Of all the things we want our cars to be, “reliable” is always way up at the top of the list. No matter how narrowly focused a car may otherwise be as an off-roader or street carver or luxurious cruiser or something else, the one thing we’d all like the machine to do is start, run, and return us home (or to the finish line or trailhead) without breaking down or failing to start in the first place.
And when it comes to daily drivers and work vehicles, nothing trumps reliability. No one can afford to be late or miss a job with any regularity. Everyone needs reliable transportation, and a reputation for reliability can only be earned. No amount of marketing can spin a car that lets customers down into one they can count on.
For a lot of buyers, that means Honda and Toyota top their preferred brands list, though they aren’t the only reliability stars. Getting more granular, specific models like Civic, Corolla, Accord, and Camry are singled out for bulletproofness. More knowledgeable car buyers might advise budget-conscious shoppers to look for anything with a Buick 3800 V6 for day-in, day-out infallible transpo.
No matter what advice you’ve gotten or like to give about which cars can be counted on and which to avoid, there are always surprises. A low-mile Corolla that somehow becomes the bane of your motoring existence. The high-mileage luxury European car everyone told you not to buy has, incredibly, never let you down. And so, today we’re asking What Supposedly Super-Reliable Car Was A Lemon For You (And Vice Versa)?
Says Matt,
People always complain about old German luxury cars, but my 240k-mile BMW is great. I treat it like a Honda Civic and, other than a flare up here or there, it acts like a Honda Civic. I realize by saying this I’m dooming myself.
I fully expect that Matt’s BMW, now jinxed, will strand him within a fortnight. (Yeah, I say “fortnight” now.)
David, meanwhile, had a terrible experience with what shoulda been a no-worries ride:
I bought a 1995 Honda Accord; it was, to this day, the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever owned. Everything broke at once, and it wasn’t that easy to fix. I loathed it. And the fifth gear synchro didn’t work. Could it have been abused? Sure. But that doesn’t excuse it abusing me.
Matt piped in:
Between a Honda Accord and Saturn Vue, I would not have picked the Vue as the reliable daily. Who would?
Stephen also hated an Accord. Am I taking crazy pills?
One of my most-difficult to own/fix was one that ha sa reputation for not breaking. ’08 Honda Accord Sedan, I bought it off of a local door guy that had just gotten in a RF fender-bender (with accompanying DUI) and hit the local Pick n Pull to piece it back together. Fender, headlight, bumper cover, fender skirt, brackets, etc. Once it was back together and painted, I kept getting an transmission shifting issue that pointed towards the speed sensor. Popped a new one in, same issue. The part I purchased had the same dimensions and connections as the one it replaced, so I figured there must be some other internal issue with that transmission. Sold the car for cheap with the concern. Later, I learned that Honda uses both an input and output speed sensor on that transmission that both use the exact-same pigtail connector and are identical! Of course the sensor that I had swapped out was The Good One (Input) and all the next owner had to do was swap out the Output sensor. A solid learning experience.
Your turn! What Supposedly Super-Reliable Car Was A Lemon For You (And Vice Versa)?
Top graphic: Toyota
I have an old British roadster, a 62 Austin Healey Sprite. I have had zero electrical problems (it’s all stock electrically), and even though I’ve done much preventative maintenance, it’s really cheap to own. It has never left me stranded in 7 years of ownership and I always know it will start when I bump the key.
Don’t get me wrong, I do work on it, and had to do some tuning up, but compared to what most people make old British cars out to be, it’s been a peach. Also SU carburetors are awesome, incredibly easy to understand and perform great.
My 2009 Mercedes-Benz CLK350 Cabriolet has been incredibly reliable – unless I do something silly like leave the headlamps on when I park it overnight rather than leaving them in Auto.
Sure the annual maintenance has been expensive. That’s why it’s been so reliable coming up on 124K miles.
I guess I’m fortunate – because the only cars I’ve had that have been unreliable I can directly trace back to a lack of proper maintenance.
Sorry, DT, for your GMT400 experience. I have a 1999 Tahoe 2 door with 315k miles, bought it with 150k on the clock, just beat my ex-SIL with her 2001 Camry (bricked at 301k). My Blushing Bride had a 1992 Plymouth Acclaim 2.5 auto, govt gold, ran for over 150k until the 4th traffic scofflaw (yep, she was hit 4 times, the insurance ponied up for 3 repairs) sent Sgt Friday to Uncle Ratchet’s farm. She got my 1986 Delta 88 (3800 V6), and I got a slightly used 2001 Honda Civic DX, 5 speed, had A/C. I had owned Hondas in the past (1981 Prelude in college, 180k, not one problem; 1991 Civic Hatchback, no issues, slow car that drove fast), so I expected reliability. Everything on this car (50k in two years when I got it) broke. Constantly. The throttle sensor was always in another time zone, 4 alternators, 2 radiators, HVAC blower resistors, a random power drain (I pulled all the fuses and I was still getting an amperage draw) and the master cylinder failed. Somehow, I drove it for 4 years, doing all the repairs myself, sold it to a young gear head fotlr $100 and a warning: Don’t bring it back. I was so disappointed in Honda that it took me a year to ride in my brother’s 2021 Civic.
I had a 2012 Dodge Avenger, bought in early 2013 with 20k miles on it. My wife put nearly 100k miles on it over 7 years with infrequent oil changes and aside from tires, brakes, and an alternator, the sucker ran great. Once the pandemic hit, we’ve had no need for a second car, and it’s been sitting in the driveway with a dead battery and another bad alternator for the last 2 years.
My 2009 VW TDi Touareg has been super reliable. I do lots of heavy towing and live in an area with harsh winters (northern Finland) and it has never missed a beat in three years. It has 190k miles on the clock now.
My close friend has 2019 Toyota Hilux and it’s been very problematic. Leaking seals, broken coil springs and DPF problems. It’s even left him stranded few times. It has 60k miles on the odo.
Vice versa…so far.
Case 1: 2001 VW T4 Transporter Syncro with the 5 cylinder turbo diesel ACV engine and manual transmission. Owned since new and, after nearly 350,000 kilometres, the only fail points on it that weren’t induced by myself, a mechanic or general wear and tear were the brake light switch and the ignition switch. Both were known issues due to crap factory parts. The brake light switch bricked within weeks (and was fixed by disassembling it and bending the contacts) while the ignition switch died about 12 years ago.
Case 2: 1988 Lada Niva. I was the umpteenth owner by 1995. By the time I offloaded it in 1998 after more than 50,000 kilometres, the only thing that broke that wasn’t on me, a mechanic or general wear and tear was the driver’s seat tilt mechanism and the cables on the window winding mechanism. It ran like a top. But I did break the front damper mounts due to fitting stiffer ARB shocks. And I spent some coin on rust repairs! Unreliable, though? Absolutely not.
The family’s 1987 Toyota Corolla. It had a terrible random stutter. It was such a rats nest of carburetor hoses and wiring whatnot I didn’t want to mess with it.
Why does everyone tell me that Toyotas are great then?
Toyotas are great, usually.
I don’t see the hype.
If you want a fuel efficient car and/or value for money, they do the job well…..same for Lexus.
But otherwise….
They also make world class 4x4s
“Used to be world-class”. The only thing that remotely matches it is the LC70….which barebones. The only other vehicle similar is the GMC Savana/CHEVROLET Express vans….
Still, their 4x4s are very overhyped here in Qatar as well. We drove an LC200 as a rental and it shook at speeds close to 120 km/h….
And Hiluxes were world class in the 80s, 90s and early 00s (some engines still are). But modern ones have to deal with DPF/DEF issues…
The newer LC300s have had issues blowing up their motors and given the extreme abuse they undergo here in Qatar under the hands of locals, I fear to even TOUCH one without warranty….
I can’t speak to their non-USDM products but here in the US despite some recent issues they are still well regarded. CR still rates them well with the main criticism that they’re kinda boring:
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/toyota/
I guess the question then is if you are in Qatar what comparable vehicle would you trust most to head out into the deep, deep desert and to bring you back with no fuss nor drama? A Land Rover? a Cadillac? Infiniti? Something from China?
My B16 swapped 96 Civic CX. I’ve had it 19 years and love it to death.Ultimately, it has been incredibly reliable but the first year or so of ownership, the car was a nightmare. It was very poorly treated by NOT the previous owner but the guy before him (the guy before me bought it as a project but was in a band that was on tour and didn’t have time for it). The engine swap was done poorly, most mods were done poorly, body work was done poorly, and it was just abused. I spent so much money on the car in that first year, but afterwards, the car’s utter refusal to strand me anywhere earned my love and respect. I got stranded once thanks to a blown transmission that was mostly the abusers fault, though I was aware of the issue and forgot to address it before it kersploded.
My 2016 Honda HR-V EX-L AWD. I bought it with 149,000 miles at just under 5 years old. It has a CVT which had me a little wary. The EX-L models are also known to eat batteries. The fact it already had an aftermarket battery that was a year or two old when I bought it, again, had me wary… Nothing. I’ve had the car four years and practically nothing. I did some preventative maintenance shortly after I bought it (trans fluid, rear diff fluid, coolant, spark plugs, and brakes), done my oil changes, and had tires put on it. That’s just about it. I still have the same battery even. I’ve had to do ONE “repair”. A new Start/Stop button. $50 and 10 minutes of tool-free work.
My parents’ S class Mercedes. Back in 1969 they bought a used 250S (W108) and while it nice when it worked the power windows were perpetually on the blink and it had other mechanical issues culminating in throwing a rod in early 1974 while mom was driving the nursery school carpool. We replaced it with a Volvo and never bought another M-B product.
The shockingly reliable cars? Every European car I’ve ever owned has been extremely reliable.
VW Jetta? No issues in 140k miles of ownership
VW Passat? No issues in 180k miles of ownership
BMW 525i? No issues in 110k miles of ownership
Mini Cooper S? No issues in 70k miles of ownership
My current Volvo XC40? No issues in 25k miles with hopefully plenty more to go.
However my supposedly reliable Japanese cars (while mostly reliable) had their few pieces of crap.
Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V? Electrical gremlins would lead the car to go through alternators more frequently than tires.
Honda CR-V? Leaked oil from more than one place in the engine and the steering felt more like a suggestion than an actual function of the car.
I had a ‘98 Volvo S80 2.8 I6. It was a fecking lemon! People talk about their Volvos lasting a million miles. Mine wouldn’t go 10 without an issue
My Tbird hasn’t been perfectly reliable- unkillable would be more of the word I’d use. They have a reputation for electrical issues and mine has been no exception- gone through 3 alternators, 2 starters, and half of the dashboard is currently dead- and mechanically it’s got its fair share of problems too. But when I lost my job last year it survived being driven for 5 months with a blown head gasket, collapsed rear suspension and an exhaust that was falling off. I’m still working on fixing the problems- it’s got a nasty oil leak, the suspension is borked in an impressive number of ways, and the electrics continue to spite me- but despite all that it’s only ever died on me once- and never left me stranded.
The Chevy Vega was routinely trashed in the press and public opinion, but my 1976 Vega wagon was great – that is, until a wrong-way driver forced me off the road, totaling the car. I replaced it with a 1978 Chevy Monza wagon – same body but different engine, and that one snapped its driveshaft within six months of ownership.
Reliability is generally waaay down the list of traits I look for in a car. Like, shockingly so. So it gives me endless joy to report that my Toyota leaks more oil than my Lancia. Mind you, the MR2 is very much a racecar, which naturally means leaks and squeaks are a bit normal, but it’s still a good laugh.
My lemon was a brand-new 1978 Honda Accord LX I purchased as my first car after college. The first problem came around 10,000 miles when I started getting oily smoke from the exhaust, and then the car died and needed to be towed. It turned out to be an oil seal issue, and they had to replace the engine’s top end.
Around 20,000 miles, a similar problem happened, and I had to be towed in again. This time, the valve seals, crank bearings, and rings showed excessive wear. The dealer called Honda US, which sent their tech to look at it. It turned out that the emissions system was contaminating the engine oil, causing excessive wear. I got a new engine out of it, but I sold the car not long after, as I’d lost confidence in it.
It was the only car I’ve ever owned that stranded me twice, and I’ve owned some vehicles you’d expect that behavior from.
Fortnight? Okay Madonna you still aren’t British. I have to say my shit sucked and my stars shone bright.
1999 Dodge Dakota. Ordered it new (with a manual trans) from the factory, and within a few weeks it intermittently would launch itself out of 1st gear under initial acceleration with a sickening clunk. I took to physically holding the shift lever in gear until I got moving enough to shift into 2nd. Repeatedly took it to the dealer, where they claimed that the techs couldn’t replicate the problem and therefore weren’t responsible to fix the issue. I was unable to Lemon Law it, and so I traded it in for one of my favorite vehicles – A 2004 Toyota Tundra with the suicide doors and V8 engine. Never looked back.
I had a Plymouth Valiant was crappy as expected every time I turned left it stalled. I decided enough. When to a dealer who had a Civic advertised. It was nice but then he did the squeeze for more. I hadn’t told him about the problem of the Valiant yet so I ended up not telling at all and I had my bank make the check out for $400 less than agreed. So I said couldn’t afford it. They had already fueled it up and then agreed to back off to what the check was for. But yeah expected crappy got it expected Honda good and got it.
I haven’t had any real lemons. But here were a couple of cars I had that were rated as ‘unreliable’ that were decently reliable for me… the 2000 Saab 9-3 and the 2006 PT Cruiser
In the case of the Saab, they will last either over 400,000km or die before 100,000km.
Why? Well if they are owned by someone who always uses Mobil 1 full synthetic and drops the oil pan every 150,000km to make sure nothing is clogging the oil pickup (like me), they will last a very long time.
But if it’s owned by someone who uses cheap oil and combines that with the extended oil change intervals, that oil pickup will get clogged with sludge and the engine will die prematurely.
Overall, the Saab was a solid car for me. When I got rid of mine, it had 397,000km on it. But the reason why I got rid of it had more to do with maintenance and repairs costing more than average. Like many Euro cars, the engine, transmission and body were solid. It was a bunch of other little things… like rear brake pads that would only last 50,000km at most. Or the poorly designed HVAC knob shafts that were stupidly designed and made from cheap plastic and commonly broke unless you treated them like delicate crystal.
And with the PT Cruiser, what kills them prematurely is the cooling system not being maintained. A common issue with them is a cracked thermostat housing. That and other cooling system parts need to be replaced every 6-8 years as they get brittle with age. Failing to do that will cause a coolant leak and will likely cause an overheat situation followed by a blown headgasket.
Anyone who keeps the cooling system in tip top shape along with doing the oil changes will have a car that’s reliable.
Also for both cases, I had versions of these with the more reliable manual transmission. And in the case of the PT, it was a base model that didn’t even have A/C.
Base models means there is less stuff that can break. And that means better reliability.
My E36 323i.
Had it since 2021, it’s on 189k miles and it’s one of the most solid, dependable cars I’ve owned.
Yes, I’ve done a fair bit of preventative maintenance and refreshing stuff like the suspension and the cooling system. But, when I do some work on it, it sticks.
I’ve had so many cars that have just continued to be a problem after repairs, right up until I get rid of them in frustration.
The 2006 Frontier NISMO 4×4 I got used was a pile of junk. It had the expensive Frontier defects in the engine and transmission cooler as well as many electrical glitches and additional engine part failures. I laugh at anyone who calls those trucks tough or indestructable. The generation before was better in that regard.
Oh, that would be the Volvo 244D that young-n-broke me bought. Being broke, I was really trying to get a reliable car. I suppose the moment when the engine burst into flames at 55mph was when I realized ‘reputation’ does not equal ‘every car’ in a class…
Our Rover 825TD was rock solid. We drove it for a good 100K miles, and never had an issue with the Lucas electronics, or the maligned VM Motori engine. Only an accessory belt failed, and that was probably our fault.
Yes, turning on the lights would create static on the radio, the top of the dashboard warped and the black trim on the A pillars somehow turned white. But we loved that car.
My totally reliable lemon was my 2013 Fiat 500 Sport 5 speed. I had a blast driving it. I never did anything more than oil changes and tire rotations.
The dream…
We have 2012 500 we’ve owned since new that’s been nearly flawless. I still see quite a few others around as well, which makes it seem like 500s in general are more reliable than one would think.
My mom in the late 90s/early 2000s had some flavor of Audi sedan. A beautiful car, in black, and she had bought it at an Audi dealer with 20000~ miles on the clock and under warranty. So, it should’ve been relatively reliable seeing as it was basically brand new. And it was, until around 45000 miles, when the timing belt prematurely snapped. Best part? She was driving out in a blizzard, so it took 5 hours for my dad and a tow truck to rescue her. The timing belt breaking completely wrecked the top end, and so my dad bit the bullet and got the engine rebuilt by a specialist shop and the car was running fine. Unfortunately, at 50,000 the miles, the car started smoking a little. At this point, my parents wanted the thing gone, so they went to a Nissan dealer and made a deal to trade in the Audi for a brand new, high spec Altima (pre-junk CVT.) The dealer offered them a good deal for the trade in, even without seeing the Audi. So my parents drove home to go get the Audi and trade it in. As they drove in the Audi on the way to pick up the Altima, it started smoking really bad. My dad knew the dealer wouldn’t accept the deal with the Audi smoking that bad, so they quickly parked the car at the far end of the service station of the dealership (where no one can see it,) ran inside to get the keys to the new Altima and finalize the deal on the Audi, and ran out before the dealership found out that the Audi was a lemon.
That Altima was extremely reliable for as long as my mom kept it, and nobody as bought another Audi in my family since then.
My reliable Lemon was a 2015 Lexus Rx-350. Silver Lining Metallicwith a Saddle Brown Interior, it was a beautiful car within my price range. It had several red flags, including being an ex smokers car, and its many undisclosed electrical issues, I thought to myself Its a Lexus vehicle with good reliability (and a beautiful interior trim), that I can easily clean up what’s the worse that can happen.
Well apparently a lot. It had a tendency to go into LIMP mode, due to a “generic misfire code”. Unfortunately, this issue puzzled Lexus Techs and Lexus Corporate, and after several loaners and unsuccessful attempts to fix the issue, I traded it in a tad short of a year of ownership for a 2017 RX-350 from a different dealer. Amusingly, according to the records, I picked a good time to trade it in because, shortly after, service records indicate my 2015 suffered a “catastrophic oil leak” and another steering column failure (during my ownership I had to replace the steering column due to a dead zone forming on the wheel).
Overall, I learned my lesson. Before buying a car, look at the service history and pass if something looks sketchy. Unfortunately for me, while I did treat the car better than the previous owners (I expunged the smell of smoke from it and took better care of the paint) it still wanted to be difficult.
On the other side of things a car that should be a maintenance nightmare but actually was super reliable was my dad’s AWD F10 BMW 5 series. His was a pre-LCI 535 with X-Drive and for the four years he owned it (with sticking to maintenance schedules) it never gave him any problems. Out of the many other BMW’s he’s owned, (E36, E38 740iL, E66 760iL, E60 535ix, a straight piped F30 BMW 335ix with the M-sport package, and finally a G20 M340i with X-drive) the F10 was the most reliable.