Best (and worst) vehicles from about 1985-2005?

[Kristian]

Every manufacturer have great and not so great periods and models. In general most of the hated (on Bitog) Euro cars had treated me good, as I have them. The most important part in vehicle owning is ease of maintenance, and cost involved. All cars are reliable if maintained.

 

[Silver]

Anything with a GM 5.7 engine or Ford 4.6.

 

[IndyIan]

One of my nominations for worst

1995-1999 Dodge/Plymouth Neon.

Were a hoot to drive and were quick/sporty compared to most if not all cheap compacts of that era. Unfortunately the head gaskets were a problem for most of the model run (finally fixed for 1998 or 1999 model years), frameless windows were rubbish and were pretty much guaranteed to leak water or wind, weak engine mounts, peeling paint, etc. Lets not forget the old hydraulically controlled 3 speed TorqueFlite, yes it was reliable but it killed fuel economy and pretty much everyone else had moved on to electronically controlled 4 speeds - I think Chrysler and GM were the only holdouts with 3 speed autos in the Neon and Cavalier but at least the Cavalier you could get a 4 speed. Lets just say that generation Neon were all throwaway cars at 100-150k miles IF that.

I was gifted my 1995(my sister didn't want it lol) so it didn't hurt too much when I had to do the headgasket. After that I only did a couple sensors and new struts for to get it up near 300k km. The frameless windows would pull out at 85 mph or so, which was a good reminder to slow down. Other than that they worked fine, and no air leaks or whistles.
In 1995 Chrysler was still experimenting/tuning it and they put the "hot" cam in the SOHC motor matched with the DOHC short ratio diff in the automatic so it was actually pretty quick in 1st gear, also the early 95's also had 4x100 bolt pattern... It would chirp warmed up DOT R compound autocross tires on a brake torqued launch, and 1st was still long enough for almost all of our local autocross courses and I won our local championship once with it and came 2nd twice. The idle was actually a bit lopey and they went to a mellower cam in 1996 to reduce idle vibrations...
I almost bought a 2002 RT when the 95 got rolled on a lapping day, and the 2nd gen RT's had the same SOHC cam as the 1995, but jumped over to the Focus wagons for more kid hauling space.
Anyways I liked the 80-90's Chryslers, turbo Omni's, Rampage's, Daytona's, talking K-cars, and I always wanted to try a 3.0 V6 mtx Plymouth Duster but I've never seen one for sale.

 

[Chris142]

My dad bought my mom a brand new 1987 dodge Omni 2.2L,4 door and auto trans. The car was junk. The welds on the solid rear axle broke more than once. The carburetor would not idle even after multiple rebuilds

The local dealer rolled rod bearings into it to stop a rod knock.

The AC never worked 2 seasons in a row.

The car went to the scrapper with 92k on it when the fuel pump eccentric ground away rendering the mechanical fuel pump useless.

 

[krismoriah72]

Cars i would love to have-right now.

Honda CR-X HF

Suzuki Samurai

 

[JohnnyO]

Best? In my experience a 1985 Ford Mustang. I got one new, had it for 11 years and almost 150,000 miles, to this day the most trouble-free car I've ever owned.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

Mustang (preferably the V8), lots of options, and doesn't really matter if it's a pushrod Windsor or a Modular. The 302 is a heck of a lot easier to wrench on though. Somebody mentioned the Termi, but that definitely won't be the in "affordable" category, those cars were awesome though.

F-body from the same era were also pretty easy to work on and durable. When they started putting part of the engine under the cowl they became a bit of a PITA to wrench on though.

E46 and E39 BMW's are easy to work on and very solid cars. Will be a bit more needy than some of the others mentioned, but are much nicer cars.

E34 and E36 were even more solid and easy to work on but rare these days

 

[HemiBenny]

I'm a die hard MOPAR guy that would tell anyone to avoid any Chrysler product with a 2.7l,...absolute junk! There again, I've seen just about as many early GM 3.6l and 2.4l as well as the Hyundai/KIA 2.4l at this point that crap out and they still don't have quite the notoriety as the Chrysler 2.7l.

 

[clinebarger]

Probably has to do with the 2.7L Water Pump leaking coolant into the engine rendering it useless & most wreaking yard replacements are junk as well.

Why even use the 2.7L in the LX chassis when the 3.5L was a decent enough engine?

Not that I'm defending the notorious Timing Chain issues with the GM VVT Ecotech 4 cylinders or the High Feature 3.6L V6 other than they can usually be repaired.