Well my life has changed recently but I used to buy second hand cars and run them 30,000+ miles a year in all weathers and I found Toyota's to be the best by a long long way. Fords always broke down but were cheap to fix. Renaults were just rubbish.
Thats my experience...
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With respect, what absolute nonsense!
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Nick,
Are you referring to moi?
I was just retelling my experience.
Toyota's just worked.
Fords, mainly Sierras were always needing something fixed. Had one the headlights kept blowing. Never found out why but drove home in the dark with the hazards on many times.
Renaults hardly ever worked.
That is what happened. Maybe not typical but it is what happened.
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Well Nick, let me tell you that we have had Honda's, Toyotas and now Subaru and Suzuki in our family since 1973, as well as other cars from Europe.
Since 1979, the only mechanical repairs done to Japanese cars in our family have been one water pump and one master brake cylinder. We recently sold two 13-year old Hondas to friends. Both are still being driven and we would not have sold them to friends if we did not have absolute faith in them.
To contrast with European cars: -
Peugeot - snapped cambelt at 42,000 miles
Mercedes - leaking PWS pump assembly at 15,000 miles
BMW - electrics reading incorrect faults when damp
Saab - timing chain breaking up at 70,000 miles despite servicing every six months and being told that 'It's a Saab sir - they are far better engineered than Hondas' when I asked about cam belt replacment prior to purchase.
Face it. on average Japanese cars are more reliable that anything else. its in the design as well as the amnufaturing. When the Ford Escort was built as FWD the Mazda 323 was almost identical, but the Mazda had production tolerances that were 90% finer than Ford's so they were more reliable. It doesn't meant to say that no Jap well ever break down.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Nick was replying to roly93. See 'view threaded'.
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No sorry guys. I was referring to the poster suggesting that japanese cars get their good reputation beacause of older people buying them and mollycoddling them. As a Subaru owner, I know how good they are.
Sorry for any confusion, my reply wasn't posted underneath the post I was replying to, I should have quoted it.
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I should also always scroll to the bottom before replying! Thanks Dylan.
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Obviously there are Japanese cars "Made in Japan" and Japanese cars "Made in Elsewhere"... ehhm... does that made these two groups Japanese in the first place or ... ?
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I am the only Pole over here.
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What I mean is... if Valeo supplies Toyota with headlamps & stuff like that, then Sushi + Beaujolais = Indigestion. Or something like that, but anyway, I hope you get the point ;)
BTW: I wonder who supplies Honda with headlamps for its Accord, or who supplies the whole range of Lexus ?
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I am the only Pole over here.
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No sorry guys. I was referring to the poster suggesting that japanese cars get their good reputation beacause of older people buying them and mollycoddling them. As a Subaru owner, I know how good they are. Sorry for any confusion, my reply wasn't posted underneath the post I was replying to, I should have quoted it.
I did that post ! But to be honest I am rather embittered on the subject of Japanese cars, as my 18 month old Lexus was by a wide margin THE most troublesome car I have ever had !
By 40,000 miles, I had had a gearbox rebuild, a new clutch assembly and a new water pump under warranty !
I havent had these sorts of problems with a car since I used to buy £150 bangers when I was in college !
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You've been very unlucky Roly. No-one is saying japanese cars are perfect just that, on average, they give less trouble.
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Hi All,
Well picked my car up today. I asked what was wrong and was told the Chain was loose and something wrong wit the tensioner. I asked how much it cost (not paying as its a lease car) and the cost of repair was £700
Because it was 63K mikes but full service history Nissan has ended up paying for 75%, Lease company paid for 15% and dealer paid 10% of cost as it had full service history from this dealer.
I have picked up the car and its smoother but still smoking like a trooper.
Ah well Farewell Nissan in 2 weeks. Get my new car then!!!
Cheers
Jlo
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Hmm, interesting. If the oil is not changed regularly on these engines then the feed to the tensioner can get blocked and the chain rattles. I do wonder in the dealer was doing the service properly....
The smoking points to maladjustment of the injection pump.
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>> I did that post ! But to be honest I am rather embittered on the subject of Japanese cars, as my 18 month old Lexus was by a wide margin THE most troublesome car I have ever had ! By 40,000 miles, I had had a gearbox rebuild, a new clutch assembly and a new water pump under warranty ! I havent had these sorts of problems with a car since I used to buy £150 bangers when I was in college !
You have been exceptionally unlucky. A friend of mine buys & sells prestige cars. He will buy virtually any Lexus he can get his hands on at a decent price. Basically he knows that they will sell quickly and not come back. I remember him telling me that he had never had a single Lexus come back - which is not bad going because he shifts a fair number of cars each month.
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"Everyone is having problems with the latest generation of common-rail HP Diesel engines"
Aprilia - interested in this statement ( not disputing it!) but as a family that has an 80k Xantia 2.0 110 HDi, a 27k 2.0 90 HDi, a 1.4 HDi and a Renault DCi knocking around , I'd like to know what to watch for!
None have gone wrong so far!! (Fingers crossed, touch woood etc!!)
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"Everyone is having problems with the latest generation of common-rail HP Diesel engines" Aprilia - interested in this statement ( not disputing it!) but as a family that has an 80k Xantia 2.0 110 HDi, a 27k 2.0 90 HDi, a 1.4 HDi and a Renault DCi knocking around , I'd like to know what to watch for! None have gone wrong so far!! (Fingers crossed, touch woood etc!!)
If you get a 'good' one they seem fine (and the majority are 'good' of course) - but if you get a bad one you can have endless problems. That's why I regard them as a bit of a gamble at purchase time.
The problem stems from the extremely high pressures that are used (20-30,000 PSI) and the very fine tolerances.
Delphi Diesel System (formerly the Lucas Diesel Systems outfit) has had a lot of problems with pumps and injectors. The Bosch (and its ND clone) seem a bit more reliable, with ND being the best of the bunch.
Overall, it would take a lot to persuade me to buy, say, a Mondeo with DDS injection kit. They are fine cars when running well, but very difficult and expensive to fault find and repair. I have recently had my fingers burnt with a Merc. C-class CDi due to a glow plug having welded itself into the cylinder head. My friend (the one who sells the Lexus', mentioned above) currently has a bit of nightmare with a Rover 75 trade-in that has BMW Diesel engine troubles....
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Aprilia,
Thanks for reply - fingers remain crossed!!
Phil
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Here in New Zealand, in pre-EU days the roads were full of British cars. Sorry, the roads weren't full, but a good proportion of cars came from the UK. Very strict import controls meant that cars had to last a minimum of twenty years, and everything was repaired, reconditioned, rebuilt to keep it going. With no salt on the roads, we didn't get the horrendous corrosion, but the average vehicle age was very high.
As times changed and import controls went, used cars from Japan became the staple diet. Now there are very few British or European cars on our roads. We have discovered that the Japanese make the most reliable, best equipped cheap cars. There is a real struggle to sell any cars from the UK or Europe, as they are perceived as troublesome.
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In 30 years of driving Ive only had 2 non Japanese cars- one of the last Ford Cortinas which was always causing problems, and my latest- a Peugeot 307. I will never buy a non Japanese car again!
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The local Garage is incresingly getting his pick of decent 3 year old cars from his contacts in franchised dealers.
One rang whilst I was there a few months ago offering him a Renault and a Daiwoo.
He said without hesitation "Yes to the Daiwoo and No to the Renault".
His view is that he does not want the cars back once they are sold. If there is a problem with it he'll fix it within the warranty he offers, and sometimes in goodwill if it's an iffy issue.
Oddly enough he's happy to sell both diesel and petrol freelanders, discoveries (200/300TDi's and TD5s) if they're OK, anything japanese, and has been known to move on the odd Ford product.
.....but no Renaults!
::Expects RF to come and fly the Renault flag::
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As I have posted once before, when we used to have our garage my father eventually got to the point where he wouldn't even service a Renault, much less sell one. This was basically because we had so much trouble with them. They would come in for a repair job, you'd do the repair and send it out. Then something else would go wrong with it (not related to our work) and the owner (usually non-technical) would complain that it was our fault!
Mind you, that was quite a few years back and I suspect Renaults may have improved. I'm sure Renault employ many good engineers, however they have a reputation in the industry for having just about the lowest component costs - it shows in the quality. The electrical systems were always particularly nasty, as were those of Pug and Citroen. They used to drive me up the wall because all the wires would be the same colour, but with a little coloured paint 'dab' right at the end. It was a nightmare trying to follow a circuit through the car.
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The electrical systems were always particularly nasty, as were those of Pug and Citroen. They used to drive me up the wall because all the wires would be the same colour, but with a little coloured paint 'dab' right at the end. It was a nightmare trying to follow a circuit through the car.
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Indeed, the lack of colour coding brings back fond (NOT!) memories of electrical fault finding on French cars.
Although I'm no longer in the trade, I still look after the family's cars and those of a few friends. However, they know that if they turn up in anything French they had better start talking nicely to their local dealer!
Number_Cruncher
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>>They used to drive me up the wall because all the wires would be the same colour, but with a little coloured paint 'dab' right at the end. It was a nightmare trying to follow a circuit through the car.
You've obviously never worked on any military stuff, where there is often miles of pink wire, completely unmarked, its done that way to make it more confusing should the enemy ever get hold of soemthing.
Its not unusual to see hundreds of wires tied together in a single harness, all in pink.
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I read often, only post occasionally
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::Expects RF to come and fly the Renault flag::
Hugo... I dont need to..*you* drive one.
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I went out to a lady with a six month old Renault Megane, (one of these shake ya ass things). It's got an electronic key card and a start/stop button. What was wrong with a good old conventional ignition switch?
She says she puts the card in the slot and presses the button. Then one of two things happen:
1. The engine starts.
or
2. It gets towed to the Renault dealer on the back of a breakdown truck.
There's no in-between at all, and it's been into the dealer 6 times in 6 months for that same non-start fault. So there's an example of a French unreliability at it's worst...
My 1994 Astra 1.7DTL has never failed to start in all the time I've had it, even with 197,000 miles on the clock....
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Just wanted to add to the guy who had lots of work on his Lexus,
the key phrase was 'under warranty'. Inconvenient yes. Expensive, no. I cannot conceive of any other car company who put customer care as high as Toyota. And no, I don't work for them.
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When my Lexus went in for a service recently, I cheekily asked whether they could replace a piece of piping which had broken off on the driver's seat as it might affect the trade-in price. I didn't expect them to do anything about it because it was on the point where my backside/legs swivelled on getting into/out of the car. They took one look at it and said "it shouldn't have done that" and replaced the whole seat FOC!
I also had to have some work done on the gearbox. They pointed out a slight rumbling noise it was making when idling in neutral with the clutch in which I'd never noticed. Again, the work was done under warranty without any hassle.
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"She says she puts the card in the slot and presses the button. Then one of two things happen:
1. The engine starts.
or
2. It gets towed to the Renault dealer on the back of a breakdown truck."
Next time, tell her to put the car into neutral. It might start then,
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Megane needs either the clutch or brake pedal to be pressed as a safety device. On early Meganes the electrical cable on the clutch pedal could work loose preventing the car from starting. Fixed on later models.
Could it be this?
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"She says she puts the card in the slot and presses the button. Then one of two things happen:
1. The engine starts.
or
2. It gets towed to the Renault dealer on the back of a breakdown truck."
Next time, tell her to put the car into neutral. It might start then,
Megane needs either the clutch or brake pedal to be pressedas a safety device. On early Meganes the electrical cable on the clutch pedal could work loose preventing the car from starting. Fixed on later models. Could it be this?
No and No.
A message kept appearing on the dash reporting a fault, but I can't remember what it was. It'd been gack into the dealer 6 times in as many months and each time it came back repaired. For a short while anyway until it happened again, and again, and again.....
Morale of the story: Don't buy anything French. They're absolute rubbish....
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"Morale of the story: Don't buy anything French. They're absolute rubbish...."
Does that mean I can no longer buy Camembert and a Cotes du Rhone then? ;-)
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"Morale of the story: Don't buy anything French. They're absolute rubbish...." Does that mean I can no longer buy Camembert and a Cotes du Rhone then? ;-)
That's acceptable. Nothing wrong with French cheeses or wines. French women are pretty tasty too, it's just a shame that their cars leave a lot to be desired....
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Citroen 2CV is an exception. A real quality machine.....
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>> "Morale of the story: Don't buy anything French. They're absolute rubbish...." >> >> Does that mean I can no longer buy Camembert and a >> Cotes du Rhone then? ;-) >> That's acceptable. Nothing wrong with French cheeses or wines. French women are pretty tasty too, it's just a shame that their cars leave a lot to be desired....
Buy German ! Nice cars and tasty women !
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The new Renault Scenic has one of those automatic handbrakes. They automatically disengage once the engine turns on.
However, that's a problem if you find yourself with a flat battery. This gets worse if the car is parked nose into a bay with other cars either side so jump leads won't reach. Cue a forceable tow back with squealing tyres.
French design, doncha love it............
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"Alive With Technology" as one French manufacturer puts it.
I think it should say Alive With Problems.....
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As a Peugeot 307 owner- I would suggest that the Camembert and Cotes Du Rhone drive better than the cars!
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Well wifes Toyota Corolla has just disgraced itself completely.
She got home last night complaining the clutch didn't feel right. Quick wizz round the block this morning and the clutch is slipping like hell. This has done 32,550 miles!
It's been heavy for the last 15K miles as in heavier than the Porsche and the synchro has been knackered on 2nd since 5K miles, despite the garage saying it's fine.
The RAC guy who turned it round said that the gearbox sounds strange in 1st as well.
The mediocre dealers response will now be interesting, they haven't exactly excelled themselves previously.
What with its appalling dynamics, uncomfortable seats & now this why do people buy them?
Its a lease car thank god so their problem.
She is deeply unimpressed as we've just picked her hire car up, a 1.2GSi Corsa. I've told her to park round the corner so the neighbours don't think it's ours!!!!
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As a Peugeot 307 owner- I would suggest that the Camembert and Cotes Du Rhone drive better than the cars!
If you are not happy with the way it drives, why did you buy it and why have you still got it?
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