High Miles Z a bad idea?

Cmike2780

For the most part, that way of thinking is outdated and isn't that simple. It's a relic of an era when cars had low safety standards and manufacturers had little repercussions for selling a sub-par product.

You also need to first define how something is considered reliable and go by each model year specifically. I'm sure there are plenty of cars in Toyota and Honda's portfolio that are less reliable than others...the same goes for Nissan. My dad's 98 Maxima, bought new for example, had close to 122k miles and was still running strong before we sold it about a year ago. Aside from fixing normal stuff that wear out, she was plenty reliable. By the same token, I had a 92 v6 Camry with a blown engine at 120k miles. The interior was still in really great shape and all the electronics still worked though, but it was just a useless piece of metal at that point. Before that, I had an 89 Civic that had every body panel rusting out, parts falling off and making noises...but that frikin' motor refused to die. It's up to the owner to keep a car reliable and it's up to the owner to decide what part is considered a wear item vs an unreliable part.

I guess my point is, manufacturer reliability ratings rely heavily on opinions, not facts. The same goes for re-sale values. If a part was not well made to begin with, they usually need replacement early in the ownership and usally get covered under warranty anyways. Given that the average car ownership is 6 years, it fair to say just about any new car today will last that long mechanically at a minimum. That wasn't always true, which is why there was once a great emphasis on reliability ratings.

I just think people have a higher standard these days because we're living in a world where returning a piece of electronic device because it's not perfect is normal. That's fine for an iPod, not so simple when it's an entire car. There are literally thousands of things that can go wrong and I think for the most part, just about every manufacturer these days is on the right track at making all modern cars "reliable." The problem is, people want more creature comforts in their cars, which means more stuff to go wrong. It's silly to label an entire car lineup unreliable because of a broken stereo, but for some people, that's enough to label it a POS. Most new cars made these days a better made, regardless of manufacturer.

...except maybe cars from China.

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