[V8] Mazda reliability and whereever this thread came from

[Roger Woodbury]

I don't have many Japanese car reliability stories, or otherwise.  I have
owned one Japanese car in my life and that was a Mazda RX7 back in the
1980's.  It was my wife's car and she loved it.  It did absolutely nothing
for me, was relatively crude and rough, went like stink, and we ended up
selling it before we could get hurt by it in any way.  It became a Porsche
944.

My favorite wrench is a Toyota and BMW technician...has all the training
certificates from when he worked for several dealerships in Boston and here
in Maine.  He is pretty much a Toyota enthusiast in terms of the overall
quality of the product.  That is to say he will flatly state that they will
run pretty much forever provided that they are maintained just
like....ah....an Audi, for instance.  

He will also tell about the whole run of Toyota pickup trucks that was
recalled by Toyota and replaced because the frames rusted out.  Completely
rusted out, and we are not talking about 1978 Toyota pickup truck that were
twenty years old, but those that were six or seven years old, if I remember
the story correctly.  When I say rusted out, I mean rusted and broken in
half after four or five years of use.

I have yet to find a Japenese car that I am comfortable in for long drives,
although a lady friend that I had back in the nineties had a Camry that was
sort of ok.  But I have never been in a Japanese car whose switches,
upholstery, dashboard, lighting or anything else felt really first class.  A
friend from Canada has a mid level Lexus that I have never seen, and a new
Honda CRsomething that I have seen and have driven.  It was ok, but I
wouldn't part with dollars for one...the same sort of hard, industrial
carpeting and upholstery that makes all of them seem the same inside.  

The Japenese do finish their cars well, at least as long as they are sitting
on the dealers' lots, and I suspect that they will run well, and as long as
anything else in direct proportion to the normal and usual maintenance that
you have to do to anything.  

Here in Maine the Department of Transportation is dedicated to the concept
that one of their roles in life is to kill all automobiles. They do this by
paving all the roads in the winter with ball bearings that are mostly three
quarter minus granite and then they glue it down by pouring the most caustic
liquid ever invented as soon as it starts to sleet or snow.  The result is
that normal brake lines can be counted on to fail inside of three years, and
the entire underside of any car that is extensively driven in winter here
will be rusty by year four.  This is not much of an exaggeration and has
been the subject of considerable contention...supposedly MDOT is changing
formulas.

But my wife's Audi, which has been with us since 2001 and has accumulated
100,000 miles more than when we bought it, isn't rusty underneath, still has
the original muffler, tail pipe and resonators.  We have replaced the rear
suspension bushings and shocks, shock mounts and etc....but it has a lot of
life left in it, with correct and regular maintenance.  She does well with
the car, keeping the interior nice and cluttered with all sorts of paper and
other junk that I periodically empty out (and sometimes catch hell for), but
the interior when clean still has the look of quality and "completeness"
that is simply not in the Japanese cars, except maybe those that cost more
than an Audi.

We had errands to run in Bangor today.  Because one of the errands was to
drop off half a dozen buckets of granite chips for testing, we took the
truck.  I have a "new" '97 GMC 2500 4X4 that I bought in October with
82K...the truck came from Massachusetts and had been used and ORDERED to tow
a large travel trailer to Florida each winter.  The truck is VERY clean, and
with the 454 big block has lots of power.  Very tight and squeek and rattles
very, very little.  Comfortable and quiet actually, even with a huge cap on
the back. Plows like fury, and was remarkably cheap to buy.  And if there is
a Japanese pickup truck that will approach it from the standpoint of
ruggedness and capability I haven't seen it.  The last GMC truck (well,
Chevy) was the '98 Silverado quarry truck that was basically the same as
this one except this one doesn't have an extended cab and isn't a dually.
It had over 130K when it went away to its new owner and was running as well
as when I bought it with 88,000 miles on it.  It's all about maintenance and
I do not believe that it makes a lot of difference who makes the things:
they will all hang together in direct proportion to the time, money and
effort that one wants to put into keeping them together.  

For my part, I will be happy to buy an American vehicle just as soon as one
is made that appeals to me in the same way that my Audi's do.  Until then,
the only 'Merican cars that I seem to like are trucks.

Roger