The end of production for the Nissan Versa means there are no new cars priced under $20,000 — a blow to some Americans who may find themselves priced out of the market.
Cars today are simply not more reliable. I have drug a 48 Willy’s out of a barn that had been sitting for decades, adjusted the points and drained the fuel and put in new. Marvel mystery oil down the plug holes and bar by hand to ensure not seized and cleaned out the carb and she fired right up. Old cars may require more frequent service due to old mechanical systems, but they will far outlive anything made in the last 20 years. Automobile reliability peaked between 1990 and 2005 or so, anything made after is over complex (think can bus, one frayed wire and ur cars whole network goes down and immobilized you) and anything earlier still needs frequent attention yet very robust in design. Long service intervals =/= reliability, their just making them disposables after 100k miles now. See: low tension piston rings, cvt transmissions, “lifetime” fluids (no such thing…), carbon issues on intake valves and engine internals from direct injection and overstated service intervals to keep projected ownership costs down, oh I could go on and write a book about how new cars ain’t shit.
Sure maybe an inline motor from the 40-50’s with a manual transmission, drum brakes and manual steering was more reliable. Basically an old school farm tractor.
I think you are looking at survivability bias. The old cars left running are reliable, the unreliable ones were scrapped long ago.
Ease of repair is not the same as reliability.
My new cars are toasters. I change the oil, rotate the tires and swap out brake pads. When things go ‘wrong’ they continue to drive. A bad o2 sensor goes into an error state but the car still drives. It doesn’t just stall at each and every stop.
My 2012 nissan blows the doors clean off myold 76/77? pontiac lemans.
In the ~100k I had my Nissan I have not had to rebuild my fuel injection system but in the ~100k I had my mechanically simple Pontiac I had the carb rebuilt 3x times, and it should have been 4. Carb rebuilding was regular maintenance and it pretty much required to have a functional car. That isn’t the constant changing of gaskets required to keep it from dripping oil or blowing smoke.
It had a rock solid 305. It was much more reliable than any of the cars I got in the 80s when the transition happened to computers. I had an engine fall out of my 85 pontiac. It ran so rough in winter it rattled the engine mounting bolts out. I did have to replace the fuel injection system on my mid 90’s GM, but that car pretty reliable.
I got flashback to fixing fucking vacuum leaks. God damn why not just replace ALL the lines , still not it ? FUCK!
I traded a bus and reader that will tell me what is wrong for a chiltons and vacuum system.
I loved being young. I loved the freedom of going where I wanted when I wanted. I loved gas so cheap I would just take a drive to clear my head. The old cars were finicky and required constant attention. They just weren’t build to last more than 10 years.
Yes they can, but most (let’s use Subaru for example) said they had life time fluid despite having a replaceable filter, as they don’t give a shit if it grenades at 100k miles cuz if it’s out of warranty you have to buy a transmission from them! They later back tracked and said oh yea actually u should service your transmission. And this isn’t just a cvt issue, bmw was doing the filled for life crap back in the early 2000s. Automatic transmissions are hydrolic devices, and any hydrolic device is only as good as it’s hydrolic fluid.
Whole networks of rebuilt transmission dealers used to exist for the constant need to swap transmissions in older cars. 100k was about the limit for older transmissions as well.
The fact people are complaining that CVT’s last only a 100k says how much the reliability windows has shifted.
Ikr, people saying old cars were better are smoking crack. Cars back in the day started rusting after the 2nd or 3rd year of ownership and only had 5 digit odometers because most people got a new one when they got to around 70k.
Cars today are simply not more reliable. I have drug a 48 Willy’s out of a barn that had been sitting for decades, adjusted the points and drained the fuel and put in new. Marvel mystery oil down the plug holes and bar by hand to ensure not seized and cleaned out the carb and she fired right up. Old cars may require more frequent service due to old mechanical systems, but they will far outlive anything made in the last 20 years. Automobile reliability peaked between 1990 and 2005 or so, anything made after is over complex (think can bus, one frayed wire and ur cars whole network goes down and immobilized you) and anything earlier still needs frequent attention yet very robust in design. Long service intervals =/= reliability, their just making them disposables after 100k miles now. See: low tension piston rings, cvt transmissions, “lifetime” fluids (no such thing…), carbon issues on intake valves and engine internals from direct injection and overstated service intervals to keep projected ownership costs down, oh I could go on and write a book about how new cars ain’t shit.
Sure maybe an inline motor from the 40-50’s with a manual transmission, drum brakes and manual steering was more reliable. Basically an old school farm tractor.
I think you are looking at survivability bias. The old cars left running are reliable, the unreliable ones were scrapped long ago.
Ease of repair is not the same as reliability.
My new cars are toasters. I change the oil, rotate the tires and swap out brake pads. When things go ‘wrong’ they continue to drive. A bad o2 sensor goes into an error state but the car still drives. It doesn’t just stall at each and every stop.
My 2012 nissan blows the doors clean off myold 76/77? pontiac lemans.
In the ~100k I had my Nissan I have not had to rebuild my fuel injection system but in the ~100k I had my mechanically simple Pontiac I had the carb rebuilt 3x times, and it should have been 4. Carb rebuilding was regular maintenance and it pretty much required to have a functional car. That isn’t the constant changing of gaskets required to keep it from dripping oil or blowing smoke.
It had a rock solid 305. It was much more reliable than any of the cars I got in the 80s when the transition happened to computers. I had an engine fall out of my 85 pontiac. It ran so rough in winter it rattled the engine mounting bolts out. I did have to replace the fuel injection system on my mid 90’s GM, but that car pretty reliable.
I got flashback to fixing fucking vacuum leaks. God damn why not just replace ALL the lines , still not it ? FUCK!
I traded a bus and reader that will tell me what is wrong for a chiltons and vacuum system.
I loved being young. I loved the freedom of going where I wanted when I wanted. I loved gas so cheap I would just take a drive to clear my head. The old cars were finicky and required constant attention. They just weren’t build to last more than 10 years.
CVTs can last over 100k if you do fluid changes about every 30k miles or so.
Yes they can, but most (let’s use Subaru for example) said they had life time fluid despite having a replaceable filter, as they don’t give a shit if it grenades at 100k miles cuz if it’s out of warranty you have to buy a transmission from them! They later back tracked and said oh yea actually u should service your transmission. And this isn’t just a cvt issue, bmw was doing the filled for life crap back in the early 2000s. Automatic transmissions are hydrolic devices, and any hydrolic device is only as good as it’s hydrolic fluid.
I have a Subaru and in America they say that but outside America they recommend 30k. I blame the dealership network here for this shit.
Whole networks of rebuilt transmission dealers used to exist for the constant need to swap transmissions in older cars. 100k was about the limit for older transmissions as well.
The fact people are complaining that CVT’s last only a 100k says how much the reliability windows has shifted.
Ikr, people saying old cars were better are smoking crack. Cars back in the day started rusting after the 2nd or 3rd year of ownership and only had 5 digit odometers because most people got a new one when they got to around 70k.
When I look at used cars I don’t even look for rust the foot-wells anymore.
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