4chan's used car buying guide
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I've never tried this one but I've heard you should write that you're looking for a project car and that'll get people to tell you every little issue the car has.
The 4Runner would probably have had some quip about a roof top tent, balls in wife's purse. The Miata would have had the quintessential homosexual reference. The CTS would have had a joke about being a geriatric mfer. Stuff like that.
Why doesn't everyone just have a Toyota then? It's what every car guy I know recommends
Reliability isn’t always the most important characteristic of a car, especially now that reliability across all brands is dramatically better than just 30 years ago.
It's going to get me there. It's going to keep running. It's not going to leave me stranded someplace.
I like adventure, so I keep buying 15 year old German cars.
What code will it throw today? Will it start? Will it run? Will something important fall off? Why are there electronics burning in the dash?
That's a masochistic trait if I ever saw one.
At least I'm enjoying myself by myself. If I have to push the car into a ditch and Uber, I will.
I want to capture this feeling again - my Civic just works, but my old Saab was just way more fun.
Of course, the Swedish electrical gremlins weren’t fun, and parts availability is even worse, but there are now effective clones for some of the proprietary tools and security systems and more information on DIYing for these cars than I could’ve ever dreamed of when I sold it…
Samesies; we've kept an e60 m5 as the wife's daily driver for about a decade.
The 'Subaru' tax less so... [1]
Mazda is somewhat the exception here; a lot of their stuff is some branch of the Ford tech branch lineage, but they at least went down the path of 'not leaking coolant into cylinders' with their engine design.
But I digress.
It's an information problem because the owner may or may not know about engine/transmission/electrical[2] The the first two parts of that are -fairly- consistent across models... you'll see some cars that frequently sell at certain mileage points, and sometimes part of that is because savvy owners know that it's near a hard maintenance point (or common failure point.)
[0] - Shift Flare on Aisin(Toyota) transmissions is far less of a real problem than many Honda 5 speeds, for example.
[1] - I've found my Subaru, despite having a reputation for being 'touchy' was perfectly fine up to the point an oil change was borked. After that it's been a slow downhill.
[2] - These are the biggest 'money pits' in my experience, baring 'cooling system' issues that were actually engine design issues (looking at you, AMC I6 Grand Cherokee!)
> untenable in the age of electric cars
Frankly, Subaru is in a tough spot with that. Most of Subaru's unique 'value prop' outside of JDM is that their overall design makes for a fairly cheap but effective AWD system. AFAICT there's no good 'translation' to that for an electric car.
Mazda... I'm of the opinion they probably suffered a bit from Ford divesting most/all of their interest in them. (OTOH, Ford has suffered a bit, the more Ford tries to 'improve' the otherwise very reliable Mazda 4Cyl designs the more problems they seem to have...)
At this rate I might as well get an AWD Prius. Terribly disappointed with Subaru. It's not like they are unaware of the problems, visit any Subaru forum/subreddit and the common complaints are very obvious.
Much above reliability (that everyone wants) with tradeoffs (that we are unable to judge for others)
If you do need to work on them they're put together in a way that doesn't make you wonder wtf the engineers were thinking. I've owned and worked on cars from all of these brands as well as a few I'm probably forgetting:
Toyota Chevy Ford Volkswagen GM (Saturn, Pontiac)
My Saturn SL2 was the easiest American car I've ever worked on, lots of clearance to get to things. Ford was by far the worst, in order to remove the AC compressor I also had to remove the radiator (which necessitated a coolant drain and fill) and power steering pump because there was 1/4" less clearance than needed to pull the bolts. If I'd paid someone it would have been thousands in labor.
By contrast I pulled and replaced the entire suspension on my 4Runner last summer in about 10 hours with just hand tools (upgrade, not replacing failed components).
If you ask what car would be the most fun to drive, or have the best interior comfort, you'd probably get a different answer.
If you care about driving characteristics, but also want a good reliable point A to point B car Hondas are a good alternative to Toyota. You perhaps trade the tiniest bit of reliability for better steering / pedal feel.
Auto manufacturers put their emphasis in different areas. Often it is a reflection of what a culture values itself. You find similarities in characteristics between the cars of a particular country. To generalize:
German Cars: Refined, good fit and finish, mechanically complex engineering sometimes at the expense of reliability. Same could be said for British cars.
Japanese Cars: Simple and reliable, well engineered and built using proven technology.
American Cars: Innovative and inventive, but often designed and built with a “good enough” approach. QA may be lacking on some makes/models.
Italian Cars: Beautifully designed with lots of personality, but often unreliable and with certain design/engineering quirks that would never make it out the concept phase for other brands.
Could go on, but you get the idea. Vehicle brands value different things. Often that is a regional / country specific thing. What you want depends on what you need / value.
etc
There are only 4 cars that I ever shop for. Toyota Corrola, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord.
It really makes it easy to shop, too. Only ask for those 4 cars. You're not just wandering aimlessly, ready for getting fleeced by an auto salesperson because you don't know what you want.
And of course, there is also the guy with the little penis buyer, needing to buy a Ferrari or Porsche or whatever. The funny thing is, my Honda Civic is just as fast as a Ferrari, Porsche, Bugatti, or whatever. I go 25 miles per hour in the suburban streets, 35 on main arteries, and 65 on freeways. None of those supercars can go faster than my Honda. So why pay $500,000 for a supercar??? Little penis.