Ultra reliable cars

[whytheory]

Mk1 Toyota Yaris

[Huff]

C900 Saab again here.

Bought a 1985 2litre 900GLS (5door, powder blue, cloth interior, Twin Strombergs!) at 14yrs old off a work colleague simply because he was emigrating with family and had no takers for it. 72hours to his flight, 100 quid to save it from unnecessary scrapping seemed monstrous value. We already had two good cars, I didnt need it, but...

It was cheaper to buy it than the train ticket Bath -Edinburgh Rtn to visit mates at the weekend as planned! So I took it to Edinbrgh and back by way of familiarisation.

189K miles on arrival - and we then ran it as the family car for another 18months because it was just bloody brilliant. Comfy, quiet, a driver's delight; simply soothing on long journeys. Used no, I do mean - ZERO - oil in 11000 miles, cost me only 1 mot. When circs changed we simply gave it away, to pass on the goodwill

[gazza285]

Red block Volvo 940, had it for years of trouble free motoring, only got rid of it when the wife was fed up of driving the oldest car in her works car park. Probably still going.

[Axionknight]

The old Volvos - the 850'is a great car and the one I owned with 160k on the clock was an excellent motor.

[Willy Nilly]

gazza285 said:

Red block Volvo 940, had it for years of trouble free motoring, only got rid of it when the wife was fed up of driving the oldest car in her works car park. Probably still going.

There comes a time when having the oldest car in any given situation is a badge of honor, you should have kept it.

[Zarkingfardwarks]

A6 1.9tdi, Audi 80 1.9 tdi - cockroach cars. Both did 20K+ a year for 4 years before I broke rather than them. I even stopped servicing the 80 after 2 years and the bugger never missed a beat.


Similar ilk - Toyota Prius Mk3 though I could only bear it for 20,000 before I began to bore of it (although do miss some aspects of it since selling!)

[Buff Mchugelarge]

In my personal experience - Micra K11. Apart from the rust.

And bizzarely,
Fiat Siecento's.
Surprisingly robust little things they are. Mine was the epitome of reliability no matter how much abuse it got. I still miss that little car.

And any car that's well Serviced..?

[MG CHRIS]

What a surprise most comments being for cars built before all the bullst crap emission bullst surprise surprise.
Few comments for the mx5 agree with that don't think I have ever needed to fix anything which has gone wrong over any of my 5s, service items yes but like ever car but hasn't broke down or gone wrong in any way.
My first one was at over 200k miles rust did get it at the end, 2nd is still with me but now a kit car, 3rd done 10k miles in it and sold at 130k miles 2 years back to a friend of mine which is now on 150k miles and again hasn't had a single fault. and my present one which is just shy of 100k and again not a single fault well will need to replace a headlight motor as it refuses to pop back down but apart from that perfect.

Rust will kill them way before anything mechanical gets it.

[snotrag]

[pic] http://onlytruecars.com/data_images/gallery/02/toy...

[austinsmirk]

Air cooled vw beetle or camper( or numerous variants )

Too simple to really have anything fail. If it did, simple to fix.

Of course depending on where you are in the world, rust often did for them.

[Stickyfinger]

Citroen C5, from Mk1 thru to C5x7
(but ONLY if you don't get it serviced at a Citroen dealership)

[Robert Elise]

Pete317 said:

I had a P-reg 9000 which suffered bearing failure because I used the wrong oil

Edited by Pete317 on Thursday 27th August 20:31

can you say why? was it 'wide spec' oil (eg 0-40) sludging?

[lostkiwi]

I have an uncle had a Holden HQ Kingswood. He used it to tow the plough on his 10acre block in NZ because it had a radio and a heater. He ran it for 10years without any servicing and when he decided to drain the oil he had to use a screwdriver tp get the gunge out. A few oil changes later and he gave it his son who ran it for another 5 years. It had 245k on the clock when they got rid. Never ever needed anything (not even servicing!).

[RobinBanks]

lostkiwi,

I think that most GM stuff is fairly hardy. Some of it's quite basic but mostly they tick on being useful transport.

[Golgarth]

Of all the company cars I have murdered on a daily basis, the horrid Vectra C was the clear winner. I killed 4 of them daily, I never, ever drove any of them nicely, and yet they always ran. I have to say though, it needs to be a diesel, I destroyed a 1.8 petrol in weeks.

For a list of the worst, I would add do not touch a single BMW made this century, what a pile of crap they have become, BMW have a platinum warranty because you ruddy need one!

[TheVole]

Ford Puma - surface rust aside, never any problems - that thing was driven hard. On a side note, if anyone knows the whereabouts of GV51 EKA, please let me know as I'd have her back in a heartbeat!

I'd like to know where you people are finding all the reliable MX5s - I'm on my second one and this one is proving to be just as unreliable as the first, if not worse! It's a 2003 model with low mileage too, so I'd have thought it'd be okay.

Weirdly, my Rover 200 just kept going. 12k miles in 10 months as a 17/18 year old (on top of learning to drive in it) and not a single thing went wrong. Ever. Although the current owner texted me a few months back saying that the head gasket had died and it had been scrapped as a result...

Edited by TheVole on Thursday 27th August 23:10

[Pete317]

Robert Elise said:

Pete317 said:

I had a P-reg 9000 which suffered bearing failure because I used the wrong oil

Edited by Pete317 on Thursday 27th August 20:31

can you say why? was it 'wide spec' oil (eg 0-40) sludging?

You get a lot less sludging with synthetic oil than with semi- or non-synth oils

Edited by Pete317 on Thursday 27th August 23:06

[anonymous-user]

Pete317 said:

High mileage Saabs are prone to their sump oil strainers clogging up and causing oil starvation and consequent bearing failure, if the oil hasn't been changed regularly and fully synthetic oil used.
Other than that particular weakness, they're wonderfully reliable cars.

I've just bought a 2.0t 95. It's done 76k miles with full SSH. The sump has been checked and its running on fully synthetic oil, what else can be done to keep it healthy? Mine only does 3 miles each way to the train station each day.

[RobinBanks]

Golgarth said:

Of all the company cars I have murdered on a daily basis, the horrid Vectra C was the clear winner. I killed 4 of them daily, I never, ever drove any of them nicely, and yet they always ran. I have to say though, it needs to be a diesel, I destroyed a 1.8 petrol in weeks.

I remember an American guy telling me that GM cars run badly longer than other cars run at all.

Vauxhalls are typically not brilliant to drive or exceptional day to day, but I've known Cavaliers and Vectras and Astras and Corsas that just run for ages without sympathetic treatment.

[iloveboost]

Ghost91 said:

This may of been done before, but I thought it would be interesting to discuss.

What cars are renowned for amazing reliability? Or maybe some that aren't renowned for it but are very reliable, or surprisingly reliable? I'll start of with possibly some of the well known ones:

Lexus LS & GS among others,
Because I own one, a c900 Saab,
Jeep Cherokee of mid ninetees vintage,
Obviously the Mercedes of a certain age - W124 etc.
Mk1 Ford Focus

Mk1 Ford Focus isn't known for reliability. For modern cars I'd vote for the Mx-5 Mk3. Prius second generation as well.