Car manufacturers.

Petstalk

Peoples thoughts on different car manufacturers/reliability/build.
Maintenance costs ect.

What preferences people have/why?

forgotmyname

They dont make them like they used to.

Maintenance costs? Anything from £150 to £3000 for a service.

Reliability. New cars? Unless your unlucky you should just have minor niggles which the dealer will fix.

Petstalk

Asking question as cars made how used too.

Read story s 1979 Peugeot was still good and strong.

Mankysteve

No one makes truly unreliable cars anymore, thats not to say that some brands are not more reliable but some of the more reliable brands end up costing most as they make them harder to service to make money back that way, ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV9rJwEOCus

worried_jim

Mankysteve wrote: »

No one makes truly unreliable cars anymore, thats not to say that some brands are not more reliable but some of the more reliable brands end up costing most as they make them harder to service to make money back that way, ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV9rJwEOCus

Great video!

agrinnall

OP, you aren't charged by the word for your posts, if you write in proper sentences you might find that more people will be bothered to read and respond to your questions.

Stoke

It's such a subjective question, you'll never get a perfect answer. I like VW, I find their cars are well built, designed to last, and are 'politely' engineered, if you get what I mean... by that, it's easy for you to do jobs too. You don't need a degree in Mechanical Engineering to understand how they go together.
I've never been a big fan of Ford, always thought !!!! rusty lumps of crap, yet my missus Ford Ka well and truly defied odds. The Endura engine seems to last forever, so long as it's serviced.
Soft spot for Fiats.
Not keen on French cars or Dacia's or anything like that.

mark5

Currently drive a mk7 Golf, which is my favorite car so far, I have owned 2 previous Golfs in the past, both of which I rate highly.

I previously owned a Focus and that was a solid reliable car with no issues in 3 years of ownership.

I have owned a couple of Vauxhall's and will never touch another one, lots of problems with them and my local main dealer was useless with poor customer service.

jimjames

mark5 wrote: »

Currently drive a mk7 Golf, which is my favorite car so far, I have owned 2 previous Golfs in the past, both of which I rate highly.

I previously owned a Focus and that was a solid reliable car with no issues in 3 years of ownership.

I have owned a couple of Vauxhall's and will never touch another one, lots of problems with them and my local main dealer was useless with poor customer service.

I'm on my 5th Mk4 Golf. Really rate VW and their TDI engines, this will be the 6th TDI I've owned.

Bad experience with Vauxhall with con rod destroying engine at low mileage despite full service history on time.

Tilt

On my 14th Fiat and out of the one's i've owned, only had problems with only 3 of them;

Fiat Supermirafiori (1980) 4 years old when I bought it. Both o/s doors suffered bottom corrosion. Car was registered prior to the introduction of Fiat 6 year anti-corrosion warranty introduced BUT Fiat still authorised replacement doors.

Fiat Regatta Bianca 85 (1987) bought as an ex demo at 8 months old. Had a miss-fire issue which was eventually resolved under warranty although took a while to resolve/discover cause. Eventually sold on to my dad who had no further issues with it.

Fiat Uno Turbo i.e. (1988) Bought new. Turbo seized after 900 miles and although was all sorted under warranty, had to wait a week for a replacement unit from Italy.

Absolutely no other problems with any of the others and I currently have a Punto HGT MK2 (2000) bought new which still runs and feels like it's just come out of the showroom... no rattles, vibrations, knocks or squeaks and everything still works.

I also have an Alfa 159 JTS Q4 3.2 (2007) wonderful to look at and wonderful to drive. Just wished they still made them!

Stoke

jimjames wrote: »

I'm on my 5th Mk4 Golf. Really rate VW and their TDI engines, this will be the 6th TDI I've owned.

Bad experience with Vauxhall with con rod destroying engine at low mileage despite full service history on time.

I know a fair number of people who have had truly awful experiences with Vauxhall, the latest being a friend I work with. He had the Astra 2.0 CTDI. Last year, he told me he thought the turbo felt a bit sluggish. I told him to take it for a thrash because he only does about 20 miles a day, which helped but soon after, it started doing it again. About a week later, the car started cutting out and was very sluggish. Turns out his injector's were nailed, after just 40,000 miles. After spending a lot of money getting it fixed (not easy on a diesel unlike petrol), it was back on the road, weeks later, the turbo packed up. For the injectors and turbo and all the work to get it running again, he spent in excess of £2000 getting it back to a working condition, like I said, just over 40,000 miles on the clock. He put it up for sale because he'd had enough of the problems, sold it at a considerable loss. The next day, the buyer phoned him and told him the alternator packed up, so he agreed to pay half to get it sorted.

Not a good experience and he's not the first person I know with reliability problems.

Tilt wrote: »

On my 14th Fiat and out of the one's i've owned, only had problems with only 3 of them;

Fiat Supermirafiori (1980) 4 years old when I bought it. Both o/s doors suffered bottom corrosion. Car was registered prior to the introduction of Fiat 6 year anti-corrosion warranty introduced BUT Fiat still authorised replacement doors.

Fiat Regatta Bianca 85 (1987) bought as an ex demo at 8 months old. Had a miss-fire issue which was eventually resolved under warranty although took a while to resolve/discover cause. Eventually sold on to my dad who had no further issues with it.

Fiat Uno Turbo i.e. (1988) Bought new. Turbo seized after 900 miles and although was all sorted under warranty, had to wait a week for a replacement unit from Italy.

Absolutely no other problems with any of the others and I currently have a Punto HGT MK2 (2000) bought new which still runs and feels like it's just come out of the showroom... no rattles, vibrations, knocks or squeaks and everything still works.

I also have an Alfa 159 JTS Q4 3.2 (2007) wonderful to look at and wonderful to drive. Just wished they still made them!

My family has had a few Fiats and to be honest, they were mechanically very sound cars. We certainly never experienced the infamous acronym. We firstly had a Punto GT in the nineties which was an absolute missile. The only problem we ever had was the drivers side electric window seized... while it was down, whoops. Dad had to drive up the M6 from London to Stoke in torrential rain with a black bin bag over the open window lol. Fixed under warranty by the stealers. No rust.

We then had a Cinquecento Sporting. Another reliable little motor. Never had any serious mechanical problems on it. My dad whacked about 110k miles on it, hammering it down to London most weekends. The only issue I remember was the handbrake cable snapped and the backrest structure of the drivers seat broke... not sure how exactly. Either way, we sold it for a reasonable price. No rust.

Around the time we sold the Cinquecento, my sister turned 17 and we bought an early nineties Uno for a few hundred quid. It wasn't very fashionable and it wasn't very fast but it was an ideal car for my sister to learn in. She was a slow learner I'll be honest, but dad also took it down to London on a fairly regular basis. After about 2 years the head gasket went, but considering it was already high mileage when we bought it, it had a fairly impressive innings.

Finally, nan bought a Seicento SX in 2001. She's only put 19k miles on it in 12 years or something. It runs great. Very reliable considering the limited use and surprisingly nippy. Very quick off the block.