Last night, while driving my 1954 Willys to Harbor Freight to buy a foam-cannon for my pressure washer so I can prep our Pontiac Aztek for sale, I spotted a classic automotive breakdown. A vehicle was on the shoulder of the road with its front left wheel having detached from the chassis, and of course it was the 3rd-gen Toyota 4Runner — known by some as the 3Runner for obvious reasons.
I stopped to have a look, and to assure the rather frazzled owner that this isn’t a huge deal, and the’ll probably just need some new ball joints and a few brake parts, and they’ll be on their way. I can’t imagine it’ll cost more than $500, I told them.
Here you can see where the front suspension dragged on the road — there’s a little gray line on the road:
And here’s the carnage; look at how the knuckle separated from both ball joints!
This is a design flaw that has affected far too many 3Runners. Yes, it’s avoidable, and yes it can happen to other vehicles, but it happens way too often on 3rd Gen 4Runners. It pretty much never happens on Jeeps, but Jeeps have other issues.
The Jeep Cherokee XJ’s major flaw? The neutral safety switch tend to give up the ghost, as does the Crankshaft position sensor. XJs are also super under-cooled due to radiator packaging constraints, and once they overheat, there’s often a head-crack between the valves.
So for today’s Autopian Asks, I ask you: What are some examples of well-know weak-links in the auto world?
Oooh this is a good one. I’ve made a point of only buying cars that have pretty well established reliability: but they all have their achilles heels. No car is completely trouble free. I’ll list the known failures on the vehicles in my fleet, and whether or not they’ve already had it happen.
1997 Mercury Grand Marquis: Intake manifold failure, air suspension- already done prior to my purchase on the intake. and I swapped both air springs a few years ago.
2001 Chevrolet Tracker: Timing chain failure due to poor maintenance- Was about to get a timing job when the headgasket failed at 210,000. Just swapped a motor after that. Swapped motor is a bit of a turd (burns oil) but timing chain is silent.
2011 Ford Escape: Trans failure- Not done, I ignore the absurd (150k) factory interval and change every 30k or so. Annoying little Ford quality things, but mechanically its perfect. No rust since I’m in the PNW.
1977 Cherokee: Rust: Oh yeah.
1995 K2500: Lil things: I’ve done lots of lil things, but nothing major.
2017 Chevrolet Volt: BECM and EGR- I believe both were completed prior to my purchase. Fingers crossed anyway, those EGR valves are quite difficult to source.
Oh and I’ve replaced about 6 internal door handles on the Tracker. They are fragile little delicate pieces of crap that passengers like to yoink on like the hulk.
I nearly hydrolocked my E46 325XiT when the oil separator decided to start routing oil directly back to the intake.
Thankfully I saw the cloud of blue smoke in the rearview, killed the engine, and coasted to a stop in a parking lot that was conveniently close. Had it towed home about a mile away. Converting to the cold weather version of the CCV system was a real treat as well.
Along with the 3800 coolant elbow those mid 90’s-early 00’s Grand Prix,Impala, Bonneville, and Monte Carlos had terrible rear struts that always rusted through the back trunk. They also have a terrible reputation for the wiper motors dying.
I agree with everyone on the Ford 3.8 headgaskets, I’ve owned serveral of the SC variants.
Audi/VW 2.0 timing belts.
Cam sensor on Nissan Infiniti 2.5/3.5 engines.
I was shopping Saab 900 turbos many, many years ago while researching, discovered the transmissions were not well paired with the engine. IIRC, third gear was almost guaranteed to go out. In fact, I saw an ad on Craigslist (the FB Marketplace for old people, for the younger readers) offering two Saab 900’s – both with broken transmissions.
I had a Ford Escape for a company car circa 2004 and those transmissions went out at about 70K like clockwork. I had a chance to buy it for cheap once the company lease was done but passed.
* Late 90’s Ford Explorer had the Ford Exploder reputation for the trans. I can attest. Ford used a plastic spring instead of a metal one somewhere in the gearing. I believed they saved $.58 cents by using plastic. Phoenix Transmissions had options to rebuild with a proper spring.
* ~2006 Mazda 3 had an interesting power steering pump issue. If you didn’t change the fluid regularly, the power steering shut down due to a clog.
* BMW N54 engine as used in a range of vehicles has the electric water pump, oil filter housing gasket. I will just stop there because there are other HUGE issues directly to the oil filter housing gasket that go away if that is monitored
* Early 90’s Subaru Legacy had CV joint issues. They just loved to fail and remanufactured was not the solution because they failed even faster.
* 4th Gen Toyota 4Runner has the frame rust issue that Toyota refused to recall, yet recalled the Tundra. Also a A/C & Heat vent actuator issue that no one wants to touch because Toyota says it’s an 8hr job. It’s actually 2 if you go by revised instructions on the forums.
Still a thing into the aughts. My ’09 Outback had a leaky CV joint boot at 70K miles. Lots of owners on the Legacy/Outback forums reported the same issue.
Water pumps along with most of the cooling system on my now former Chevy Sonic and any other GM product with the 1.4 Ecotec. Had my t-stat go at around 58k, followed by a fitting at 60k and finally the water pump crap out at 65K, which seems to be about the average life span for it.
This is why I’m glad my 14 Cruze has the 1.8 non turbo, still had the faulty factory plastic thermostat housing (replaced with an aluminum one now) but overall they seem to be a less problematic engine.
It’s a shame they are so problematic, turbo failures are pretty common as well. I really liked the 1.4 in my Sonic, the previous owner put a nice tune and exhaust on it and it sounded fantastic. The torque it made was great as well, could pretty much just drive it in 6th most of the time.
I did 5-6 water pumps in the 250k miles I had my Cruze Eco. A few stats in there too. And most of the hoses. And a turbo. Plus charge piping. My left leg also was complaining after surgeries, so it reluctantly had to go.
With a Trifecta tune it was more spirited than it had a right to be. And still got better than 40 mpg despite the engine being a bit tired. Great little car I didn’t have the space to keep.
2nd gen Ford Explorer transmission
Hyundai/Kia 7-speed dry-clutch DCTs. Early units were a bit jerky and fragile but the current gen has upgraded clutch packs and better mapping that helps a lot. The issue with these is that they do not like being driven like an automatic. If you creep in stop and go traffic it wears out the clutches. If you do it a lot the trans can overheat and will never be the same again. They require fluid changes at manual transmission intervals as well. Unfortunately those units were put into a lot of cars that tended to be driven by the kind of owner who either doesn’t care or doesn’t know about maintenance intervals and modifying their driving behaviour and the resulting higher failure rate has given a decent transmission a bad reputation.
Mini Cooper water pump pulleys are essentially a regular maintenance items. Similarly, they’re incapable of making a suitable engine mount
Ford Focus (and others) with the DCT. Fortunately my daughter’s was covered under Ford extending the warranty on it
VW 2.0 TDI exhaust system flap. Also covered under a warranty extension for me.
A former coworker was very involved in the DCT transmission at Ford, but was thrown in as a quality person after it was designed and was about to launch. Apparently what some OEMs do to test extreme stop/go scenarios is take the car to Mexico city (hills, high elevation, thin air, traffic), load it to GVWR and drive around to see what happens.
They were failing immediately at launch in this test, did lots of updates, but it was a dry dual clutch and simply couldn’t be kept cool in certain (but still normal) driving situations. He left Ford shortly after this.
Not just 4Runners, the lower ball joints are an achilles heel on first gen Tundras and Sequoias too, and the general consensus is to never use aftermarket ones.
When I bought my 2004 Sequoia a couple of years back, replacing the lower ball joints (and much of the front suspension) was one of the first things I did.
Is this the shortest DT post to date? 280 words. Pithy!
It’s just an idiotic curiosity, but has there yet been a shorter one?
Altima drivers will snap at the drop of a hat.
GMT400s literally every HVAC actuator and wiper controller fails eventually.
Oh yeah, has NHTSA issued a recall for the Altima’s issue with the loose nut behind the wheel?
Well they still haven’t cleaned up from the “free crack habit with every purchase” promotion.
Hah! I wrote about my GMT400, and how it has no major failures, but lots of little things. I’ve done both of those. Thankfully the actuator failure was just one of the little spring arms. Easy fix.
I replaced all of the dash actuators, plus the blower resistor, plus the blower motor. THE HEARTBEAT OF AMERICA indeed.
Wrangler JK and rusty door hinges that make the doors inoperable. Also, replacing them will cause the areas around the hinge to rust.
I would say the 4L60e transmissions in Expresses and the like, but what I gather is that’s more “very common vehicle, often abused” rather than a particular fault of the transmission itself.
Yes, if they weren’t abused, the 4L60E was fine with a 200hp 4.3 or 300hp 5.3. Lift your truck for 35″ tires, or tow max loads, then you started having trouble.
I think it might be more of GM putting the 4l60e in vehicles they really shouldn’t have. I mean you could get a (light) 3/4 ton with one for goodness sakes. They lasted forever in stuff like S10 pickups and Blazers. I tihnk they are…fine… in stuff like half tonners or Tahoes, but people actually have to MAINTAIN the things.
Weirdly specific one:
Coolant valley plate
I don’t want to see a single one of you say it.
I want to say it.
Should I say it?
I’m going to say it….
Ford Powershift
Shift carefully, buddy. It might just be your last gear change.
(/s)
It appears I have made yet another enemy for life.
Fortunately, this enemy’s life is only 30K miles.
And no fluid changes necessary in that lifespan, just as advertised!
I came looking for this comment and leave satisfied.
Hyundai/Kia have some known engine…uh, “concerns”.
Kia has a problem with Boyz.
Nissan Xterra radiators and the strawberry milkshake of death
Titans/Armadas had the same issue too. Shitty era for Nissan truck quality.
The 1999-2002 Saab 9-3 absolutely loved to eat control arm bushings. Which of course are integral to the control arm, of which the ball joint was also integral.
Those in the know would switch to poly bushings to save the hassle. The oem ones were slightly less bad than the standard aftermarket ones. They still sucked though.
I’ll add onto the camshaft position sensor and head cracking on the Jeep 4.0L with the oil pump drive assembly (OPDA) failure.
Ford 4.0L SOHC timing chain guides and tensioners, especially the rear one, are wear prone and engine-out to replace.
Like others have noted, the Optispark moisture issue in the 90s LT1.
Steering shaft binding on the GMT800 trucks.
Oh, and the integrated fuel pressure regulator on the Jeep TJ fuel pump. I am dealing with that nonsense now, and replacing the regulator requires dropping the tank, but replacing the fuel pump at the same time is a crapshoot given the general unreliability of availablr aftermarket pumps.
Can confirm on OPDA, boy that was a pleasant sound to hear cranking my LJ to drive to my own wedding…
Convertibles: the roof
If you want to get specific, the Fiat 500 Cabriolet roof
I had a much-beloved 2007 E550 that had a small gear, in the timing system if I remember correctly, that was prone to failure and essentially grenaded the engine when it did fail. I was very lucky that mine was not effected, but sadly the car went to Valhalla when I was rear-ended at 65mph. The tank-like construction of that car likely saved me from any serious injures, but it was sadly irreparable without spending insane money. Flaw aside, that big German V8 was an amazing engine.
When I first read this, I thought, the Ford E-550 was only made from 2002 to 2003!
Then I remembered that tragically, most people don’t default to Ford when seeing “E[three digit number]”
VW and literally every aspect of their current vehicles
…kidding. Mostly. Maybe not so much…ANYWAY I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned yet-986/early 987 Caymans/Boxsters and 996/early 997 911s and IMS bearings. I feel like it’s one of the most notorious failure points in enthusiast circles because:
1). Probably 95% of us would love to own a Porsche but can’t afford to go drop six figures on a new one
2). If the IMS bearing fails it mechanically totals the car
It really is a nightmare scenario…finding a Porsche sports car you can actually afford to own and then watching the engine kerplode.
Edit: lol in the time I wrote this the late 90s/early 2000s Porsche problems were mentioned multiple times
Porsche IMS Bearings:
– All 986 Boxster models.
– 987 Cayman & Boxster models up to engine number 61504715
– All 996 models (not including: GT and Turbo models)
– 997 3.6ltr with M96/05 up to engine number 6950745