And you're cross posting because.... ?
<mechanic@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:yxThk.1307$%b7.1054@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
| Enough with the cross posting, already...
| "Built_Well" <Built_Well_Toyota@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
| news:819f3d8b-c814-4cd7-88a1-449b35037f73@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
| >
| > I was surprised to read that the 2 bottom trim levels of the
| >
| > new Passat do not come with automatic headlights. You have
| >
| > to spring for the third trim level (called Lux) to get the
| > automatics. Kinda surprised me. All trims are turbo, though,
| > even the bottom trim. The little 4-cylinder (just 2.0 liter)
| > engine can put out 200 horsepower.
| >
| > The Jetta, assembled in Mexico, now comes with a 5th cylinder.
| > It's an inline 5, and boasts 2.5 liters, more than my 2.4 liter
| > Camry. But Consumer Re****ts says Volkswagen isn't known for
| > its long-term reliability. A Consumer Re****ts survey of owners
| > listed the '06 Passat as one of the least reliable family cars,
| > but it drives really good, nice handling.
| >
| > The King of Reliability is Toyota, even besting Honda, which
| > is the Queen, a close second to Toyota. Info coming from the
| > April, 2007, issue.
| >
| > Nissan (and its luxury nameplate Infiniti) is all over the map
| > in reliability, from good reliability for some models to
| > downright poor reliablility for other Nissan and Infiniti
| > models (info based on 2006 survey for 3 most recent
| > model years' data).
| >
| > Subaru and Hyundai also did respectably well in the survey.
| > All the other manufacturers, though, showed wide ranges in
| > reliability from poor to bad--similar to Nissan's showing.
| >
| > Mercedes-Benz was at the bottom of the 36-nameplate heap,
| > which really surprised me. Every time I get a hankering
| > for a German car, I just gotta read Consumer Re****ts and
| > I change my mind about wanting a German car (or even a U.S.
| > car, I'm sad to say).
| >
| > I'm sure U.S. cars are improving dramatically, though.
| > This was Consumer Re****ts '06 survey, 2 years old now, so
| > it didn't include '07 and '08 models. Some Mercury models
| > did really well in the survey, as did some Lincoln models, but
| > some other Lincoln and Mercury models scored badly in the 3-year
| > reliability survey. However, an outstanding Lincoln stand-out
| > is the Lincoln Zephyr (or Lincoln MKZ which it was later known as).
| >
| > Going back to Mercedes for a second, in the survey, an
| > 8-year-old Lexus scored better in reliablity than a new
| > Mercedes-Benz ML500. (Yow.) Consumer Re****ts says the
| > Lexus LS tops its survey, year in and year out. The
| > 1998 Lexus LS400 "had fewer problems than the 2006
| > Mercedes-Benz ML500"--remember this survey was done
| > in 2006, two years ago, so they were comparing an 8-year-old car to a
| > new car.
| >
| > The top 7 nameplates were:
| >
| > 1) Toyota
| > 2) Honda
| > 3) Scion (a Toyota brand)
| > 4) Acura (Honda luxury brand)
| > 5) Lexus (Toyota luxury brand)
| > 6) Subaru
| > 7) Hyundai (but Hyundai's subsidiary Kia didn't do so well)
| >
| > All other companies' nameplates had some models which turned
| > in less-than-average 3-year reliability scores. As mentioned,
| > some models for the companies really excelled, but other models
| > from the same companies did poorly.
| >
| > BMW, another German car I've desired before reading
| > Consumer Re****ts, didn't do so well either.
| >
| > The BMW 7-series was among the least reliable luxury cars, along
| > with the Jaguar S-Type. BMW, as a whole, scored in the middle
| > of the 36 name-plate bunch.
| >
| > Some of the least reliable small cars were the Chevrolet Cobalt,
| > the 5-cylinder Volkswagen Jetta, and the Chevy Aveo.
| >
| > There were over 1.3 million cars re****ted on in the 2006 Consumer
| > Re****ts Annual Car Reliablity Survey.
| >
| > Looking at more long-term data, the 1999 BMW 5 Series V8 had
| > the worst engine cooling problem rate, with 34 percent. "In
| > addition, 2000 to 2001 BMW 5 Series V8 and BMW 7-Series all
| > had about 30 percent of their owners re****ting engine-cooling
| > woes."
| >
| > A quote from the article:
| >
| > "More than half of the 2004 Infiniti QX56, Nissan Armada, and
| > Nissan Titan owners re****ted a brake problem. And almost half
| > of 2005 Armada and Titan owners also re****ted brake problems."
| >
| > Now this Acura thing surprised me:
| >
| > "Nearly a quarter of owners of the 2001 Acura CL re****ted
| > a bad tansmission problem, and nearly the same percentage of
| > 1999 Volvo XC70s were re****ted to suffer from fuel-system problems."
| >
| > Damn, everytime I think of expanding my horizons beyond
| > Toyota, cold, hard survey data and results bring me back,
| > keeping me loyal to Toyota.
|
|
|
