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?
Are the XJ cooling issues only on the 4.0 or is it a problem on 4s and early models’ GM V6s? I’m surprised the AMC documentary didn’t mention Renault management’s decision to design the XJ not to use the straight 6 and the result crash program to shoehorn it in.
The radiator and fan were awful small on my 4.0L ’89. Suspect they were sized for the 2.5L 4 or 2.8L v6.
My dad has a 5.0 F-150 as his county-supplied work truck and a few months back it started stalling out during idling. Apparently, it was the “cam phasers” which is some kind of fancy VVT thing a lot of the F-150s have. He called a Ford dealer to get an estimate and they told him it would cost 7000 (!) dollars to do all cam phasers, but the county he works for gets a discount so it was actually around 4000 for all of them. (He requested that they replace all of the cam phasers as preventative maintenance, it wasn’t actually all of them that failed.)
Some of the early 00s Honda and Acura automatics are pretty fragile.
Hondas in general rust where the rear bumper meets the wheelarches, they have for 30 years or more. I give it special attention at the self serve car wash.
Another weirdly specific one:
Oil starvation, specifically during hard right turns.
I’ll add the timing chain tensioner on my Mk5 GTI. Well know to just stop doing the ONE job they’re supposed to do. Luckily, when mine went it was just at the end of the warranty. A few grand for a top-end replacement otherwise.
I DIY’d the one on the 2012 CC I used to have, as a preventative item.
That didn’t keep it from starting to consume increasing amounts of oil and eventually lose all compression on cylinder 1 with only 121k miles on the clock. Apparently the piston rings were another fatal flaw on those engines, though not as common as the tensioner and not covered by any warranty or class action suit. I traded the thing in on a Jetta Sportwagen TDI, I didn’t want to deal with that 2.0T again.
Saab 900 transmissions – I heard after the following episode that they had a reputation for weakness.
My brother in Vancouver had several 900s consecutively in the early 2000s. I had taken one out for a run up to the mountains, where it behaved fine – but back in the city, it suddenly sounded like a “will it blend?” episode, I pulled over and looked back to find a trail of transmission fluid.
I called and told him – he was pretty calm as he’d only paid about $1200 for it in the first place. We pushed it off to a side street, he put an ad in the paper, and sold it in a couple of days for parts.
Nissan 5.6 V8 exhaust manifolds cracking, they never came out with a real fix.
Doesn’t help that each manifold is sheet metal and welded to the pre-cats, so you automatically need to buy new cats as well.
The Lotus Elise has a handful of fun ones, though thankfully they’re all pretty well-known and solvable issues at this point:
Plastic end tanks on a radiator are bad enough on their own, but what if we also exposed them to sunlight?Rear Toe Links are woefully under-specced in a single-shear design, prone to randomly loosening and quickly breaking, in case you thought the handling characteristics weren’t spicy enough.Oil *and* gas starvation in sustained high-G turns.Spirited driving (or beyond) even while keeping to OE-sized tires and stock ride height will slowly chew up the front fender liners … and eventually the headlight housings if you don’t do something to stop them.High risk of wiping the cams. Over-cooling the oil (1-2 big oil coolers + free-flowing thermostat for a 1.8L I4…) is one of the main contributors allegedly.Vented brake rotors with vanes oriented the wrong way on one side of the vehicle.Front turn signal light housings ejecting themselves due to weak/fragile retention clips.Fan resistor pack lives in a tray where A/C condensation is prone to gather.
Hey I just figured out Elises, not her real name, real name. It has to be Lotus.
(RIP my bullet point formatting)
It seems to die consistently after editing, although it seems like it’s disappeared on some of my posts without edits as well. I’ve always hand-coded formatting because I use a mobile browser, though (I didn’t know there were any built-in formatting options until I signed in from a laptop sometime last year), so YMMV.
At least
<blockquote>persists.Those should be in the rich edit controls.
Matt could have had a workaround added when he got the edit window extended, but he didn’t.
Swapping out the sandwich plate for the oil coolers to a HotPlate was one of the first things I did on my early, twin oil cooler car.
In my search for a new postal truck to use, I considered a 90’s Hilux surf. I noticed that Most that were in an attainable price range seemed to all have the same engine- the 2.0 diesel. I initially thought this was because they are horrendously underpowered, as I had driven one and found that to be an understatement. Still, the idea of incredible fuel mileage and that charming clatter had me pretty smitten. So I started to dig in and see if there were any known issues that I might have to worry about and, boy howdy did my bubble get burst.
The injection pump, injectors, and timing belts need to be changed around 70-80,000 miles.
Injector seats need to be upgraded and changed (every 25,000 miles)
There are also a few other things centered around the fueling system but long story short, you can expect to be rebuilding/replacing your engine every 100k miles if you ignore either of these two. I was really surprised to find a Toyota engine basically needing so much love and attention to simply continue to exist. Not worth it for 90 some hp.
Some of mine have been taken already, but I’ll add these:
90s Ford trucks (both F-series and Rangers) rust through the frame hangers faster than either the sheet metal or the frame. There was a thriving aftermarket selling replacement hangers for folks who had cabs and/or leaf springs disconnecting from their frames.
Fords with 6.0 and 6.4 Powerstroke engines have long lists of weak points (I.E., “it’s a great truck once you spend $10,000 bulletproofing the engine”).
GM VATS-equipped cars tend to get faulty key readings once dirt accumulates inside the ignition lock cylinder. They also tend to have Dex-Cool and the gasket issues that accompany it.
Saturn S-series cars have one section of the engine cradle that often disintegrates in the rust belt. This happens behind the driver-side control arm socket, in an area that is covered with a plastic tag. In addition to trapping salt there, the tag also obscures the view so the defect isn’t noticeable unless you know to peel back the tag. And the plastic-clad cars don’t show visible rust on the body (aside from the hood), so most people don’t think to check for rust issues underneath.
The TAAT transmission in these cars also develops “reverse slam” issues, but this is fixable by tightening a nut that’s accessible from outside the transmission.
Toyotas with early 2GR-FE engines have rubber oil lines that shatter and cause immediate oil loss. Toyota fixed this in 2008, guess which year mine was from?
GM 4T60 transmissions should have aftermarket springs added to the shift valves to avoid slipping under load. Not hideously hard to do, but something that shouldn’t have been required.
Speaking of slipping shifts…the Focus/Fiesta 6-speed DCT. Intentionally slipping a dry-plate clutch is downright stupid.
Second-Gen Prius has an expensive brake booster that’s prone to failure.
GM 6.5 diesels – weak crankshafts + failed dual-mass flywheels = multi-piece crankshafts. PMD heat soaks every time the engine stops. Heads will crack if the engine is pushed hard. Older 6.2 diesels used several different glow plug controllers, none of which lasted long enough. Ditto for quick-heat glow plugs, which would swell up and get stuck inside of the head. Dropping one of those into the cylinder was both a real risk and a real headache once it happened.
Subaru EJ engines with single-layer head gaskets (2nd/3rd gen NA Outback and similar years of Legacy/Forester/Impreza) are vulnerable to silicate-based antifreeze. This isn’t unique to Subaru, but it has earned them lots of bad press. If you’re looking to buy one of these cars, and you see cheap green coolant in the radiator, it’s certainly worth asking whether the head gaskets have been changed yet. If the car is turbocharged, it shouldn’t have this problem. But it will probably have several others, depending on how it has been driven. 😉
The Ford PowerShift DCT is actually an incredibly reliable, quick shifting transmission.
You appear to be spreading slanderous lies regarding its reliability. Another pawn of Big CVT aren’t you?!
(/s)
Ooh…the mention of manuals reminds me to add:
US-spec ’93 and ’94 Imprezas were offered with an optional 2WD 5-speed manual transmission. Despite appearing to be the same basic design as the common (reliable) AWD 5MT transmission, and sharing part number families (both versions are listed as P/N TY752VX3AA), these 2WD transmissions have a unique way of breaking hard parts. Yes, I speak from experience, we wore out 3 of these transmissions in the same car. The AWD 5MT has a fine reputation, but I think there’s a reason Subaru dropped this 2WD variant after just 2 model years.
And while we’re talking transmissions…the Ford AXOD/AXOD-E/AX4N/AX4S/4F50N transmission family is garbage. None of the revisions hold up as well as they should. The early ones are under lubricated in addition to being weak. The later-series T/C clutch failure was an…umm…interesting…addition to my daily drive. And they were often paired with the 3.8L Essex engine which is also prone to self-destruction. I don’t miss either half of this drivetrain.
I can’t believe it’s taken this long, but, early-run Iron Duke Fieros burning down.
Is it gonna happen to all of them? No. But an ’84-’85 in the production range has a good enough chance that it’s just kinda always in the back of your mind.
Or at least mine.
The Iron Dukes are most susceptible, but the recall was expanded to the V6s also. Mine still had not been done, I assume because the original owner was stupid or something. So, I’ve just wrapped the most vulnerable hoses with heat tape and am crossing my fingers until I can get around to it
And you also know that the fire-prone area is just a few inches away from the gas tank, which sits a few inches away from your body.
Nothing like sitting beside both a gasoline bomb AND an ignition source…
(/s)
Wasn’t the issue misinformed people crushing the cooling lines when jacking the car? I recall hearing that.
The cooling lines are a separate issue. The fires were caused by wiring/hoses/insulation on the firewall above the exhaust manifold. There’s enough clearance there, but the bits just aren’t anchored to the firewall well enough. If any of these bits got loose, they could fall down onto the exhaust. I don’t recall if Pontiac later added a factory heat shield (mine had none), but even adding a bit of aluminum foil is better than nothing.
Another example of a few dirt-cheap plastic clips souring an entire brand launch.
Yeah I have some melted bits of wiring too. I should probably just replace the whole loom at some point, but I have other fish to fry.
Literally!
So the apocryphal version is that in 1984, there was a batch of Iron Duke connecting rods that were known to be compromised but installed anyway. This, combined with the fact that the owner’s manual and dipstick were both incorrectly labeled for 3qt of oil instead of 4qt plus the Duke having an absurdly low redline, meant that overrev-ing the engine was common among people who thought it was a sports car, breaking a rod, throwing it threw the block, then spitting oil onto the hot exhaust manifold, cause an oil fire, and the rest of the car went up super fast, as it was a pretty small space.
The recall kit added a shield between the block and the manifold (and valve cover, so if that leaked it was less likely to start a fire) and a new, correctly marked dipstick. They also removed a vent screen that had a tendency to collect leaves and debris. The later models had redesigned vents and better heat protection, and better connecting rods. But the public image damage was done. (For what it’s worth, some of the Grumman mail trucks with the Duke also had this problem.)
My car did, in fact, have the recall kit, but it’s still in the production range of the bad rods, so I keep sure to drive it like the economy car it is… until I swap it one day for something that makes more than 92hp.
The plastic tilting mechanism on my ’01 525i failed TWICE, causing the sunroof to not properly seal. Of course, it rained both times and my headliner got soaked.
One of the reasons I don’t get cars with sunroofs any longer.
Sunroofs/moonroofs are single-handedly the most overrated feature of any car ever.
The vast majority of people don’t use them often, they break, they leak, or both. And on certain vehicles they reduce headroom.
I think the only OEM I’ve seen where the sunroof wasn’t a problem was on older Hondas. My wife had a 1999 civic (manual) coupe for 15 years, it was always outside in very harsh climates. Never stopped working, never leaked.
Agreed. On the cars I’ve had where the cassette didn’t break somehow, the drains always clogged, creating more aquatic chaos.
Yep…and it’s especially fun when the sunroof drains lead right to vital electronic equipment when they get clogged and overflow.
I’ve never had a roof leak, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I have never used one more than once.
An ex-boss of mine in London had an old VW Passat wagon. Thunderstorms caused spasms in the electric windows and sunroof, so he would occasionally come out in the morning and find the car fully open and distinctly soggy inside.
That is exact car that first came to my mind haha
My friend’s 99 Passat had clogged sunroof drains that flooded the inside of the car. From then on it had all sorts of weird transmission and random control issues like the mirrors folding themselves in randomly.
VW Super Beetles have too much deflection in their lower control arm bushings such that when they age they can start to pogo and cause a Jeep style death wobble.
Interesting
Yep, it’s gained the nickname “super shimmy.” The only real way to fix it is to replace all of your front end consumables at the same time and make sure your front wheels are perfectly balanced.
As a temporary measure you can load up the trunk with heavy shit, which will calm things down a bit.
“Super Shimmy” > “Death Wobble”
Levi, I didn’t even see your username, of course you know about the super shimmy!
2007-2017 Compass/Patriot/Caliber (until 2012) have quite the subframe aftermarket because some wiseass thought making vehicle subframes with the same metal they used for the Dodge Aspen was a good idea.
See also: Chrysler Pacifica, with none of the aftermarket support, that I know of.
The DOHC World 2.4L (heh) 4 cylinders have throttle bodies that don’t like to, well, live. The repair is either an aftermarket unit or you buy Chrysler’s replacement, which includes a new wiring connector you have to wire in because they changed the connector and the way it’s wired.
JL Wrangler front suspension and steering. Just cheap parts.
2nd generation Compass and Renegade stab links, because plastic was a great idea there. (Although, to be frank, I haven’t heard many issues with the plastic upper control arms on new-style Ram 1500’s).
Uh, Uconnect 5 radios. If anyone has anything bad to say about the Uconnect 4’s, just know that no matter how bad you think they were, the 5’s are about 100 times worse.
KL Cherokee, and to a less and even lesser extent 2nd generation Compass & pre-facelift-Renegade all suffer from crap PTU’s and rear diffs. Cherokees are definitely the worst.
T-355 5 speed 3rd gears. Apparently, Chrysler couldn’t engineer 3rd gears for their FWD 5 speeds, as they were known to go out without much trashing.
Subarus with the EJ255 engine, basically the EJ “XT” cars and many WRXs will likely crack a piston ringland in their lifetime. People blame tuning abuse etc., but the reality is it has a tiny .009″ ring end gap on a 99.5mm bore. Any engine builder will see that as an obvious recipe for ring butting and ringland failure.
Subaru engine durability. A farce.
(except for the 6 cylinders)
I agree and disagree simultaneously. The 6 cylinders are quite good no matter how you slice it, but as for the EJ255, wow levels bad in certain use cases. After 8 attempts at racing that engine in Lemons, the longest we had an engine last was about 3 hours and each failure was unique but located in the cylinder area. However, I have to disagree with their older SOHC NA engines being bad, especially if they had a metal head gasket. Way too many pre-2004ish engines make it well past 200K without any issues when used as a boring car.
It’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.
The 1st Gen Dodge/Plymouth Neons were notorious for having bad head gaskets.
The story was the engineers knew of the issue, and told the executives that the Neon needed a stronger head gasket. When they asked how much more that would increase the cost per vehicle, the answer was “$1.00 per car”.
They deemed it too expensive, and so they got shipped with crap gaskets.
Is it any wonder Chrysler is in the shape they are today?
I thought the story was that it wasn’t the gasket, but it was the head bolt holes in the block weren’t deep enough to get proper torque?
I wonder if this is part of the reason you never see Neons any more? I’ve heard rust as another culprit too. I still see Cavaliers almost every time I drive anywhere but Neons are rare.
2F and 3F Toyota Land Cruiser engines, generally considered bulletproof, have a hammered-in lead oil galley plug. Popping one will drain your oil pretty quick.
Well-known flaw, relatively rare, easy to fix with a tap and set screw, but catastrophic when it happens – and for the dumbest reason.
Must be a leftover design trait from the GM design lol.
That Nissan SMOD cost me $3500 to replace the transmission in my 2006 Frontier.
Isn’t SMODs what Elwood tells Jake that the Illinois State Police has, right before the mall chase scene?
…which evolved to SCMODS: State County Municipal Offender Data System.
Good catch, tho.
[I’ve seen the film about a half-dozen times]
Haven’t looked back on the comments, but I’m sure I’m at least the 3th person to mention plastic radiator necks on many, many BMWs.
Ah, yes. Tiny pinhole leak caused my E39 to overheat, naturally whilst I was in line waiting for an inspection. Had to keep turning the car off to keep the temperature down.
Amazing how much a plastic part costs on a Bimmer. Glad that car is long gone.
Plastic coolant system components in general, including water pump impellers.
GM 6.6 Gas motor has unusually high oil consumption issues. The 3.6 V6 did initially as well due to a terrible Crank Case vent designed valve cover gasket. 3.4 V6 intake gaskets were notorious for failing and filling the engine with coolant.
The Ecobost 4’s have an issue with steam passages between the middle two cylinders that caused head gasket failures when the floating piston sleeves shifted enough to wipe out and allow in coolant, until the engine hydrolocked enough to crack a sleeve of course. unfortunately many of these failed because of the Ford Powershift trans before the engine itself could do all of this, but still.
2.4 Chrysler VVT issues. in some cases no start because the car sat long enough to not have oil in the solenoids thus causing the issue mentioned.
Honda CR-V Sludge in the motor and turbo.
Xterra/Frontier SMOD
3.6L Pentastar (and variants) EOC failure
VAG 2.0T HP fuel pump cam lobe accelerated wear due to lack of proper hardening yielding insufficient high pressure fuel pump performance
Nissan/Jatco CVT’s. Sorry if it was already mentioned!
Notably worth a bump to the top.
The first generation ecoboost ford f150s eat coils. The word I got from my mechanic was that ford underestimated the heat they would have to endure and so about every 40k miles you have to replace them. Its an easy enough job that I do it at home now. I thought my truck had picked up a major misfire when it first happened.
New 7.3 Godzilla’s had a lot of this failure as well.
All FWD/AWD Fords with the 3.5, 3.5 Ecoboost, and 3.7: Internal water pump.
BMW N20/N26: Timing chain, oil filter housing gaskets.
BMW B48/B58 Oil filter housing.
GM V8s with AFM: Camshafts/lifters.
Hyundai 2.0T and 2.4 GDI: Main bearing failure.
Ford 3.5 Ecoboost (F150/Transit): Timing chain/cam phasers.
Mitsubishi/Chrysler/Hyundai/Kia with the A5GF1 and related 5-speed automatics: Torque converter or valve body issues.
Ford 4.6/5.4 2-valve: Intake manifold failure, spark plug blowout.
Ford 4.6/5.4 3-valve Spark plugs seizing to the head, timing chain/cam phaser failure with extended oil change intervals.
Chrysler 3.6 Pentastar: Cylinder head cracks on driver side, camshaft issues, oil filter housing.
Chrysler 2.7: Internal water pump failure, oil sludge.
Toyota 1MZ-FE (3.0 V6 from the mid 90s to mid 00s) Oil sludge.
Dodge 5.2/5.9 gas V8: Intake manifold gaskets.
GM 4.3/5.0/5.7 Vortec engines: “Spider” fuel injection, distributor.
Toyota/Lexus trucks/SUVs with the 4.7L V8: Smog pump failure, exhaust manifold cracks.
BMWs with R1234yf refrigerant: Evaporator failure.
Hondas and GM with R1234yf: Condensor failure.
That’s all of them I can think of right now… just had lunch, may be able to remember more later.
Dodge Automatic OD trans Pre- Mercedes was pretty well known for undersized ports int he OD section causing failure from pump cavitation behind those 5.2/5.9’s
Most BMW engines of the last 25 years or so – gradually increasing oil leaks due to neoprene gaskets no longer gasketing as well due to age, particularly on the oil filter stand and VANOS hoses due to high oil pressure in those areas
3rd Generation Prius has an extremely high head gasket failure at around 180-200k miles. A JDM motor swap is the typical fix
180-200k? I’d just fix it and keep going.
That’s what we did, but I had free labor from a mechanically-inclined 14-year-old. Took him an entire summer. He basically had to take half the engine bay apart to remove the head, so taking it to a shop and paying someone to do it is really expensive.
I have a 14′ CT200h (Lexus version of the same car) with ~100000 miles thankfully haven’t had head gasket issues yet. Same thing with the brake booster problem, for now.
Well, actually, my dad plugged in a OBD2 scanner into the car a week or so back and that caused the car to have a total freakout (flickering dash lights and weird noises) and now the dashboard is lit up like a christmas tree. Upon research, I found that the set of lights on in the dashboard usually means the brake booster is going bad, but I find that hard to believe since none of those lights were on before I plugged the scanner in. The regen also seems different, and it won’t charge the hybrid battery above half way. I’m going to go to a Lexus dealer and see if they can diagnose why that would happen.
Its going to be a very tough bullet to bite if the brake booster is indeed malfunctioning since it is expensive and rather complicated to replace it seems.
Oof, that sounds tricky. I have 2 Gen3 Prii, but knock on wood I haven’t run across the brake booster problem yet. All I can say is good luck and Godspeed. Overall these cars have been good to us, but they do seem to have a couple really major design flaws
head gasket sealer to the rescue 😀