Hopefully, you’ve had a few cars that have never let you down, and today’s Ask would be better put as “Which car never let you down the most.” That’s grammatically incorrect, of course, but you get it.
As a longtime Toyota and Honda buyer, my car experiences have been overwhelmingly positive if unexciting, but if the excitement I’m being spared is the thrill of seeing how cars get loaded onto flatbeds up close and enjoying a few stories of repo shenanigans from the driver, I’m happy to keep things dull.
All my Corollas, Camrys, Civics, and RAV4s have been rock-solid, but the rock-solidest was my 1992 E-90 Corolla. It was two years old when I got it, and in very nice shape despite high miles. It was a very good new-car facsimile as far as I was concerned, and quite luxurious, what with its functional air conditioning and all. Heck, it even put my shoulder belt on for me via the motorized door-track setup mandated for non-airbag cars at the time.
That motorized seatbelt never faltered over the nearly 200,000 miles I piled onto the car, nor did anything else mechanical or electronic – and I assure you, I was not easy on the Corolla in the least. And yet, this wonderful car did not merely serve steadfastly by simply not breaking down and being metaphorically unstoppable. When it came to conquering New England snow, it proved quite literally unstoppable. My half-hour commute once took a full four hours with visibility that barely exceeded the distance from the windshield to the grille, but by golly, I got there. And then I just turned around and went home, because the office was closed. Really wish someone coulda called me, but it was pre-internet and pre-cellphones, so waddaya gonna do.
Anyway, my Corolla DX looked exactly like the Bring A Trailer example shown here. And I gotta say, it’s way more handsome than I realized when I owned it. Maybe no one realized it, as it was just basically-styled basic transpo back then, but in this designed-to-the-hilt era we live in, it looks downright classic.
Your turn:
What Car Never Let You Down?
Top graphic image: Bring a Trailer
It would be my 99 Crown vic p71 back in the late 2000s. I picked it up for $495 from a dealer that had to repo it and he claimed it had a bad transmission. When I looked at the car it was being used as a shed for random engine parts. I found the the cooler lines rusted out and there wasn’t a drop of ATF in it. I fixed the lines with rubber hose dumped 6qts in and drove a hour back. That was the ugliest car I ever owned every body panel had rust or damage. But in 4 years I never put more then rear brakes and tires. It finally got so rusty that the frame broke.
Largely what you’d expect – our 2004 Corolla never asked for anything but brake pads, tires, and fluids over 130,000 miles or so and our 2014 Legacy has been nearly as bulletproof over 160,000+. Decided to pass the latter on to the daughter instead of trading it in, so it’s going to keep going for at least another year or however long the rear fenders take to rust through.
XV10 Camry is about as indestructible as it gets. They just go and go. My dad a fram oil filter explode at 65mph and didn’t hurt it at all. But other Toyotas of that era probably not far behind. Gen 2 prius have held up extremely well. Never had any issues other then a low 12v in the ones I’ve had. I’ve been super impressed with the first gen Highlander hybrids. I’ve had the jump the 12v system with a jump pack and that’s about it as far as reliability. Valve cover gasket job not wonderful but not terrible either. They don’t tend to leak enough to to be problematic just leaving spots. 2nd gen crv also impress me. My sister has one that has only ever needed brake pads and CVs.
1984 Honda Accord hatchback with a five speed manual. We called it “Rick Ashley.”
Surprisingly my CLK430. I was never gonna give up on that car no matter how much it costed, it repaid me back, it never let me down. It was never gonna run around perfectly, but I did get to make a road trip through the desert with with it. Even with the maintenance cost being more than the purchase price it never made me cry. I though I’d never say goodbye to that car, but I ended selling it. Never gonna lie, but it did hurt seeing it drive away and by coincidence met a guy when I was giving away spare MB parts, he worked next do to the guy who bought it.
When I graduated from college my parents sold me my mom’s ’78 Ford Fiesta. Not only had the car been used by brother and I when home from college without issues it served me well also. The closest it came to letting me down was when I met a former college roommate for a night out at the bars. When I pulled into the meeting place and pushed the clutch there was a thunk and the pedal went to the floor. The throwout bearing had failed. We used his car that night then returned to mine after. I pushed the car out of the parking spot and when he told me there was no traffic I started it in gear and speed shifted the car to get home. Once fixed it was reliable until I sold it with over 110K on it.
I had lots of beaters, but the one that stands out the most was my ’95 Explorer. It sat in front of my neighbor’s house for years, severely neglected and abused. It was only a few years old at the time, but I picked it up for $500 and spent a few days getting it running and driving. I drove it for years with minimal maintenance, sold it to my sister who drove it for years with almost no maintenance, and then I bought it back and drove it for several more years. I eventually sold it for three times what I paid for it, despite 185,000 trouble-free miles on the odometer.
My 1993 Mitsu Pajero. Always started, always drove, nothing ever broke, and i spent very very little on it in the 6 years i had it. I think i did brakes, struts, and some spark plugs.
Any 18980s Honda, in my case a 1984 Prelude. Solid as a rock. It was the era of reliability for Honda.
First, by a large margin, my old 2004 Subaru Legacy with a 5 speed. I bought it with 244,000 miles on it for $2,300. Pretty much beat the shit out of it everywhere I went. Drove it 11 years and 100,000 miles, with some other cars peppered in there. It needed a lot of work but never left me stranded or broke down bad enough that I couldn’t get home. At 344,000 miles I pulled the engine to replace the head gaskets (it still ran great but was leaking a lot of oil, this is one of the later EJ25’s that “fixed” the head gasket issues by making them leak oil instead of coolant). While the engine was out I noticed it had 4 bad valves and two of the pistons were moving side to side. I figured that was time to retire the engine. It’s (slowly) getting a 3.0 H6 from an Outback swapped into it at the moment.
Second, 1995 BMW 325is. I put about 10k miles on it in 3 years but most of them were after it became my daily when I wrecked my other car and the Legacy had already started leaking oil at an alarming rate. It never gave me trouble even at almost 200k miles. I sold it when I bought my WRX.
Third, 2016 Subaru WRX. I won’t say much because I’ve only had it a year and it only has 60,000 miles on it (but I put 20,000 on in the year I’ve owned it). And it’s had basically no issues. Although, it’s probably only been dependable because it has such few miles. It’s the lowest mileage car I’ve owned by about 100k miles. So maybe this is just how a regular car is supposed to be. Who knows?
I’ll throw a wrench at the stereotype of British car unreliability…
1994 Land Rover Discovery I. It was only taken off the road because some rust on the internal structure would make it un-inspectable in NH. Otherwise, it always ran. Maybe not perfectly, but it would get you where you needed to go safely. And repairs were never all that difficult to do myself. And as an OBD1 vehicle, it even had an integrated fault display tucked under the seat that was actually useful. The Lucas 14CUX engine control never gave any trouble; in fact the only times it threw codes was due to misfires or issues that traced back to non-Lucas coils (Bosch ones failed several times) or non-Lucas- or Marelli-branded distributor caps.
Also an ’85 Chevy Squarebody pickup. Rust took it, but it always ran faithfully.
The only car that has always consistently gotten me to my destination is my 1962 Austin Healey Sprite. It just always works.
My least two untrustworthy cars were my newest. The 2013 Mini went into thermal melt down on the Ohio Turnpike, requiring a replacement engine under warranty. The 09 Honda Civic Si I have today has been broken to the point of not being drivable probably 10% of the overall 2 years I have owned it thus far. It’s been an astoundingly annoying vehicle to own.
Most of my cheap beaters succumb to rust before they ever break down.
It’s always disheartening to have something structural fail while you’re driving down the road.
My 1995 regular-cab, 5-speed Chevrolet S-10 was close to perfect for 17 years. I bought it in 1999 and it was super reliable until the cab mount collapsed and crushed a brake line. Luckily that happened right in front of my driveway so I was able to get a piece of steel cut with a notch in it so I could jack up the cab, insert that plate, and set it down a few inches higher so I could replace the brake line.
Then a few years later I was taking a right turn and the driver’s side door swung open. I got the door shut, got the truck home and looked at the hinge pins & bushings since I had to lift up the door in order to get it to close. Turns out the hinges were fine.
I removed the floor covering and there was nothing left under there. When I lifted the door up while the door was open, the entire pillar would move since it was no longer connected to the structure of the cab.
Otherwise that was a great little truck. I wish I still had it. It had close to 300,000 miles on it when I sold it to a guy for parts for $500 in 2016.
I’ve never owned a Toyota or a Honda, but those seem to rust out around here, too.
My Suzuki SX4 was flawless. I put 9 years 150k on it, pretty solid.
Strangely enough the only car to ever strand me was a 98 Camry. But it had 250k on it and was apparently on it’s original water pump.
my 1997 toyota avalon i purchased in 2015 for $1000. it had over 300,000 miles on it. I replaced a power steering pump, a rack and pinion , and some suspension parts. i got rid of it because the list of parts of “stuff needing done” to keep a 30 year car on the road was getting to over $2,000 and decided to sell it to a family member for $800 and moved on to a 2014 prius that had 70k miles on it in 2021. still own the prius! the prius has not needed anything major until just recently the AC condensor has a leak so about to do that in a few weekends before the warm weather hits the south.
Cars which never let me down:
JDM 1980 Honda Prelude XE (5 speed)
1989 Mercury Tracer (5 speed)
1997 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab (2.3L 5 speed)
2009 Mercedes-Benz CLK350 Cabriolet (still running like a top and pushing 132K – knock glossy burled-wood trim)
Twelve years in June, 100k miles soon, 41 states, and always a true friend.
https://flic.kr/p/oXswZc
My ’89 240 wagon I bought over 10 years ago for $600. I’ve put about 170k on it (I’m guessing it has close to 440k, the previous owners never fixed the odo) and its been to 41 states with me, helped me move house 3 times and never once left me stranded. have things broke that were inconvenient? sure, but i always have been able to drive it to safety. quite literally the best car I’ve ever owned.
I can’t recall any car I’ve owned with OBD2 that has let me down. The only metric in which they may have lacked is making the neighbors jealous. If I cared about such things they’d all have let me down.
Plenty of non OBD2 cars have let me down though in a myriad of ways.