenty of other issues. Even so, it started for him every day and purred like a kitten. He finally sold it in December for $500, mostly because his daughters said they were embarrassed for him to pick them up from school in it(plus I'd think someone pulling down $160K a year could at least buy something a little newer).
My grandfather had an 88 Camry that I think he did-quite literally-drive until the wheels fell off. He hit an unmarked(and deep) work hole and broke the front axle. The car had over 300K when they loaded it on the wrecker and it was still running great on the original engine and transmission-there were no more wheels for them to turn .
That was his car to drive around town, and the city actually paid him off pretty generously because they'd dug a hole in the street and not bothered to even put a cone in front of it. He then had to start driving the "mothballed" 86 LeSabre with 15,000 miles on it that had belonged to my grandmother around town, since it took too much gas to drive his Town Car 2 miles down the road to the diner for breakfast every morning
The car had 260,000 miles, broken AC, a side view mirror zip tied on, and plenty of other issues. Even so, it started for him every day and purred like a kitten. He finally sold it in December for $500, mostly because his daughters said they were embarrassed for him to pick them up from school in it(plus I'd think someone pulling down $160K a year could at least buy something a little newer).
My grandfather had an 88 Camry that I think he did-quite literally-drive until the wheels fell off. He hit an unmarked(and deep) work hole and broke the front axle. The car had over 300K when they loaded it on the wrecker and it was still running great on the original engine and transmission-there were no more wheels for them to turn
. That was his car to drive around town, and the city actually paid him off pretty generously because they'd dug a hole in the street and not bothered to even put a cone in front of it. He then had to start driving the "mothballed" 86 LeSabre with 15,000 miles on it that had belonged to my grandmother around town, since it took too much gas to drive his Town Car 2 miles down the road to the diner for breakfast every morning
This has nothing at ALL to do with Daewoo. have you ever heard of A GM, FORD or CHRYSLER having SURA problems?
LOL sounds like ME! Impala mirror held in by ZIP TIES and a 15yo car with a AC than never worked to begin with!
Not to get us sidetracked into ridiculous arguments...
Toyotas has the best reliability of any car on the market. When they have a recall (most cars have recalls at some point), the problem becomes so huge because they sell so many cars.
Toyota has had a few major recalls in the past few years...
1) Floor mats causing issues with the accelerator - Easy solution, remove them until you receive the replacement ones. Issues caused by this were actually quite uncommon.
2) I don't know what SURA is, but if you're referring the uncontrolled acceleration, there may have been a few cases, but many of the reported claims were determined to be hoaxes or copycats or inconclusive. There was a lot of media hype and bias surrounding all of this too. Read the wikipedia page on it.
3) Airbags- You can blame that on Takata, and Toyota isn't the only one affected.
My mom had a 2009 ES350 and had no issues with unintended acceleration or floor mats. The car had 140,000 miles when she got rid of it this year and other than general maintenance, it never needed any work. Brakes, fluid changes, tires- that's it. Never needed so much as a lightbulb (or even a battery, except in the key fobs). I know dozens of people who swear by their Toyota/Lexus products.
Personally, I'd much rather drive a Toyota/Lexus product with a company actually willing to look into and resolve problems, rather than General Motors who ignored/swept problems under the rug until massive issues started happening. Remember a few months back when Mary Barra fired over a dozen people over the ignition recalls?
A quick google search reveals 3 recalls on the Daewoo- 1 for the airbag cover causing head trauma, 1 for the electrical system getting damaged and causing the car to stall, and 1 for the camshaft position sensor melting and starting a fire.
Toyotas has the best reliability of any car on the market. When they have a recall (most cars have recalls at some point), the problem becomes so huge because they sell so many cars.
Toyota has had a few major recalls in the past few years...
1) Floor mats causing issues with the accelerator - Easy solution, remove them until you receive the replacement ones. Issues caused by this were actually quite uncommon.
2) I don't know what SURA is, but if you're referring the uncontrolled acceleration, there may have been a few cases, but many of the reported claims were determined to be hoaxes or copycats or inconclusive. There was a lot of media hype and bias surrounding all of this too. Read the wikipedia page on it.
3) Airbags- You can blame that on Takata, and Toyota isn't the only one affected.
My mom had a 2009 ES350 and had no issues with unintended acceleration or floor mats. The car had 140,000 miles when she got rid of it this year and other than general maintenance, it never needed any work. Brakes, fluid changes, tires- that's it. Never needed so much as a lightbulb (or even a battery, except in the key fobs). I know dozens of people who swear by their Toyota/Lexus products.
Personally, I'd much rather drive a Toyota/Lexus product with a company actually willing to look into and resolve problems, rather than General Motors who ignored/swept problems under the rug until massive issues started happening. Remember a few months back when Mary Barra fired over a dozen people over the ignition recalls?
A quick google search reveals 3 recalls on the Daewoo- 1 for the airbag cover causing head trauma, 1 for the electrical system getting damaged and causing the car to stall, and 1 for the camshaft position sensor melting and starting a fire.
It's SUA not SURA...
To be honest I've never heard of BMW having a SUA issue, but Audi for sure.
In 2014 Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep had a recall:
http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/201...ed-for-continued-unintended-acceleration.html
The 2014 RAV4 isn't affected by SUA problems. It's a completely redesigned car for the year. You don't think Toyota would have addressed the problem (which is a bit convoluted in the first place?)
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So GM, Honda, and Toyota have had massive recalls in the past half decade. The answer is obviously to drive a Daewoo.
It was also caused by faulty gas pedal assemblies as well as floor mats.
Ummm.... Toyota did the same thing. They hid the floor mat and gas pedal issue until the SUA accidents got more national attention. Why do you think the DOJ fined Toyota $1.2 billion over the SUA fiasco? Because they failed to disclose the issue when they knew about it. GM just got away with it for longer and they knew about it since development of the Delta platform where Toyota discovered it after the fact and hid it from there. Which is why their fine is expected to exceed the $1.2 billion that Toyota got.
I am not going to discount Toyota's reliability. They are reliable. But they are a company and like GM, Ford, etc hid defects because it was cheaper to deal with the issue individually than issue a recall.
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I wonder if this is common only on US Spec BMW's? My wife's family is all BMW as is her car and I've never heard of the issue and we're a 20 odd BMW family.
How did they open the doors to fix it?
Airbag recall is a SMALL part of whay they are disabled..... The electrical system recall was taken care of already, The cam sensor recall has NOTHING to do with my car. I checked.
I am not talking about toyota's airbag issues I know thats not a Toyota thing, personally i'd just remove the fuse and be done with it if airbags are faulty you are better off without them than have them deploy when they are faulty.
I mean SURA as that is what Toyota called it, "Sudden Unintended Runaway Acceleration"
BMW had a FEW cases of SURA in the early 90's
This has NOTHING to do with a Daewoo. However atleast a Daewoo wasn't effected by SURA or Ignition recalls. I never understood the possibility of the ignition recall. Most GMs effected by the ignition recall were GMs with the ignitions on the dash, not possible for those to "Bump" out of Run. Its also not possible AT ALL to happen on GMs with column ignitions. Ignitions on the dash are ANNOYING.
The ignition switch problem popped up when the people had heavy items on the key ring. The ignition switch assembly had a spring I believe it is that was too small to handle the weight. The weight would cause the ignition to turn out of the run position.
If all you had was the ignition key, fob, and a few keys( house key, etc) on the key ring, the ignition issue most likely would never expose itself.
GM knew of this issue all the way back during development of the Delta platform( Cobalt, HHR, etc) and did nothing about it. And you bet the CEO change from Ackerson to Barra was a calculated move before they finally did recall it.
I think this problem is only common on the cars that us the S54 engine. M3, Z4M, etc.
I think the most reliable engine BMW ever made was that small I6 they put in the 3 series before the change over to forced induction
I was eying a mint 1 owner 2011 BMW 328XI with nearly 71,022 miles, and I'm still hesitant on trading in my Chevy Cruze (loves this car for what it is) for it
They also have a 2013 BMW550I MSport with 86,000 miles for like $36,000... (talk about resale value)
I really want this car but that twin-turbo V8 is garbage and thirsty from what I read on the bimmer forums.. it will stay in the shop, So I can afford 3 series maintenance.. if I can take apart a Pratt & Whitney JT8 than an NA I6 should be cake, but 5 series maintenance would bankrupt me lol with that high pressure fuel pump, twin-turbos and valves crapping out
I was eying a mint 1 owner 2011 BMW 328XI with nearly 71,022 miles, and I'm still hesitant on trading in my Chevy Cruze (loves this car for what it is) for it
They also have a 2013 BMW550I MSport with 86,000 miles for like $36,000... (talk about resale value)
I really want this car but that twin-turbo V8 is garbage and thirsty from what I read on the bimmer forums.. it will stay in the shop, So I can afford 3 series maintenance.. if I can take apart a Pratt & Whitney JT8 than an NA I6 should be cake, but 5 series maintenance would bankrupt me lol with that high pressure fuel pump, twin-turbos and valves crapping out
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If i had to guess, I would suspect GM never did anything because they never thought it would be a issue, How many people really have heavy keys chains? I didn't need the recall on my Impala and in fact they wouldn't even do it to the second key, But i got it done so we wouldn't keep getting pestered on it like we have for the past 6 years on the engine fire recall. I had the ignition recall and the engine recall done on December, 14th. They said nothing about the christmas-tree dash though.
Those were great engines. Silky smooth, sounded good, and the powerband was very usable.
A buddy of mine had a 2nd Gen M Coupe, with the 315HP 3.2L S54 - wow, what a motor and what a GREAT car (though I realize the looks are very polarizing).
Indeed the looks are polarizing. I didn't like it at first, but years later it grew on me. I didn't care much for Bangle's styling, but in my opinion, the flame surfacing looked nice on the Z4.