Yahoo!

notice the Rx8 doesn't make the list

#9, is true, we had a technician at the dealership who could do 4 transmissions in one day, and he needed too! transmission says ford right on it, so it was a 30,000mile part....

#5 in S guise is the most complex and expensive car in the history of mankind. they were actually pretty reliable, but a valve cover gasket is 24 hours of labor (x $120 an hour), and since the $7000 supercharger has to come off, you also need an $800 bag of gaskets and seals.

#7 and 6, are cousins with #9, with high ford content. in the 90's ford made BAD cars.

and #1. i've never seen such carnage in a production car. the dealership has stacks of dead turbos, broken rods, melted pistons. every time i go in to the dealership there is someone elbow deep in the engine bay of one of these. engines were fantastically expensive (short block is $5500) and hard to get.

oddly the mazdaspeed 3 and 6, which have the same engine, are fine. it must be heavy car + auto trans

 

My non-turbo CX-7 is just fine with 60-something miles on it

 

3 Mazda's out of 10. good grief!

 

If I take the article with any level of validity, I am left with one primary conclusion:

"Don't buy cars with automatic transmissions." They are unfun anyway, and perhaps that is why people don't take care of them?


So that's nothing new.

 

I've read a lot of stuff by that author over the years, and he has some interesting thoughts, but, there is a fundamental flaw in his methodology.
He only looks at mechanical issues of cars that were traded and went to auction, and extrapolates that to cover the whole model.

It overlooks that maybe the only ones that get traded in are the ones with problems. Perhaps those are only 1% of the number sold, and 99% are still out there happily working.
Now, I don't think that's the case, and it probably is a decent metric, but, only one of many.
There have been a lot of articles about it over on thetruthaboutcars.com where he has a regular column.

 

you are correct, automatics currently are much better than they used to be, but they aren't as reliable as a manual, and much more expensive to repair when they fail.

i just posted the article because the Rx8 isn't on the list!

 

having worked at a bunch of dealerships, i can tell you most used car buyers think they are better than all the other ones, while being worse. you should see some of the crap that they pay more than blue book to get, its pretty astounding.

we had one buyer, in 2005-2006 who was flying from California to florida to buy cars because they were cheaper. it escaped his grasp that they might be cheaper because they were in a hurricane...

 

WRT the automatic transmissions... One of the biggest issues is "lifetime fluid". Yes, it lasts the lifetime of the trans, because it kills the transmission when it wears out. Change the damn fluid.

My Christmas vacation includes MT-90 for the Speed 3 and 8, and changing at least 2 quarts of D4-ATF changed in the 6 and Expedition (2 quarts sucked out the filler tube with an oil extractor). One is 10 years old, one is 9. I added a cooler to the 6 just because. The expedition is equipped to tow a medium sized house, so it has coolers up the wazoo (technical term there).

 

every study will have different results.

but being a mechanic for most of my time on the planet i will give this advice:

"don't buy an automatic anything."

learn to drive a manual or keep a fund in an account for transmission repairs. shamefully i gave the thumbs up to buy an automatic 3.0L eclipse for the kid, partially so he can become familiar with driving on busy streets easier/quicker and it slows the car down and nuts off some power. at least they addressed the engine valve guide issue, the transmissions were never really a weak point.

back when i started this game those same 3.0L engines would load up and smoke like a train even below 100k miles. you could find a mitsubishi V6 by following the blue smoke trail. the only reason they got away with it was because this was long before the "report smoking vehicles" regulations, they were only concerned about toxic particulates.

 

My mother in law had a Mazda 626 of that gen, holy **** that car had three transmissions. POS. I have never heard of issues with the CX-7.

I will say this. I have two company vans for patient transport and I have always bought Toyota Sienna's or Honda Odysseys and I have never had any real issues with either of those thru 2 or 3 generations of each and it's crazy what people still pay for them with 200-300k on the odometer. Granted they never missed a service and were driven fairly lightly, they didn't see crazy mileage per year.

However, I bought a new Mazda MPV back in 2006 and it has held up fairly well mechanically (except the brakes and AC) but the interior is falling apart all over and it has half the mileage that our 2006 Odyssey has and the Odyssey literally has never had an issues interior wise or elsewhere.

 

i can picture kids ripping off pieces of door panel and throwing them around inside the car.

 

Mazda's never had a good history of quality interior components. Creaks, rattles, and mostly **** plastic. RX-7's of all generations have miscellaneous interior pieces stripping and cracking. Hell, look at our RX-8's and how well misc. plastics inside have held up in most situations. Rattles becoming the norm, cracked dashes, sunvisors falling apart, e-brake handle tongues snapping, etc. I have 50k and some change on my 04, garaged half its life, very taken care of and protected. I have a few rattles, set of broken sunvisors, and snapped e-brake handle tongue.

Hopefully things have changed with the new SkyActiv platforms. No major creaks or rattles (yet) in my year old CX-5 driven through turd NYC pot hole ridden roads at 15k miles.

 

most people never change the trans fluid and then complain when they get problems.

I have a 2000 Protege 1.6L 4sp auto with 250,000 miles daily driver and the engine and trans are smooth as ever. Engine oil changed every 3-4k miles and trans flushed every 50k miles. Valvoline Max Life.

The engine had the head gasket replaced at 230k with valve job, water pump and timing belt and new radiator/thermostat/cap/hoses as the only major maintenance.

My mom's is a 2006 Mazda5 2.3L 4sp auto daily driver with 150k miles, same maintenance routine. Smooth as ever. Just got a new radiator/thermostat/cap/hoses (rad plastic tank cracked).

 

this is good advise.

[/quote]back when i started this game those same 3.0L engines would load up and smoke like a train even below 100k miles. you could find a mitsubishi V6 by following the blue smoke trail. the only reason they got away with it was because this was long before the "report smoking vehicles" regulations, they were only concerned about toxic particulates.[/QUOTE]

i remember that too, it wasn't just the occasional mitsubishi either, it was all of them...

 

At least the rx8 is not on the list...

 

I did not see my beloved Ford Ranger on that list. Every vehicle has its issues. Just some more than others.

 

we ran those are parts trucks, and while it is a dismally horrid, boring mediocre pile of crap that they couldn't be bothered to build straight, they were reliable

 

i inspected a mini cooper S about a year ago at work, with a little under 60k miles that had a head gasket leaking oil externally, oil pan leaking, an axle seal leaking, came in low on coolant, and i reccomended extra time for diagnosing all the leaks, found the externally leaking headgasket first, that alone was enough to get the car wholesaled... minis do not impress me in the least.
This was an interesting read btw scotty. thanks for posting it for us

 

I test drove a several year old BMW coupe at a dealership a few years ago and the rear window got stock rolling down and broke. The salesman literally said "you probably aren't going to buy this car now" and I replied honestly. Then bought an RX8.

 

my friend has a 99 BMW 540, and he goes through a couple regulators a year, he's replaced 14 of them so far, at $500 a pop

 

You guys forget who made the automatic transmission in that model 626. FORD.

That being said the v6 did not have nearly the issues that the 4 cylinder did. The transmission Ford supplied for the 4 cylinder was truly the worst of the worst.

 

+1, we had a tech who could do 4 in one 8 hour day, and he did on more than one occasion. THAT is a LOT of transmissions.

 

I bought one of those a year ago for my work van , took out the seats in the middle .
So we both have red rx8s
If your MPV is white ..... that would be creepy . LOL

 

Mine was built right though. I threw a 5.0 out of a 96 AWD Expo under the hood with the correct trans obviously. It had the GT40 heads, Torque Monster headers and true dual exhaust all the way back. I miss my Ranger from time to time. Then I get behind the wheel of my 8 and all is well again.