Sweetly simple, RWD, spacious inside, and economical.


If only Toyota sold them in the US, preferably with a turbo and/or a mild hybrid system. *Sigh*.


http://www.motortrader.com.my/NUS/articles/0/article_99/page_m.asp


-b.

Forget it guys they just don't build 'em like the 240 anymore...If you want to get close as far as longevity goes, get a honda accord or toyota camry. They regularly get 300k miles out of those guys. As for safety, get a new Volvo. Want the best bang for the buck? Get a new Hyundai Sonata...(I know I'll hear some crap for that one) :) Mark my words...5 years Hyundai/Kia will be the new Acura/Honda, Lexus/Toyota.

If you want to get close as far as longevity goes, get a honda accord or toyota camry. They regularly get 300k miles out of those guys.

So do Subarus, and they aren't front-wheel-driven crap like the Accord and Camry. I wonder how reliable the Dodge Magnums will turn out to be - the base models are fairly simple and practical, and both ChryCo and Mercedes have a history of building reliable RWD drivetrains (think of any slant-6 car or the Mercedes 300D).


Driving any FWD car grates on me - it just feels numb, disconnected, and wrong.


-b.

I'm with you on the FWD thing. Didn't think about that angle. Of course there is Subaru. They are making great cars and in many ways I would compare thier engineering prowess to the Germans of 20 yrs ago. Current generation Subarus are just extremely well built. I have a buddy with a 2003 WRX. He is into AutoX so he tunes his car. That little 2.0L 4 cyl is now putting out 417BHP and 295HP at the wheels. His 0-60 is about 3.8 seconds. Needless to say, they are significantly over engineered cars...Pretty impressive stuff.

Pardon my rant -
Accord or Camry or Subaru, maybe.
We had a Caravan w/ 2.2L engine, will likely never buy another Chrylser product, period.

The stupidity of design that I found in that car amazed me.
When the parts broke, we bought new ones - they were exactly the same as what failed. No improvement to their design or manufacture.

Examples:
Emergency [foot] brake lever, stamped steel.
When it bent, we had it replaced.
Same POS stamped steel part was put in again.
It's not possible that our car was the only one where that lever failed, I would have thought they would have recognized the error and built the new parts of better materials and/or design.

Clutch cable bracket - galvanized steel - located below the windshield wiper washer reservoir on firewall.
Fluid spills. You can count on it.
Bracket rusted + bent - lost cable tension - could not shift.
Why design for failure??

A friend of a friend is a true gearhead. Builds race cars, drives an 18-wheeler.
Had a Jeep Cherokee.
Tranny failed.
Had it rebuilt, then sold the Jeep and bought a Toyota 4Runner.
Smart man.

I have no confidence that Mercedes can produce a true shift in thinking at Chrysler.
Their products are nice on the outside, impressive, look like good value for the money.
POS inside as far as I'm concerned.

Pardon my anti-rant.

245's are becoming rare around here in decent shape at a decent price.

In January I picked up a '92 Voyager 2.5/5-speed for $850 - can't touch a decent 245 for twice that anymore.

Yes, I hate the FWD, especially for the huge turning circle. Otherwise, it does everything my 245s have done for me, and more.
--
'73 142, '75 242, '75 245, '80 245, '86 244, '87 745T

I'm with you re. the potential of Hyunday and Kia.

I rememeber the nasty things said about so-called Japanese rice-burners when they first arrived in the US - around 1969-70, as I recall. Priced lower than anything else on the market, and getting better gas mileage. It didn't take them long to surpass the then-abyssmal quality and longevity of the US-made cars. The rest is history.

You don't have to be a current maker of quality cars to become one. Becoming one seems to be another matter entirely.

And, being such a maker doesn't mean you will continue to make quality cars, either!

I love my Volvo, but my wife is on our second Hyundai and I have to say I remain impressed. When they first came out, I wouldn't have touched them. Very small, inexpensive, very thin metal. Not a great car. Questionable quality. Then they got better. Bought a Tiburon which we both loved. Then the twins came along. Traded it (after just a year and a half) for a Santa Fe. Was happy that I came out rightside up on the trade. And very happy with the car. Does everything we want it too, and only one issue (was a recall on the O2 sensor) in 4 years. They will become an even bigger force to recon with in the future.

the late 60's early 70's (pre73) american cars were AWSOME...so long as you didn't mind hangin out at the gas station...their quality was fairly high...but i will agree with you their longevity was very limited...the jap cars weren't so much better as they were smaller...at least at that time...it wasn't untill the gas crysis that people were willing to buy an 80hp car when they were used to a 400hp big block chevy...it wasn't that the jap cars were sooo much better than american cars to begin with, it was that the cars after 1973 US became utter shit...so as the japs started to make a little better, we took a nose dive...but you were talking about 69-70....when gas was that cheap and plentiful...who cared? global warming was merely a twinkle in a flower child's eye and the clouds of smoke over LA were only a minor nuisance. much later the japs used computer control more efficiently...aka late 1980's and thats when the appliances like accord and camry came into their own...it is only in the last year or two that the americans have gotten back on the stick, and i think they are targeting the krauts this time, and with the plummeting german quality, who knows.... As the proud owner of a 1968 Firebird 400 that I recently restored, I can tell you that some of the engineering in those cars is phenominal...see the General Motors TH400 Hydramatic 3 speed auto....utterly bombproof...ask Rolls Royce...but safety was not even a consideration, that includes the lack of anything other than a lap belt and brakes on a 3600lb car that couldn't stop a vespa....so in retrospect, there were strong points and weak points....but in no way can the 69-70 cars flowing from detroit be called crap...they were just different from what we have today...personally i like the simplicity and visceral feel.

Hyundai is already making great cars. J.D. Power says so at least.
In 2004 the Sonata took the top spot for initial quality in it's class...That's competing with Honda, Toyota, etc.
The 2005 Tucson (new Hyundai SUV) got ranked as the highest quality all-new model launched in the industry in 2005. OVERALL. Thats impressive.
As a brand, Hyundai is now ranked 3rd highest in initial quality of ALL non luxury brands. Not many people know that Hyundai and Kia are the same company now...Also, not many people know that Hyundai is planning on launching a luxury brand over here in the states in the next year or two...Sounds very similar to Toyota when they launched the Lexus marque.
Anyway, I dont want to thread jack and turn this into a discussion on the Koreans, but it's always a good discussion...People tend to have strong feelings about the quality of Korean autos.

I am not debating the quality of Hyundai...although i do think they stink...my beef is with your reliance on JD Power and Associates. When I was an undergrad...only 3 short years ago...i took a statistics course and wouldn't you know my text book had models of incorrect and manipulative statistical analysis...and guess who was inlcuded in that...good O'l JD himself....you see in the automotive reliability stats that they compile, they simply count up the number of complaints/repairs per model and manufacturer. There is no accounting for the gravity of the malfunction. in other words...a burnt out tail light buld or a blown fuse gets counted the same as a blown motor or a fried transmission...despite the fact that a tail light bulb may cost $5 with labor and a blown engine could be $10,000 or more. as far as I am concerned this is not a good way to determine if a car is valuable, unless of course no problems of any kind were ever reported in any specific unit of the specific model and make you are looking for. I have never known a car to have no problems of any kind for any significant period of time....so in otherwords JD is BS. This is clearly an abuse of numbers, and riding the boarderline of fraud...I would be leary of relying on any of the magazines etc..opinions regarding the reliability of any particular car....a lot of homework must be done including looking into who funds the magazine...I advised my mother to purchase an 03 VW Passat turbo...every major car magazine ranked it in first place in it's class destroying Accord, Camry, Sonata and obliterating Taurus, and indeed the car had the cleanest ride and best fit and finish of all of it's competators...including the Volvo C70 that we looked at which incidentally cost about 60% more than the VW...well to make a long story short...that VW has been the biggest hunk of crap that we have owned and we have owned a Saturn...in the first 12 months the car was in the shop 5...yes 5 times for ignition malfucntions...recalled ignition coils would only be replaced one at a time, and for those of you paying attention at this point...you should note that with 5 replacements...one of the replaced coils malfucntioned twice...Way to go King Kraut!...Meanwhile, the car has had a headlight that goes out approximately every 10,000 miles and as the car is under warranty...all they do is replace the bulb and refuse to examine the wiring. Not to mention that the cd player..(which is an option that we not included on the build sheet for our car, but was installed anyway...) periodically works and then doesn't...the interior is coated in a thin rubberized film which flakes off like dandruff, interior lights periodically have malfunctioned and if you depress the trottle to the floor with the floor made installed in the drivers foot well, the pedal will become stuck under the mat, which is snapped down to the floor....causeing...you guessed it uncontrolled excelleration....wow! all that for only $27k??? What a heap...and JD Power said it was a "Best Buy"....If you look around other VW owners are experiencing the same types of issues, so it is not a friday night/monday morning car. I wonder how JD would rank my 343,000 mile 244DL which costs about $500 in maintainence per year if you add up the 15 or so little issues that crop up....Just a thought... thanks for reading my rant

This is exactly why these threads are so great! While what you say about J.D. Power is semi-valid, not entirely. You see they do just tally statistics, but you fail to recognize the fact that they do indeed take into account the type of failure. They break it down as follows:

Mechanical Quality
Feature & Accessory Quality
Body & Interior Quality
Overall Quality

Overall Quality is what it takes to win the best in "initial quality", and is a cumulative result of the other three category scores. So while feasible that a car my get a poor mechanical quality score but excellent in the other two and still get a good overall score, it takes a great score in all three categories to get anywhere near the top ten. Not to mention that the individual score for each category is available to anyone looking for it. Like you say, best to do your research thoroughly before buying any car. Anyway, the initial quality only covers the first 90 days of ownership...That should get people talking...

Crash in that and you'll be singing a different tune
jr142

Honestly, I'm not that worried about crash safety (drove a Fiat 124 before the Volvo and ride motorcycles). As someone on this august forum stated in his .sig, "it's not Volvo's safety that sold me, it was longevity and practicality." (or something like that).


RWD, manual and practical; sounds good to me. I wish the tiny BMW, the 1-series, was imported to this country, too.


-b.

An alledgedly popular choice amongst former 240 owners in Europe, looking for straightforward engineering/reliability, is the Skoda Octavia.

It seems to be popular with car hire co's - which is an indicator.

Skoda were a former eastern bloc manufacturer with a more or less 'joke' reputation, until VW took them over and spent wads of cash revamping the factory when Germany re-unified.

I don't know if you get them in the US.

http://www.octavia4x4.com/main.html

An alledgedly popular choice amongst former 240 owners in Europe, looking for straightforward engineering/reliability, is the Skoda Octavia.

The Octavia isn't available in the US (yet). It also has a transverse drivetrain, which does no favors to the car's turning circle, and the crummy front-biased Haldex AWD system, which probably makes the car understeer in general.


If I were in the market for an Eastern European car, I'd want a Tatra to play with:
http://digilander.libero.it/cuoccimix/ENGLISH-automotorusse9-F(Tatra).htm


OTOH, the Subaru Liberty/Legacy 4x4 is available and is a pretty decent car. Longitudinal drivetrain, 50/50-biased AWD so the car doesn't understeer like a pig, available manual tranny, and, of course, the wonderful "boxer" engine. It can still be ordered without unneeded *crap* like power seats and a NAV system.


Gas mileage is good - about 30 mpg highway - and the later cars probably last just as long as Volvo 240s (before 1995 or so they had a rust problem).


-b.