I currently have a vehicle in for repair. It looks like a minimum of $8000. Head gasket that is really now a new head. Labour is going to very big.
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Oh, and if you drive my car… The sensor warning resets when you open the bonnet. Oil warning low. Hey, just open and close the bonnet.
You go and go and go girl!!!
My experience is similar to Gaby’s. I’ve had two Toyota Prados in the last 24 years. They have taken me over roughest roads and steep hills without a hitch. They have been serviced routinely and never gave me a moment’s difficulty …except for the service costs which I won’t begrudge when the performance is excellent.
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In my experience newer vehicles are more reliable and require far less regular attention than older cars. The combination of improved materials, better machining, better lubricants and much better control over the combustion process because of electronics and fuel injection. Many current cars get NO under bonnet attention between annual services, with the bit of luck the tire pressures might get checked. Batteries started getting total sudden failure after external lead straps joining individual cells were replaced with internal ones, pressed together instead of fused. You need a good OBD2 reader to even start to understand most problems. Some vehicles have weaknesses such as no water reservoir level sensor, so the first sign of slow coolant loss is overheating, sometimes with catastrophic engine damage. Some design features make maintenance expensive, such as difficult to get at toothed timing belts with a finite life and again catastrophic damage if they break. Because it is so time consuming to replace the belt then replace the water pump and idlers at the same time. A well engineered chain drive will go maintenance free for the life of the car.Perhaps the manufacturers don’t want this??
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I well remember the days when you adjusted the points every couple of weeks, adjusted the tappets and tdc settings (backfires a specialty), topped up the oil after every journey, topped up the battery regularly, adjusted the twin SU’s to run smoothly, adding Castor Oil to the petrol – to smell like a F1 racing car - or just using RedEx. Pulled the choke out every single start and inevitably flooded the engine. Readjusted the toe-in/out angle and tire pressures after hitting a small pothole. Bleed the brakes when they felt spongy, and you kept hitting other objects. Yes, vehicles were certainly more reliable back then.
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Gregor,
I would fully agree with your opinion on this one.
Could we add for yesterday’s museum classics checking and topping up the radiator every day? This was usually with tap water. Even the local garage only used tap water. Cynically this led to a great deal more business for the local garage mechanic.
Coolant overflow or expansion tanks were absent (mostly). Corrosion inhibitor coolant mixtures existed but were not in everyday use. Our local wise ones said it was a waste of money putting antifreeze in the system. That alloy heads were becoming more common from the 1970’s added to the roadside misery.
It may be a measure of how more reliable and dependable today’s motor vehicles are to note:
- The demise of the local garage mechanics over the last decades of the 20th century.
- How much more reliable they are due to owners not opening the bonnet so often. For some possibly never, depending on whether personally refilling the windscreen washer is considered necessary.
Battery EVs will add a whole new level of driver indifference to the mechanics of their vehicles. Touch screen obsessions and going deep in the Autonomy menus might be the new affliction.
And checking and adding tap water to the battery at the servo.
It might come down to brands. e.g. I believe BMWs are more tech sensitive despite mechanically being quite sound. Personally, I’ve been sticking with Mazda for last 20 years and had no problems. Currently have a 2002 323, a 2004 6, and a 2019 2. Battery failures are going to happen to any car, and have a rough life of ~3 years.
Welcome @MattKW
Agree that for many it might be as you suggest,
Unfortunately the most reliable brand comparative statistics are absent from public view. It can be complicated knowing a brand may source vehicles from different factories globally and target various similar models at different price points. EG luxury or performance latest technology at any cost vs low budget old tech long run platforms. Canstar Blue offers up a ‘satisfaction’ survey by brand for Aussies. It’s not an absolute measure of vehicle reliability longer term or of the costs involved. The Motoring organisation reviews offer some further insight on anticipated running costs.
Cars Guide offers an informed view, suggesting the Australian Industry itself collects data, but chooses not to share it.
Their report falls back to the USA based JD Power surveys, linked in a prior post.
Notes:
With respect to BMW models, many of the more expensive marques are desirable for reasons other than reliability. There is a trade off. It’s similar in many ways to owning a large boat or yacht. Best appreciated by those able to burn $100 bills without regrets.
Ask anyone who has owned an older MG or Lotus or Jaguar or … whether they were more reliable and less expensive per km than a Mazda MX5 or Subaru WRX Sti.
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There are a few brands I would stick with: Toyota, Honda and Subaru. All built to last and very reliable. I shudder to think of the problems I had from about 1963 onwards (my first car), clutch, gears, suspension, etc. Ford, Mazda, VW, Chevrolet, BMW, Mercedes. My 1992 Honda Civic lasted 382,000 km and all I had to do was replace the water pump. My Corolla had 182,000 on the clock after 11 years (no problems) and I reluctantly sold it for a smaller Suzuki to tow behind our motorhome. Our 2006 RAV lasted for 152,000 km without any problems. I believe the three I mentioned pay attention to quality, that’s why they last.
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And now having been for a service at Motorserve where they dont use aftermarket items, I’m up for something like $300 for replacement of an o ring to stop an engine oil leak. I think that includes the labour. Hope so. The service… basic service was $197.50, and the extras (which I know were needed) cost another $300 or so. So after Tuesday, the car will have cost me about $4000 over 20 years, on top of normal servicing, petrol etc. It really isnt too bad, I guess. Its not a modern car, but its been pretty reliable. And after the service, its been really nice to drive 
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slammer raised an interesting point in his first post. He experienced two batteries that “just died”. This is one aspect of modern vehicles that doesn’t seem to be as reliable. Years ago a battery would slowly degrade until it was obvious it needed replacing. I heard from a person that works in the industry that calcium batteries (calcium added to the lead plates) are much more likely to “just die”. This was his experience and may be anecdotal, but a fair sample as he replaces hundreds of batteries a year.
And I agree cars are more reliable but less fixable. My father always travelled with a small toolkit and a supply of radiator hoses, a fan belt, points and a few other “consumables”. If the car broke down, he fixed it on the side of the road. I was the same for many years but now the breakdown kit is a spare tyre, pump, and a set of snow chains.
Vehicles today have a lot of plastic, which does seem to have a “use by” date. Working on a 20 year old car often leads to broken plastic bits that go brittle. So reliability does not have a long lifetime. Many cars 50 years and older are still running with careful maintenance. I wonder if the same will happen to vehicles made this millennium. Of course, this is not a benefit, the lighter cars are more efficient, plastic cuts cost for the same functionality.
Sentimentally I would like my Daimler or Peugeot 405Mi16 back as they were “interesting” cars. But pragmatically I buy boring current model white goods on wheels because they work.
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I have only owned three cars manufactured this century. All were bought secondhand, and all three have required nothing more than regular servicing.
When I think back to cars I owned in the '80s and '90s, also bought secondhand and of similar ages at the time of purchase, there is no comparison. I was plagued with broken components, oil leaks, water leaks, rust - the list could go on and on. Sure, I loved some of them dearly, but they were not in the same league for accuracy of component manufacturing or overall reliability.
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I’ve been driving for over 35 years and never really had an unreliable car, but living mainly in rural areas you are taught to keep maintenance up. Most of my cars, since leaving Uni, have been new or a few years old . The biggest issue I’ve found with modern cars is when something fails there’s often no warning. We had a 2017 VW Golf that at 2.5 years just wouldn’t start one morning, battery dead. Luckily the $400+ battery had a 3 year warranty and was replaced for free same day. We just drove another 2018 vehicle from Cairns to Brisbane no problems at all and 3 days later it goes into limp mode and spews out a pile of error codes. $770 later a faulty oxygen sensor was replaced. In another vehicle, not long after a cyclone, the Bruce highway north of Townsville was more akin to Swiss cheese than a road we had a blow out, not that uncommon and usually only a minor inconvenience but this vehicle was fitted with run tyres and no spare. Run flat tyres don’t run when the side wall has been shredded. That ended up with a trip on a flatbed tow truck and a 2 day wait for a new tyre to arrive from Melbourne.
We have now developed our own vehicle assessment criteria:
- How long is the warranty?
- Does the warranty include roadside assist?
- No run flat, low profile or uncommon sized tyres.
- Plan to sell the vehicle before the warranty runs out.
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Thinking of frightening experiences in cars I could frighten myself in my 1951 Rover 75----it had a knob on the dash that when you turned it put the car in neutral. This I think was a fuel saving device. The only problem was when you came to a steep downwards hill you had to accelerate to re-engage the gearbox. Picking up speed in about a ton and a half of car with drum brakes all round was something I will never forget. The other problem with it was that it had a manual gearbox with no synchro on first or second gears.
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The modern beast of burden is a better machine, but it seems to live with the umbilical cord attached.
The modern beast is not built (assembled) to be touched by a backyard mechanic. Even the dashboard service schedules require a secret code and steps that only Q could come up with and 007 could execute.
I’d have a better chance of disarming a nuclear device than resetting the schedule on the VW dash.
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In common both are probably best when broken and unable to function.
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