Good on gas - what is there?

[FutureDoc]

Originally Posted By: ram_man

I should have elaborated that is not a Saturn that car is a gm with a Saturn badge. The older s series is all saturns own stuff and is a much better car. The a series is the only Saturn I consider a "real" Saturn

Also corollas are fine but the cost of ownership maintenance wise will be more. You just can't beat an old Saturn. I don't know what all this twice orphaned gm stuff means. Saturn is owned by gm but the a series was not gm [censored].


Ok, I will give you that about the L. The L were rebadged Opels. I was going to comment of GM badge engineering but I deleted it because it sounded too snarky.

However, the Corolla is about as cheap "cost of ownership" as you can get. It is about as "basic" of an engineered car as you can get.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
In any case, old cars need to be evaluated on condition and not so much on reputation.


This is genuine gold. Hopefully folks don't get all hyped up on their brand issues and ignore a good bargain!

 

[Bandito440]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
In any case, old cars need to be evaluated on condition and not so much on reputation.


This is genuine gold. Hopefully folks don't get all hyped up on their brand issues and ignore a good bargain!

I concur, although I think the Prizm is worth a look. Get yourself some Valvoline Maxlife 5w-30 and you'll be in good shape.

 

[Vikas]

But we know of few people who pass on a good used car because it is NOT the color that they wanted! And these are regular BITOG contributors too.

 

[ram_man]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: ram_man
Also corollas are fine but the cost of ownership maintenance wise will be more.


Saturns were good little cars, but I'm not sure this is correct. It may be true that COO could higher with a Corolla if you factor in the higher purchase price, but as written, factoring in only maintenance (and presumably repair), I don't think it's an accurate statement.

Perhaps if compare a $3k example of each, the Corolla might be getting into high mileage items like suspension bushings, ball joints, and wheel bearings, etc. And the the $3k saturn might have alot less miles on it?
In any case, old cars need to be evaluated on condition and not so much on reputation.


This was the point I was making. Also the Toyota had timing belts until mid 2000's?
Also we own a civic and the Saturn. Reliability they're pretty equal but the honda is more refined. But the. Honda is 3yrs newer and was 4900 the Saturn is an 02 and was 1700. The Saturn has a better maintenance history than the honda did . The honda seller didn't have proof of all the stuff the Saturn did . That's a lot less money and when I bought the honda it had 118,000 the Saturn had 121,000 . You can buy a very clean Saturn for 2500-3000 and in that price range I think it's the better but over the corolla. The corolla will be older or more miles or both or sketchy history. The Saturn for that price range will usually be crem puffs.
Saturns are also sent proof and look better longer. Parts wise I believe they are both fairly cheap to repair. Personally whichever you find the better deal on. But I think the better deal will be a Saturn 95% of the time.

 

[FutureDoc]

Shoot, I need to find it, but I think it was Consumer Reports (I know) but they had data on the average number of reported problems/repairs per manufacturer over the course of 10 or 15 years.

Many of the manufacturers were remarkably similar except Honda and Toyota. Honda has less reported issues then the others and Toyota had less than Honda. You still had the Japanese makes being on the lower pile of the group and GM better than Chrysler, and VW being really bad.

However, the lesson of this (to me) was that you could compare different makes against age and repairs. For example, a 10yo Toyota was about the same as a 4yo Chrysler.

Note, this does not mean that the new cars will be as good as the old, but for comparing a 4yo Chrysler against a 7yo Toyota at the same price, go with the Toyota.

Edit: Found a "copied" link http://www.mymoneyblog.com/consumer-reports-car-reliability-charts.html

 

[ram_man]

I wouldn't necessarily listen to consumer reports . Chrysler shares some parts with Toyota and yet Toyota are always way better. Hmmm.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: ram_man
Also the Toyota had timing belts until mid 2000's?


No. The Corolla has had a timing chain since 1998 (with the introduction of the then-new 1ZZ-FE engine).

I owned a 2007 Corolla with this same engine, and a 5-speed manual. What a nice little powertrain that was. The whole car was very light on its feet and enjoyable to drive with the 5-speed. It's a car I never should have sold.

 

[ram_man]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: ram_man
Also the Toyota had timing belts until mid 2000's?


No. The Corolla has had a timing chain since 1998 (with the introduction of the then-new 1ZZ-FE engine).

I owned a 2007 Corolla with this same engine, and a 5-speed manual. What a nice little powertrain that was. The whole car was very light on its feet and enjoyable to drive with the 5-speed. It's a car I never should have sold.


O ok I thought I was around 02 or so glad the got the picture and switched before a lot of people.

 

[FutureDoc]

Originally Posted By: ram_man
I wouldn't necessarily listen to consumer reports . Chrysler shares some parts with Toyota and yet Toyota are always way better. Hmmm.


CR's statistics are quite good and if there was a "stronger" element of CR, it would be the statistics and the fact that they are not a mouthpiece of the auto industry. The downfall is common survey bias (but all surveys have this so it is what it is... (still better than a single journalist's opinion). The other "issue" is that people make the error that as assume that the general "stats" applies to a specific vehicle. So a reliable rating does not mean that the vehicle you buy will be reliable. The stats are good.

I am not familiar with Chrysler and Toyota "part sharing" in-house. They might (and do) share some 3rd-party suppliers (such as air-bags parts) but this does not mean they are using the SAME part as the 3rd party could be building different items to different specs. However, share the same 3rd party for some parts does not mean that the whole package is the same. Best case example. The Chrysler 2.7 has a epoxied plastic thermostat housing. It comprises of mostly two plastic parts fused together. However, the fused plastic part does not last long under heat-stress and pressure... and this is exactly what this part has to deal with. The result is a part that fails and fails young. When this housing fails, it can lead to the thermostat failing, the water pump failing, and even the HG failing. Chrysler cheaping out on one part has a domino effect on the rest of the vehicle's engine. You never hear about this type of problem from Toyota.

For my personal experience, my father bought a '06 Sebring with the 2.7 in '06 (we also had a '98 Sebring, 01 Neon, (New Yorkers, Lebarons, before that) etc). I bought a used 24Kmi Toyota in '07 so the cars were bought about 8 months apart. In 6 years, I had 3 repairs in the Toyota (Rear brake calipers, CD player, O2 sensor with AutoX use)... my father had to replace the cd/radio 3 times. Torque Converter, Bearing issues, power steering, strut failure (at 18K), AC issues, ECU, and a few other thing I am forgetting. Then there was the thermostat housing-waterpump-HG issue. I would say that the 06 was a lemon but the '98 was the same problem child. The Neon has been no where near as robust as my wife's Fit. What irks me and the reason why in '12 my father finally bought a Toyota, was that the Sebring's was still breaking parts that were already replaced under warranty. When parts break under warranty, it is not great. When the parts you replaced under warranty fail later, there is a serious engineering problem.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Anyone can relate a tale of a 'lemon' they have had. If they can't it's because they haven't owned very many cars yet. Every single mfgr, including the mighty Toyota, make lemons. No exceptions.

CR doesn't even verify ownership, they simply compile reports from the surveys sent out! If you don't see the obvious flatulence in the data collected then we cannot help you.

IMO CR is for raising puppies and perhaps as a multiple data point, but never to be revered as some kind of standard...

 

[PandaBear]

Pontiac Vibe, Chevy / Geo Prizm, later year Cavalier, Saturn S that isn't worn out, Ford Focus, etc.

 

[PandaBear]

Timing belt on 4 cylinder small cars are not a big deal. You do it every 60-90k miles and the labor is $200. If you buy OEM parts it is about $200 but aftermarket is around $100 (belt, waterpump, more belts)

 

[FutureDoc]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Anyone can relate a tale of a 'lemon' they have had. If they can't it's because they haven't owned very many cars yet. Every single mfgr, including the mighty Toyota, make lemons. No exceptions.

CR doesn't even verify ownership, they simply compile reports from the surveys sent out! If you don't see the obvious flatulence in the data collected then we cannot help you.

IMO CR is for raising puppies and perhaps as a multiple data point, but never to be revered as some kind of standard...


Agreed, any car company can make a lemon. However, growing up in a mostly Chrysler household, inspecting their products, they really make the most lemon-y product and the 2.7 might be the worst of them all.

Nearly ALL surveys have limited confirmation ability. That is not a valid critique of a survey unless you can prove mass survey fraud and cite a large number of specific cases. It gets really expensive really quickly and surveys are intentionally inexpensive. That is not as big if an issue and there are ways to safe-guard against that by checking discrepancies in the data. If there is one "problem" with the survey, it is claimed to be a "random" survey of their subscribers. This is the hiccup, they are only surveying their population and that might not be representative of the population. After working as an analysis, if X manufacturer comes back with a survey that 18-30yo said that Y was the most important issue for a car purchase, you have to take it. Verifying each of their last "importance" issue for each response of thousands of potential purchases is not feasible.

CR is one of the few places actually doing independent consumer research, their stats are quite good but you would have to actually understand research methods to get that.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
CR is one of the few places actually doing independent consumer research, their stats are quite good but you would have to actually understand research methods to get that.


You can go grind your Chrysler axe on someone else. I have a neighbor who is devoutly anti-GM, the extreme bias is funny in a way. But it is far from fact. The overwhelming majority of cars sold today are pretty darn good, no matter where you buy one.

As far as evaluating research data I don't need many smarts to know that a rag that sends a questionnaire to a subscriber without even verifying ownership of the car is at the least inaccurate.

Their stats remain quite good... in your opinion. Mine is substantially different.

 

[Mykl]

But the point about Consumer Reports is fair. Lots of people seem to enjoy bashing the publication, but the data is what it is, and as of yet nobody has really offered up a better alternative.

It is true that any car from any manufacturer could be a steaming pile of lemon scented poop. But you can't figure out which manufacturers produce a greater number of these per XXX number of cars built without observing trends.

Any of the manufacturers that fall into the category of "unreliable" based on perception driven by the internet or Consumer Reports or whatever is more than capable of building a solid, high quality car that will last for hundreds of thousands of miles without fuss. But just because my Volkswagen has given me nearly 70k trouble free miles doesn't mean that the other guy who bought a 2010 model didn't have to endure multiple intake manifold failures or get stranded on the side of the road for fuel injector issues.

All you can do is look at the trends, and if you like the car... you roll the dice. But clearly some bets are better than others.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Mykl
But the point about Consumer Reports is fair. Lots of people seem to enjoy bashing the publication, but the data is what it is, and as of yet nobody has really offered up a better alternative.

The data is what the advertising dollars make it to be. Any publication that lives off of advertising budget for the same products that it claims to be reviewing, is not going to be 100% objective, IMO. On top of it, CR stats are based on them surveying their own reader membership. Is CR's membership representative of the general population? I don't know.

But I agree, this goes for most publications and there probably isn't a better alternative. I can think of truedelta.com, however, their data is somewhat limited and we don't know how objective they are either.

 

[Mykl]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
The data is what the advertising dollars make it to be. Any publication that lives off of advertising budget for the same products that it claims to be reviewing, is not going to be 100% objective, IMO. On top of it, CR stats are based on them surveying their own reader membership. Is CR's membership representative of the general population? I don't know.

But I agree, this goes for most publications and there probably isn't a better alternative. I can think of truedelta.com, however, their data is somewhat limited and we don't know how objective they are either.


I would agree to an extent, but advertising bias generally comes into play more in gray areas like subjective criticism. It's something you see constantly in the generic, big time auto publications. If CR is pulling actual data from polling numbers and other sources, I would have to ask you to prove that to either not be true or show that they fudge the numbers to support their ad revenue.

As far as their sample size being just their subscribers.... I don't know if that's enough to be considered accurate or not. I guess it depends on the number of people being polled. If it's in the thousands per each individual vehicle (I'm not sure how likely that is), I would say that the sample size is a fair representation. Even if it's in the hundreds per vehicle that will at least tell a reasonably accurate story.

You may be right, but as far as I can tell Consumer Reports is as reliable as it gets. It would be interesting to be proven wrong though, I'd love to see a flaw in their system or evidence of brand bias.

 

[racer12306]

Originally Posted By: racer12306
2003+ Dodge Neon SE or SXT, manual trans.

Great gas mileage and reliable when taken care of. My 04 can get near 40mpg on a pure highway trip. After Thursday I'll have a full tank of my commute driving and so far it's looking really good.

If it has near 100k, it needs a timing belt.


Filled up my 04 today, 35.2 mpg with good but not ideal driving conditions. 37 miles each way minor traffic mixed in, 90% highway. It was EPA rated at 36 MPG highway in 2004.

 

[FutureDoc]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

The data is what the advertising dollars make it to be. Any publication that lives off of advertising budget for the same products that it claims to be reviewing, is not going to be 100% objective, IMO. On top of it, CR stats are based on them surveying their own reader membership. Is CR's membership representative of the general population? I don't know.


That is the trick, CR is not based on ad dollars. The only ads are for themselves.

I agree, it is the question of whether or not their readership is representative of the population... BUT their analysis is not of the population but rather their vehicles. So there are ways to adjust of different variation and differences in the stddev. That is the reason why they have those "not enough data" years for some makes and never reported on some models like my MR2... not enough data to rule out chance. As for objectivity, some schools of thought (ie non-empirical folks) would say there is no 100% objectivity... but some are more objective than others.

I am not "anti" any brand. I do not care what the badge is... even if it is a Dacia Sandero. However, if there is a brand that is cutting the most engineering corners, it is Chrysler. Those 2.7 were atrocious, the Ultradrives were even worse. Finally, why would you put a 3 speed torqueflite in a 2.0 Neon unless you were cheaping out. However, if Chrysler turns around and puts robust materials back into their cars, I would have no problem buying or recommending one.