I think I'm becoming a neo-luddite. (A philosophical rant about simplicity and fear of the unknown.)

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I think what we are seeing is that, since cars don't rust out after 3 years or need a complete everything overhaul at 60k miles, they are lasting long enough for really weird issues like wiring and electronics issues to take hold.

 

Kind of like people are dying of cancers in their 80s because they didn't die of heart disease in their 40s or some random virus in their teens.

I would not agree. In some cases what you are saying happens, but I dont think its what most are talking about here. Cars havent needed overhauls every 60K in many decades. I'm talking about similar timelines or faster timelines for major repairs on brand new stuff compared to stuff built 10-20 years ago.

LTs are killing lifters and cams or dropping valves very early. On LSs, lifter failure (normally) came with mileage and if you didnt ignore it you could get away with lifters, LTs almost always need a cam. 3.5 Hondas are commonly needing injectors sub 50K. 3.5 ecos need cam actuators very early. 7.3s are killing lifters early. GM 8 speeds, are failing at low mileage and drive terribly from day 1. Nissan CVTs dying if you look at them wrong. Dont even get me started on oil consumption, Fords newest solution for oil consumption is a reflash (reduce vaccum on decel IIRC) and a wider "safe" range on a new dipstick, or 4 and 5K dollar headlamps and tail lamps. Buddies work truck just had a headlamp replaced under warranty, was told retail would have been $4800.

I'm very aware that software issues will be the death of my 2019 Silverado.

The mechanicals are great, not sure about everything else.

Modern cars are great, most issues are solved by component replacement rather than overhaul. Most vehicles go to their grave without ever having the head off the engine.

My term of youth was "retro grouch."  I refused to drive anything made after 1968 until my mid 20s, but the VW GTI . . .  That said, the LS the is perfect quantity (read:  limit) of tech for me.  The Mopar 392 is about the same.  

We make concessions and find tolerance through momentary discomfort.  That or we continue discomfort forever, which is why I still only ride bikes with one gear.

In reply to Opti :

so stuff built 10-20 years ago. 2004-2014. I can think of a dozen ailments in that time period from about every manufacuter. Honda transmissions from that era were junk. Toyota engine sludging. Taco frame rot. 4L60E transmission failures. Hemi rocker studs pulling out of the heads. Powerstrokes shooting flames and eating themselves. Jeep grand cherokees that everything inside stopped working. All mopar engines ending in .7 that weren't a hemi were trash. E46 cooling issues. Subaru head gaskets, ringlands or bearings.... or all 3 at once. 

I think a lot of people are looking back at our past with some seriously rose colored glasses. 

In reply to outasite :

We call them Disco Rice.

bobzilla said:

In reply to Opti :

so stuff built 10-20 years ago. 2004-2014. I can think of a dozen ailments in that time period from about every manufacuter. Honda transmissions from that era were junk. Toyota engine sludging. Taco frame rot. 4L60E transmission failures. Hemi rocker studs pulling out of the heads. Powerstrokes shooting flames and eating themselves. Jeep grand cherokees that everything inside stopped working. All mopar engines ending in .7 that weren't a hemi were trash. E46 cooling issues. Subaru head gaskets, ringlands or bearings.... or all 3 at once. 

I think a lot of people are looking back at our past with some seriously rose colored glasses. 

Exactly what I was thinking... there are a lot of cognitive biases here. We hear/talk about the outliers and begin to believe that they represent the whole population. In truth, very few 20+ year old cars are reliable. Very few new cars are not. 

We also have shifting definitions of Reliable. Is something that drives forever but constantly needs suspension parts, door locks, HVAC stuff, hub bearings, etc. considered to be Reliable?

Older is always better.  New is fine as long as it's covered by a meaningful warranty, or if you poop $100 bills. 

1988RedT2 said:

Older is always better.  New is fine as long as it's covered by a meaningful warranty, or if you poop $100 bills. 

Ex wife's 2023 Explorer ST lasted 7 months on the factory 3/36... besides that, I have a lift, multiple toolboxes, an oriellys cash account, and way too much time to not fix what's broke. My problem is I completely berkeleying disagree with how Ford wants me to "test" things via the pinpoint tests and waste my time. To even get the test information is asinine, as I need Mitchell or Alldata access for mega bucks overall.

Given PDM technology, I'd almost completely rewire a vehicle then deal with the OE compromises.

In reply to bobzilla :

The 5.7 hemi wasn't great either, they ate lifters and exhaust rockers, and the cars they were installed in rusted audibly.

Any pushrod V engine had timing cover corrosion issues, as did the Chrysler 3.7 and 4.7, anything with plastic composite intake gaskets had intake issues, Buick V6s ate intake plenums which sometimes shortened a connecting rod when they'd hydrolock on startup, as would the Ford 4.2 lower intake gasket.  Anything overhead cam with timing chains had issues, most manufacturers with variable cam timing had issues (even Toyota), and on and on.

Nothing mechanical is perfect, with possible exception of Volvo whiteblocks, which just worked at least for the first 200,000 miles, then they would calmly lose the head gasket after the decks in the block sank.

I think the reason the older vehicles seem to have less problems is the early failures have already been removed from the population or repaired with upgraded components.
 

The whiteblock was Volvo's apology for the PRV

In reply to ShawnG :

Is it not normal to cut a hole in the firewall for routine camshaft replacement?  Or having an external cooling system with four dozen large diameter hoses?

For all of the "common" problems people say are happening "all of the time"- how often are they actually happening?  Or do people complaining about them on various web places amplify issues that are small when compared to older vehicles?

I remember in the 90's how bad the Miata thrust washer debacle was.  

Honestly, if any of the accused problems were *really* that common- multiple reasons would force OEM's to recall cars immediately.  Grenading a motor is a massive emissions failure- just the EPA's rules around emissions recalls would totally deal with any of them being.  The REQUIRED threshold to report problems to the EPA as a problem is 25 for a given model year.  25 vehicles.

I don't know where to look for NHTSA's rules regarding recalls, but I do know that the threshold is incredibly small to force a recall for some kinds of failures.  Down to "potential" instead of actual problems, even.  And a total engine failure is certainly a multiple safety problems- off the top of my head- fire and crash are both probable outcomes of many engine failures.

Anyway, the point is that I'm really wondering how bad all of these new cars *really* are.  Or is it just conjecture because people think they don't want new cars?

No Time said:

I think the reason the older vehicles seem to have less problems is the early failures have already been removed from the population or repaired with upgraded components.
 

Also the ones that are still being driven are built better because they are still running.

In reply to alfadriver :

One of my friends in the Mazda rotary world said that being on forums causes you to have RX-8 engine problems.  He knew a few people who had RX-8s who were not in "the community" and their cars just... worked.

Opti said:

Antihero said:

Guy I work with usually churns over a 5 year old car every 3 years, currently a 18 Tahoe and he's had nothing but problems with this one.

 

That's hard to stomach when you have a $650 a month payment, which I think is a lot of what's wrong with the newish car economy right now. Having a big ish payment and repairs sucks. When at 06 Audi is more reliable and you have more confidence it's kinda sad

 

He's currently looking at gmt800 series trucks/avalanche for a replacement 

This is a smart man, hearing a lot of this exact story lately.

The newer GM trucks are bad (im a GM guy) Lifter failures on the LTs are more common and more catastrophic than LS. The 6 speed likes to take out converters and kill the rest of the trans, the 8 speeds are bad out of the box, 10 speeds seem to be better, but have problems the Ford version doesnt. Carbon build up on all the DI GMs is a problem. There is no question, a non AFM LS GMT800 is more reliable and cheaper to maintain than, an LT powered truck, and it isnt even close.

I'll take a little credit since I've been pushing him that way, although I'm more of a gmt400 than 800 fan.

Having said that, the wife wants an Avalanche too and we are leaning towards a first gen

The Ford 10 speeds have issues too.

The GM issues seem to be related to using plastic check balls in the valve body.  They don't beat up the valve body but the plastic balls wear out and get wedged in place.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Routine cam replacement meaning every 20k miles...

There are no words to describe my hatred for that engine. All due to having to maintain one in my mother's Volvo 760GLE.

I firmly believe that people like to go looking for trouble with their machinery and the internet fuels that.

I never do a compression test unless I'm trying to diagnose a problem or my customer asks for it. Why give yourself something to worry about?

I had an old Matchless 500 twin. The procedure to check the oil system was "run the bike and remove the filler cap, watch for oil swirling in the tank". I got the bright idea to put a pressure gauge on it. It would spike the gauge on startup until the relief valve opened, then drop very low once everything warmed up while being all over the map while riding. 

I removed the gauge and put a plug back in the hole so I could just focus on riding the darn bike.

Out of sight, out of mind.

In reply to ShawnG :

Exactly why oil pressure and water temp gauges are not real.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

The Ford 10 speeds have issues too.

The GM issues seem to be related to using plastic check balls in the valve body.  They don't beat up the valve body but the plastic balls wear out and get wedged in place.

Thats why there is an updated cdf drum with a ridge cut in and the holes being further slotted to avoid the sliding bushing. Now GM can't spec out a bearing for the pump countershaft that whines while Ford doesn't have that problem. GM says it's "normal".

In reply to alfadriver :

If that was the case, why aren't all those Kia's being recalled? The one guy on tikytok was at 170-200(?) replacement long blocks in a year. One of his videos counted out 20+ cores to go back...

In reply to Ranger50 :

He should report all of those failures to the EPA.  If they are that real.  People need to know how to deal with OEM's that are not willing to deal with the problems they have.  Toyota got in a lot of trouble for not reporting the 25- they paid $180M fine for not reporting.

(not sure if you are serious, BTW- don't really know anything about how real T-T is.)

alfadriver said:

In reply to Ranger50 :

He should report all of those failures to the EPA.  If they are that real.  People need to know how to deal with OEM's that are not willing to deal with the problems they have.  Toyota got in a lot of trouble for not reporting the 25- they paid $180M fine for not reporting.

(not sure if you are serious, BTW- don't really know anything about how real T-T is.)

Google Kia engine failure and the first result is a class action lawsuit site. I did see a 1.2 million vehicle recall result too.... but we all know what recalls really mean depending on the failure.

In reply to Ranger50 :

Even so, do people extrapolate one OEM's failure of one engine to all motors and all systems being made?  I don't see that as an example that all new vehicles are less reliable.  Just as an example of a mistake made.

alfadriver said:

For all of the "common" problems people say are happening "all of the time"- how often are they actually happening?  Or do people complaining about them on various web places amplify issues that are small when compared to older vehicles?

I remember in the 90's how bad the Miata thrust washer debacle was.  

Honestly, if any of the accused problems were *really* that common- multiple reasons would force OEM's to recall cars immediately.  Grenading a motor is a massive emissions failure- just the EPA's rules around emissions recalls would totally deal with any of them being.  The REQUIRED threshold to report problems to the EPA as a problem is 25 for a given model year.  25 vehicles.

I don't know where to look for NHTSA's rules regarding recalls, but I do know that the threshold is incredibly small to force a recall for some kinds of failures.  Down to "potential" instead of actual problems, even.  And a total engine failure is certainly a multiple safety problems- off the top of my head- fire and crash are both probable outcomes of many engine failures.

Anyway, the point is that I'm really wondering how bad all of these new cars *really* are.  Or is it just conjecture because people think they don't want new cars?

You're right it would be crazy to think the OEMs are following the rules, and are exploiting every loophole in every law if it saves them a cent. /sarcasm

Didnt GM get out of an 8 speed lawsuit by saying the problems arent a manufacturing defect but a design defect and therefore they dont have to be covered.