I wanted to chime in on Toyota while they are in the midst of dealing with their little crisis. In my article from September 15th titled “Making the Efficient Decision and The First TRUE Automaker Bailout” I mentioned that the difference in reliability between domestic and foreign automakers had largely vanished after all of the consumer-class auto makers converted to front wheel drive.
I received quite a few emails about that article, all of them positive as it turns out. I was happy to discover that many of you were on the same page with me as far as vehicles go. This Toyota recall is a great example of what I meant when I said “of course Toyota owners BELIEVE their cars are more reliable, look how much more they paid for them!”
The reality is that if you’re buying a consumer class car, you’re buying a consumer class car, and that’s all there is to it. All of the automakers build them to basically the same standards, the cheapest standards that they can get away with. Toyota is a more profitable company than GM because Toyota has managed to convince the public to pay more for their cars, it’s really that simple. Of course there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes, such as union wages, parts suppliers, and that kind of thing, but it can be broken down very simply into the fact that Toyota buyers have been convinced that they are getting something better by paying more.
Construction quality is construction quality. A transverse front-wheel drive is a disposable car. It will run fine for a number of years and anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 miles if you’re lucky, and then it will become too expensive to maintain and so it will go to a recycler to have any remaining parts that are of value stripped from it and resold.
In my opinion, the very thought of buying a vehicle with that intention is criminal. But you see, Americans like that kind of thing. They like to own a car for a few years, then by the time they’ve paid it off they are tired of it and they want something new. So this whole disposable car mentality really says more about the character of Americans than it says about the auto industry.
Case in point:
A guy that lives near me was trying to sell his 1998 Volvo wagon. He was selling it for about $1,000 less than book value because, as he put it, “The bottom line is that it’s a great car with a bad transmission.” The car had 220,000 miles on it and reverse did not work. But to him, it’s still a great car. After all, he paid something like $45,000 for the car when he bought it twelve years ago, surely there must still be something of value left in it!
If it had been a 1988 Volvo instead of a 1998 Volvo it would have had a lot of value despite the miles and bad transmission. The reason is that on a 1988 Volvo, the longitudinal engine is simple to replace with a rebuilt engine, and the transmission is very simple to replace with a rebuilt transmission. Volvo began converting to transverse engines and transmissions in the 1990’s along with most other automakers, and after that, even a premium car with a high end price such as Volvo becomes disposable.
The fact of the matter, that this guy was refusing to accept, was that the car no longer had any value to anyone. I believe he decided to dismantle the car and sell the individual pieces on ebay that were still of value, such as the seats, dashboard, and stuff like that. That’s a sad situation for one of the safest and most luxurious cars ever produced.
Think of it this way people: I’m not asking you to suddenly decide that you are going to change your ways and keep your cars for 25 years. I’m asking you to only purchase cars that can be maintained for 25 years without becoming disposable. When you don’t want it anymore, someone with less money than you will be able to buy the car from you and get many years of safe reliable operation out of it. And you’ll get top dollar when you sell it because it’s something that’s built to last. That type of thinking is better for the environment, it’s better for the people in third world countries who are absorbing the cost of building all those disposable parts on today’s cars, and it’s better for Americans because there would be a legacy of quality cars on the road for all income levels.
All things considered, a sticking gas pedal on a Toyota is not a big deal. Every person who drives a car should be smart enough to be able to bump their car into Neutral and come to a stop if the engine starts to rev out of control. If a person is too stupid to figure that out, they have no business operating a vehicle (yes I’ve heard the 911 call). But the recall points to a larger issue that Americans have chosen to sweep under the carpet. And that’s what I’m mad as hell about.
When I wrote my last article, I received some comments from readers who wanted to know what cars I drive. I figure I should probably tell you…
My family has 3 cars. These cars are the highest fuel mileage, most reliable vehicles from their time period that will serve our needs. My family’s needs are a bit different than your family’s needs because of where we live. We live in a high mountain rural area, over 9,000 feet in altitude. It seems that many people don’t even realize that humans can live year-round at such a high elevation, as is evidenced by the shock when I tell them, but we do. It’s beautiful here, but it does require a different kind of vehicle:
Vehicle #1. 2000 Chevrolet Blazer ZR-2 (special order offroad edition). 170,000 miles, still runs and drives like new. Has quite a few disposable parts on it, such as poorly made interior components and some external engine parts like the radiator. But overall I have not had to do any expensive work at all, and when the engine does finally give out, replacing it with a rebuilt engine is a simple and inexpensive project that I can do myself.
Vehicle #2. 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 Quad Cab with the 24-valve Cummins Diesel engine. 240,000 miles, still runs and drives like new. This truck averages 21 miles per gallon, seats 6 people comfortably, runs on Biodiesel, and is built to last a minimum of 350,000 miles between engine rebuilds. It’s one of the few vehicles on the road today that meets emissions standards without a catalytic converter. There simply is no better heavy duty truck on the road. I use this truck for heavy hauling of all the projects I’m constantly working on, and we use it as an RV for camping. We have a camper that slides into the truck bed, yielding a comfortable RV that is more reliable and gets better fuel mileage than any other on the road.
Vehicle #3. 1998 Ford Ranger extended cab with the 3.0 Liter V-6 engine. 140,000 miles, runs and drives like new. The engine in this Ranger, codenamed the Vulcan engine, is quite simply the best that Ford has ever made. It produces a perfect balance of power and high fuel economy. The engine was discontinued in later years in favor of a larger engine with more power and much lower fuel economy. A few years after that, the Ranger ceased production altogether, as Ford felt there no longer was any demand for a small, fuel efficient truck. The Ranger was the last of the mini-trucks, and as fuel becomes more scarce, I’m quite certain that one day my Ranger will be worth it’s weight in gold.
You notice I have no actual “cars”. I’d love to have one. When an automaker decides to build one that isn’t garbage, I’ll buy it. I had my hopes up that Subaru was going to start selling their super-high-mileage Diesel powered all wheel drive cars in the U.S., but then they decided not to. So, my wait continues. Our last family car was a 1992 BMW 525i. It was a decent car overall that was built to last, but was plagued with nuisance problems that should not exist in such a premium vehicle. I was turned off of luxury vehicles by that car, and it’s doubtful that I will ever own another.
