I know I mentioned it before but I'll repeat it here. We manage some vehicle maintenance programs that cover about 8.6k vehicles of all sizes, most in North America from Mexico to Canada and from cars to class 8 trucks, off-road equipment and service boats. This is not science because we can not publish our data but the most reliable single vehicle with 5 years of data, has been the Toyota Prius. The total database covers about 200 Prius's (certainly not enough top prove anything) over this period. They were usually driven by one or two drivers each and all run past 100k miles, about half past 150k and a 23 past 200k miles. Drivers just would not give them up on schedule. Also, percentage wise more of these vehicles were purchased by the operator at the end of the lease, over 80%. Second place is purchase is about 20%. Some drivers had these vehicles put on them, but very quickly became very pleased with their rides. Not one driver turn back a Prius. Battery failures have been zero and electronic problems have been so few that the last one, on any vehicle was over a year ago. A lot of what people think they know about these funny looking vehicles might be wrong. At one location we even have a pool for best mileage with digital pic's of the display required to compete. Three maintenance managers have purchased a Prius for their personal vehicles. One has two (does that sound right?). This is not a valid test, just an indication that the Prius might be a reliable car. In the years to come more of these hybrids will be showing up in your town, too.
Most reliable vehicle from five years of data
- Thread starter Lonnie
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what came in 2nd place?
EKPolk is going to be VERY excited about this news. Of course, he's been telling us this for months, now.
So what WAS second place? I'd guess the 1992 Hyundai Elantra.
Well, MINE was reliable as a rock for 288,000 miles.. Best $1200.00 I ever spent..
So what WAS second place? I'd guess the 1992 Hyundai Elantra.
Well, MINE was reliable as a rock for 288,000 miles.. Best $1200.00 I ever spent..
Second place with the Camry. A surprise high placer what the Hyundia Sonita, though not enough vehicles to fit into a profile. In the light duty pickups the runaway first place is the Tundra.
What's the highest mileage Prius? Do you keep any MPG data?
23 went past 200k and one of those I have driven. It has 228k miles and was bought by the driver at something like 188k miles. It has had no non-scheduled service. We have a maintenance schedule that adds a few things onto the regular stuff, but nothing that amounts to much.
Mileage, high 40's to 50's and a few are getting 60 to 62mpg, but not all the time. In some of the mileage contests we have drivers hitting high 60's and a couple of them have done low 70's but only on one tank before dropping back to lower figures. The lowest mileage ones, the high 40's are doing almost all freeway driving with usual speeds in the 70's and 80's. Everyone is happy with the mileage and does not worry about hitting EPA numbers. I don't know if anyone has had a tank under 45mpg. I did 47mpg between Oakland and San Diego going 80mph+ every chance I could, for as long as I could. There are many long stretches on Interstate 5 that are wide open with little or no traffic to get in the way, especially between Tracy, near Oakland, and Los Angles and including a long steep up hill from Bakersfield to the north side of Los Angles.
Mileage, high 40's to 50's and a few are getting 60 to 62mpg, but not all the time. In some of the mileage contests we have drivers hitting high 60's and a couple of them have done low 70's but only on one tank before dropping back to lower figures. The lowest mileage ones, the high 40's are doing almost all freeway driving with usual speeds in the 70's and 80's. Everyone is happy with the mileage and does not worry about hitting EPA numbers. I don't know if anyone has had a tank under 45mpg. I did 47mpg between Oakland and San Diego going 80mph+ every chance I could, for as long as I could. There are many long stretches on Interstate 5 that are wide open with little or no traffic to get in the way, especially between Tracy, near Oakland, and Los Angles and including a long steep up hill from Bakersfield to the north side of Los Angles.
Not surprising at all to me Lonnie; I have a 94 Corolla. I'd trust my car to any vehicle for driving across the country and back 5 times (I've basically done this commuting to school and storm chasing).
Do you work for a courier or something?
Do you work for a courier or something?
It is too bad my dad got a Civic Hybrid instead of a Prius.
He had wanted an Escape Hybrid, but one of our cars was totalled and he needed something right away. The Escape was not on sale yet, so he went to Toyota. The dealer said there was a several month long waiting list for the cars and would not give him the time of day. He then went to Honda and bought a brand new 2004 Civic Hybrid.
The car now has 25,000 miles on it. It has interior rattles coming from the passenger side of the car, the floor console is no longer aligned with the dash, the brakes have made burning smells on two occasions (no hard use), and the absolute best mileage it can pull off is 50. Usually it gets 38. My dad rarely drives above the speed limit and the car is well cared for. All regular maintenence is done and all recalls have been taken care of. Hopefully the new Civics are better.
He had wanted an Escape Hybrid, but one of our cars was totalled and he needed something right away. The Escape was not on sale yet, so he went to Toyota. The dealer said there was a several month long waiting list for the cars and would not give him the time of day. He then went to Honda and bought a brand new 2004 Civic Hybrid.
The car now has 25,000 miles on it. It has interior rattles coming from the passenger side of the car, the floor console is no longer aligned with the dash, the brakes have made burning smells on two occasions (no hard use), and the absolute best mileage it can pull off is 50. Usually it gets 38. My dad rarely drives above the speed limit and the car is well cared for. All regular maintenence is done and all recalls have been taken care of. Hopefully the new Civics are better.
On the first Civic hybrids we had trouble with the dealers. We had warranty issues with electrics and interior stuff. Deals for the cars were hard or impossible. The ones we had did not get very good mileage and drivers did not like the cars. If a driver was a little unhappy with a Civic hybrid, after driving the Prius it was difficult to get them back into the Civic. Since trying to make volume purchases with Honda dealers and comming to nothing, we went back to Toyota. The Accord hybrids we have are doing fine but get terrible mileage. They are not really a high gas mileage car. We are starting to get Camry hybrids and offered people the choice between a Camry hybrid and an Accord hybrid. Everyone, so far, has picked the Camry. We do have a bunch of Ford Escape hybrids that are built for taxi service and they are doing well.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing!
I would be willing to bet the single best Camry reliabilty wise is the 2.4L 5-Speed Manual. To bad they are so rare.
Are you going to release which vechicles were the worst?
Some vehicles that are less reliable have a low count in the database so it's hard to place a value on the information. The problems we have with a certain low count model may not represent that model as a whole. We do have a situation where a very popular model, a couple of years ago, was a real problem child, the Mini.
nyr197, I think the 2007 4-cylinder Camry with a manual transmission is a good buy for a commuter and a family car. It's big enough and with good crash ratings, is a safer car in an accident than smaller cars that are picked for good gas mileage. The mileage is good enough that giving up a little is worth having more car around you when you get nailed by a pickup or larger car. The car is a reliable as a brick and will have good resale value even after 100k miles. It was the car I picked for commuting until a screaming deal for a Prius showed up. My interest in the Prius was generated by our trip through the data. It's good mileage and clean maintenance record let me to the decision to accept it over the 4-cylinder Camry. There was a sruprise for me. The Prius has almost as much room inside as the Camry, something I would not have guessed and the hatch makes hauling stuff really easy. Makes you wonder why so many consider a hatch a PWT car.
Any chance you could tell us what was the highest ranking domestic?
Ford Escorts have been good, some really good, and the Crown Vic's, many of which are in Police service are pretty good. With our data you could not rate Chevy or other GM sedan as good, except for some Buick Regals in Florida. Also, rating domestics as poor might be unfair because many of them get turned in quickly. We have some Ford SUV's that we can't keep over 50k because things start happening and we have a batch of Sequoia's that no one can break. We also have some situations where an otherwise unreliable model runs with zero problems. We think that drivers have a hugh effect on this and some operations that we manage reward drivers for good driving. We also have a problem with some Toyota and Honda drivers. They suffer nothing in the way of problems and raise h e l l with the smallest thing goes wrong. We also have people driving domestics that suffer things that I would never put up with. We get some domestic vehicles that have had things not working since near new and the driver never bothered to get them fixed. This kind of thing has happened every year. I don't get it.
Where do you work Lonnie, that you get to play around with this stuff/information? Must be kind of fun!
I run a software company and still manage an old maintenance software project. Lots of analysis work on maintenance procedures and intervals. I started the software in the 80's and it's still out there working. I list my occupation as retired because I only have three jobs now, which is like being retired. I'm still looking at data for that most reliable vehicle for 5 years and we are all surprised that the Prius wins by a hugh margin. What we have discovered is that putting the Prius in the mix is cheating. Just about every driver out there becomes caught up in playing the mileage game and learning how to pulse and glide. This kind of stuff is really good for the car. Drivers get forced into taking the car and then you can't get it back. They are giving up getting a new car to keep the Prius they are currently driving. This year we have made the decision to let Prius drivers to keep their car as long as they like for work and to have the right to buy the car at the end of it's lease. In the past two years at least 10 young unattached employees in large corporations have taken transfers to new location to get a Prius for their driver. One of our drivers put 5k miles in 20 days on vacation with 4 people (2 adults and 2 preteen kids) and luggage in the car. With Motorcraft 5w-20 oil he burned about 1/16th of an inch (he keeps a log book and records every tank of gas and mileage) on the dip stick in a Prius with about 150k on the clock. This car has had no unscheduled maintenance. Nothing has failed and the cost of maintanence has been 5k oil changes and some fluid exhcanges. It's on the original brakes. This regen stuff really saves on brake wear. There is about 90% of the pads left to go.
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