Worst Made Cars On the Road

Good Point, why isn't the Daewoo on it though?

 

They don't sell them in this country. General Motors bought Daewoo. They only sell them as Daewoos in select Asian markets. Elsewhere they are tagged with the local brand names.

 

I worked as mechanic for about 20 years. About 5 years ago I hurt my back and went to work as a claims adjuster for a company that administrates warranties for multiple aftermarket warranty companies.

The biggest POS on the road today would be Mercedes Benz, Land Rover, and Jaguar. You would get 500 series

Mercedes Benz's with 20k miles on them just out of warranty by time and they would need $5 to $8k in repairs. Constant seat motor/blower motor/shifter failures, AC repairs requiring almost the entire interior of the car be removed, non-stop suspension component failures were the most common claims.

It seemed like every Land Rover engine had bad head gaskets. One engine would leak coolant every time and the other would leak oil every time. One of the most common claims would be the little plastic tab would break off the heater control door and Land Rover only sold the entire heater control box for huge money and then it was a hug job to replace it. If you had a u-joint failure Land Rover would sell you a new drive shaft for like a grand because according to them you could not service the drive shaft. The good thing is that you can buy just the joints from any auto parts store.

Jaguars just seemed to break, break, and break. The owners would get them and the majority of them would have battery failures after a month or two. Then after that they would have timing chain failures that would be very expensive to fix. A lot of transmission failures also. Another one with a lot of shifter failures that are around $1k or more to fix. Highest claim I ever paid was a $15k Jaguar engine job.

With all three of these brands parts are very expensive and the repair process very labor intensive and if having a dealership perform the repairs it is common for their labor rates to be $100 to $150 per hour depending on location.

Both Jaguar and Land Rover seem to have A LOT of ABS controller failures and are very expensive to fix. One thing with Land Rover dealers is that the mark up from dealer to dealer can be huge. MSRP on a part would be $1k for example. One dealer will sell it for that and then another will go as high as $1800 with 5 other dealerships being anywhere in between.

When it came to the American cars they were nothing to be proud of either.

GM's with either 25k on them but out of time for time and miles or 38 months old with 20k on them would come in needing $3k to $5k in repairs. Every adjuster would get anywhere from 5 to 10 claims like that. They would need intake manifold gaskets (EVERY V6), a couple of wheel bearings/hubs, 2 or three power window motors/regulators, at least one door lock module, and either an AC condenser or compressor (or both). For the most part it would seem like the engines would hold up OK, transmission failures would be more common but the rest of the car just fell apart. A lot of AC claims.

The intake gasket problem has gone on forever. GM has made that V6 engine for a long time and they all leak. You would not see a Japanese or European company have the same problem on the same engine for 15+ years.

Ford had a lot more drive train failures than GM. A lot of engine problems. V8's blowing spark plugs out of the cylinder heads and timing chain and tensioner issues were two of the most common claims. Very labor intensive for the repairs in most cases. They had a lot of suspension component failures. Every adjuster would blow out failed coil claims all day long, every day.

Transmission and differential failures were done all day too. The most common transmission issue was one of servos would wear away the aluminum bore it rode in until it got the point that the servo piston would cock and cause a pressure drop within the trans and burn the unit up. Regarding the differential claims, the one thing I would say for Ford was that they issued TSB's on the problems and threw together a kit with ALL the parts needed to overhaul the entire differential and sold it a discounted price.

Ford would have a lot of power window and door lock actuator motor failures also. The spark plug and timing chain problems are another example of the same engine(s) having the same exact problems for 15 or more years. Unsatisfactory in my opinion.

Also with Ford, in every job I had it seemed like it always sucked to deal with the people at the dealership. My overall impression of Ford dealerships is that they are always trying to stick it up your ass so they all make the most on the commission. Ford IMO is to busy having "better ideas" on how to make a vehicle cheaper so they can make more money than how to improve its quality.

Dodge seemed to have a large amount of engine failures. They had engines that were notorious for sludge problems and timing chain problems (usually brought on by a sludge issue). Trucks would chew up ball joints in 30k miles or less. Emission parts were a very common claim with them also. Large amount of transmission claims, but a lot of only required "minor" repairs would be around $500 or less.

On all of the Big Three's vehicles you would do A LOT of fuel pump claims. It would be common to get a fuel pump claim on a vehicle with say 130k miles on it and see that it was on its third fuel pump. Our adjusters approved all OEM fuel pumps so that there would be no fitment issues for the parts changers out there. In the majority of cases these failures would be confirmed by appraisers going out there.

Audi's/VW can be funny. They are both labor intensive and OEM parts are not cheap. Audi's are good cars for the most part without a lot of problems as long as you keep up on the maintenance. I would stay away from anything with a twin turbo'd engine though. The stock turbos fail and are at a minimum a grand a piece and the engine has to come out to replace them. The twin turbo car uses the same transmission as the regular cars and it cannot take the increased HP & torque - very pricey repair.

VW from a claims perspective didn't really stand out, just normal failures but if you did get a transmission claim they would be pretty expensive. From my own personal experience with VW it seems like you either get a good one or a lemon with the majority being good ones. My mother is on her third or fourth Jetta with no problems. A girl I know has the same car as my mom and has had nothing but problems with it.

BMW's are good cars for the most part. Older X5's had front suspension problems because it was the same chassis as the X3 but with more HP and bigger tires. Transmission failures on older 7 series cars with around 100K+ on them was a very common claim. You would get transmission claims on the X's on a regular basis, but not in high volume. Usually a couple a week.

Kia's seemed to have a lot of rust problems. Fuel tanks, brake lines, etc.

Honda had transmission problems for a long time. They extended the coverage on all makes and models effected but they really should not have had the problems go on as long as they did. Honda needs to get away from their interference engine with a timing belt and go back to a chain so the cars don't need the maintenance. For the most part very reliable, but did have a large amount of AC claims.

Toyota's were probably the best cars out there. Alternator here and there, maybe a water pump or something stupid like that. Even with the problems they are having today, IMO THE best car on the road today. Toyota will step up, fix their problems, and then move forward to continue making an excellent vehicle. Its not like they are a company that made and sold cars that could explode if hit from the rear for 30 years.

Nissan. Good cars, nothing stands out claim-wise, although Maxima's can be very hard to work on.

Hyundai made some pretty good vehicle also. They definitely are a lot different vehicle and company from when they first started out.

 

Good info KM...

Just wondering about this one...Since I have an 06' X5 4.8is...The X3's came out after the X5's. You mentioned the older ones...X5's came out in 2000...X3's in 04'.

You stated:

"BMW's are good cars for the most part. Older X5's had front suspension problems because it was the same chassis as the X3 but with more HP and bigger tires." I am also thinking the platform is different. The X5 is much larger.

 

You are right, the X5 did come out about 5 years before the X3. For some reason I thought they came out with the X3 first and then upgraded it for the X5. The platforms are different also.

Regardless of my error in that aspect, the fact is that the X5's for several years had front suspension problems that did not seem to effect the X3. Specifically, when I say did not seem to effect the X3 means that we were not seeing claims on them like the X5.

The bigger tires would basically pull the wheel bearings apart. If you jacked the vehicle up you could push/pull the front tire in and out. BMW released a TSB outlining the issue and had an improved parts list that IIRC included an updated spindle assembly that utilized larger bearings.

 

It's an '03 525it w/80k miles my wife uses to haul the kids around and drive to work.

The list includes injectors, ign. coils, hatch latch, headlight adjusters, neutral/park safety switch and brakes.

 

For what it's worth at my company we've had problems with all of the big 3's pickup trucks.

We've seen more problems out of Ford trucks, but we've also bought more Ford trucks, so that might be a moot point.

All in all, when you look at a new vehicle, there's 20,000 different parts on the thing. Somethings bound to not work right. Plus they get re-designed every 3 years instead of working on fixing old problems.

 

If you want one, get it. Even though i slung a rod in my new one a couple of years ago, i wouldnt hesitate to get another one.

FWIW, when i blew my motor, i was sitting on like 5000RPM, uphill, while pulling a trailer and going about 80mph.

The guy at the dealership gave me a hard time about it. He was like "that is a lot of RPM's and a lot of load on that motor..." as if he was trying to blame me for it.

I was like "not my problem. If the truck can't handle it, i shouldnt be able to do it. If you didnt want the truck to rev to 5K then you should have put a rev limiter on it. If i have the ability to do it, the truck should be able to take it"

While i love my new Avalanche, it isn't an Escalade. But it all depends on if you think about stuff like that. If you are just concerned with getting from point A to point B...an Avalanche is fine.

My Avalanche has every single option the Escalade did. It had a sticker price of $53k which wasn't much cheaper than the Escalade. But it still isnt an Escalade.

My Escalade was an accomplishment to me. I had wanted one forever and finally got to the point that i could get one. As soon as they announced they were going to start producing the new EXT's, i placed an order and had one built how i wanted it.

My order was placed as a "paid" order and i got one of the first ones to roll off the assembly line. That might have not been a good thing seeing how it turned out.

But i still wouldnt hesistate to get another one. Customer service was great, they never batted an eye at putting a complete brand new engine in it.

 

For the Jeep haters at CR.... "you wouldn't understand"

 

i think volvo should be on the top of the list

 

You'd better replace the radiator, power steering pump, ccv and vanos now before they go.

Mine needs a new secondary air pump ($500 from dealer).

 

KM
Great info. Curious what you saw for the Subaru? I always thought they where solid cars...but less common. So maybe total number of claims is not a good indicator.

 

I forgot. Power steering pumps are one of the most common claims for X's series.

Subaru's are good cars, nothing out of the ordinary except head gasket failures but Subaru would warranty them, even if they were way out of warranty by time and miles.

My parents had Subaru's and besides my father hitting a deer they never had any problems with them.

 

Subaru has been known for a long time as being reliable. I knew a girl that worked the service department in a Subaru/VW dealership in NC. The Subaru mechanics spent most of their time working on VW's.

 

I hear FIATs making a comeback..

 

Did you hear it from this guy?