Dear domestic car companies

NYSpeed Automotive
1

WARNING… LONG… POSSIBLY BORING… IM REALLY DRUNK AND THOUGHT I WOULD WRITE THIS ALL OUT.

when i was 16, i was gifted a 1990 ford tempo that my grandmother had given to my father. it was a company car, originally purchased by my grandfather, but later given to my grandmother by him.

i was young, and it was my first car. i felt like i was in heaven. shortly thereafter, i was driving along when the car wouldnt stop properly. luckily i had a friend in high school who was taking auto tech at boces. he replaced the front pads, rotors, and a seized caliper.

it was great after that. well, except for the time i was driving down the road and the rear drum brake seized, causing my tire to smolder and nearly catch fire on the side of the road. after that it was still an ok car, fuck i didnt know any better, it got me around right?

i crashed it a little after that. i was young, dumb, and it was completely my fault.

i bought a 89 chevy cavalier after that car. it was a pile. the floorboards were rotted and leaked, the muffler nearly fell off at one point, the seats were broken when i bought it, and the car was rusty as hell. i didnt care! it was only $300! it got me around my senior year of high school and that was really all that mattered

my friend had a 91 civic hatch he had purchased for $300 as well. i rode in it so many times and was amazed by how well it ran, how reliable it was, and how good it looked for being that old. plus it had almost 170,000 miles on it!

with my graduation money i needed a car to replace my awful cavalier. i found an 89 civic lx in the paper for $900 and sent my dad to look at it. he complained a bit about me buying an import, but seeing what a great car my friend had for such little money, i pushed him hard to negotiate with the seller. we got him down to $700, and i gave my dad almost all of my graduation money for that car.

my gut feeling was right. not only did that car survive over 2 years of abuse from me delivering pizzas in it, i couldnt kill it! when youre young, and stupid, beating up slow cars is fun. well let me tell you i had a blast. as long as the oil level was good, the car seemed to beg for abuse! i couldnt believe it

i got sick of that car after a few years and bought a 94 jetta vr6. the civic was left at a friends house for a few months because… well… to be honest, i just didnt care. i was enjoying my new (to me) jetta vr6. man, i thought that thing was a fucking race car.

my friend and i eventually ended up pushing my civic into a field behind his house because i couldnt bring myself to scrap it after all we had been through. he didnt mind at all. and there it sat, for over 6 months.

around november of that year i saw the snow and thought that i didnt want my precious jetta vr6 driving around int he salt and slippery roads during the winter. i had an idea. if the civic will run, well… i could just drive it through another winter

my dad and i drove back out to my friend pauls house. it was a blistery winter day, and i had only brought the fully charged battery from my jetta and a set of vice grips. we arrived, and there she sat. covered in snow, sank into the ground, just in awful disrepair

i walked out and thought to myself, well… its worth a shot. i popped the hood, replaced the battery, got in and cranked it. it was as if the car had been driven yesterday! unreal!!! i actually drove it home from there and registered it the next day

i hammered the shit out of that car that winter. my jetta was quietly tucked away in a friends barn, and i really didnt give a fuck about this field car. it held strong through so much abuse it was unbelievable.

sadly, on my way to a friends shop that winter i crashed it. the thermostat was stuck open on a single digit february day, and i had no defrosters. i ended up rear ending someone. i sold the car to someone on ubrf.org for $50 (he fucking drove it back to west nuckka without an issue with a smashed front end!) and pulled my jetta out of storage early

the following summer was a blast. my jetta and i went everywhere, with nearly no major issue. god, that car looked so hot and was so good to me. it was a great time in my life

the following fall my dad called me and asked me if i wanted his 94 taurus wagon to hammer through another winter. it was free, so i really couldnt say no. it fit so many people, and was an awesome bar cruiser. although, it def had its share of problems. the flex pipe broke, the tranny slipped, the seats felt like rocks, and i had to replace a lot parts on it. but the one thing this car did do to me was nearly cost me my life… it was rather terrifying

delivering za on an old country road, just cruising along, i went to switch the high beams on. i flicked the lever back, and the headlights went out. remember, im doing 50ish down a snowy, country road in the middle of the night. panicking, i flicked them off, but to no avail, they refused to turn back on. i start messing with the lightswitch knob while braking in the pitch black, and they finally turn back on after a few seconds.

i thought nothing of it, and continued on my way. later that night, the lights shut off again while driving through the country, not even while touching the highbeam switch. not only that, but the wiring harness for the headlight switch started smoldering

fuck. where the fuck is my civic!!! prob the size of a shoebox by now…

so i stop delivering for the night. go to autobone the next day and get a new switch, replace it, everything is cool. i ended up selling that car to a board member in order to buy my new honda- le cackord!!

as i write this i can hardly believe this car had been through so much for so long with me. the abused pos beater. $300. crashing it into trees. off roading like woah. sideswiping guardrails. hit with axes, wine bottles, baseball bats, prybars, abuse on a regular basis ie no oil changes, only fix when something breaks completely, no reg maintenance, who gives a fuck. let it sit next to the apartment for months while i drive my bimmer, fuck it, its a honda! of course it’ll start, are you high? ITS A HONDA!!! and it always does…

about a year ago my mom was complaining about her taurus. the seats hurt her back, it got bad mpg’s, it drove like shit, she generally just hated driving it. she was always the type to just go to a ford dealership every few years and trade in her taurus for a pre-owned, low milage, used taurus. she always though of cars as merely transportation. she was also worried about how her family would react to her buying an import car. my uncle jim worked at gm for years, was retired, and hated on import cars like someone was paying him to (well, they were…) i told her i would go to dealers with her to look at cars. we went out one day and looked at nissans, subarus, vw’s, and of course gm’s and fords.

one car caught her eye and she loved driving it. i wasnt with her, but i remember the first day she drove me in it. she said “i love this car! the seats are so comfy! my back doesnt hurt as much, plus, it goes so much faster when you step on it!” i said “mom, that’s because you got v-tec y0!” she obv said “whats v-tec?”

she had purchased a honda. not only a honda, but her first car ever purchased that was brand new.

there are so many people out there like me and my family. and you wonder why the big 3 are in the shitter.

thanks for listening

2

Dear JAM, have another beer . :tup:

3

Dear JAM, Cliffs? I am way to inebriated to read all of that.

4

:bigclap: im trying to get my mother out of her Taurus.

5

Stop being cheap and buying POS cars :tup:

How was the wiring in your BMW btw?

6

She probably would have said all the same things about almost any NEW car if she had upgraded from a POS taurus to that…

7

meh. i can write a book to though about how my nissan sentra went through transmission after transmission and kept running poorly even though all the sensors were checked and the ignition components were replaced and eventually left me stranded with a rod through the block.

i can also tell you that my VW golf gave me fit after fit with only 70k on the clock with distributor failures, catalytic converter melting down cause the injectors went bad and it had huge rot holes in the floor cause the doors were designed stupidly and they dumped water on the floor when it rained.

or how my younger brothers jetta totally fell apart interior wise at 40k. or how the starter left him stranded. or how a vaccum barb decided to just pull itself out of the throttle body and leave him stranded. (i fixed it with some JB weld). or how the exhaust always seems to get a leak cause of those idiotic downpipe spring retainer C thingys. how bout some bolts folks…

or how my buddies 91 civic ran like garbage and required half of the sensors to be replaced.

then on the other hand how i drove a 89 reliant that the previous owner siezed the motor and popped the headgasket after popping the draincock out of the radiator. i bought the car for 150$, put a HG on there in his yard, replaced a collapsed lifter and fired the car right up and drove it for 20k like that. swapped in another motor and drove for another 80k through 4 winters no problem. car went to the scrapper with 200k on it.

or about my fiero that i had no issues with. no fire, no nothing. just drove it.

or my turbo k car with at 3x the power only has had two issues. one cheap advance autoparts clutch disk and a input shaft bearing growling on a 140k mi transmission.

some people have different experiences.

Brian

8

wow, get a life.

9

:tup:

10

I think there are shitty cars out there that will run forever, and some that just didn’t get the tlc off the assembly line. I’ve never owned an import, but sure have replaced my share of parts and many head gaskets on domestics.

My 2000 Stratus needs a new tranny, new hood, various suspension parts, and the check engine light is always on. No lie with domestic garbage.

11

When my parents owned our Ford Explorer a while ago, the people at Ford could never stop coming up with different things wrong with the damn car. Electrical, mechanical, suspension, exhaust, injectors going bad, interior falling apart…it was sad.

12

lies all lies!

13

Well I started out with a 85 Bronce with 300 straight six, it sat in a field for 2 years, had 175k on it when i got it. replaced the starter solinod (sp?), put tires on it, drove it till 230k wraped it around a pole sold it to some guy who fixed it drove it to 300k, then due to rot it was sent off to the junk yard.
secound memerable car was 89 s-10 Blazer Tahoe 2door 4x4 4.3, bought at 175k with a bad flywheel. replaced that, and starter yearly (oil drip from valve cover I should have fixed) EVERY weekend I would go “off-roading” with it. drove that till 230k wrecked it sent to junk yard.

then on Ive own VW’s I think going from American to Import was more about fast cars and right time. my first quick car was a 97 VR6 GLX Jetta. from then on I was addicted to speed, and comfort.

now its more comfort then speed. having a car that has heated seats, sunroof, 10gig music player (as dealer option) and still gets 45mpg, and has 300k on the clock, I don’t think could be done currently by a domestic.

I think some of the steps FORD has taken with the new Torn-ass using a Passat design giving it AWD. are steps in the right direction. unfortunately cars like the cobalt, fockass have had such a long overshadow of history… I know some one with a cavi with close to 300k AUTO. vary little to no maintenance. now having seats you could sit in for more then 5min be good… sure.

14

Glad I could be part of your honda boy Love :grouphug: ^ above car is the reason he bought another one. :tup:

Always a good read jam, you actually write pretty well. :clap:

15

I dont see many older import cars on the road,what happened to them?Oh ya,they rotted out and got junked.I would be impressed to see some 30 year old imports running around but i doubt they will hold up that long.To me they are dissposiable cheap cars that everybody is buying the fact that they are better.Its like going to harbor frieght and buying tools,yes the tools are cheaply made but they might hold up.and if they dont you just throw them away and buy another.If theses cars were so great who would sell it for $300.

16

I agree. I started out with my dad’s 88 Cadi Eldorado. I loved the fuckin thing and all it did was have 1 problem after another.

Then I moved on to a 94 Mazda Protege. Car was balls slow but took a beating like no other and still kept ticking.

Moved on to a 92 Legacy. It was rusted out and looked terrible but the thing never had any major problems. It lasted for 4 yrs or so and the motor was still strong, but everything else about it was scrapyard worthy.

Lastly bought a 94 Chevy Lumina. Beat the piss out of it and loved the car. Would still be driving it but a Escalade ESV decided to smash it 2 winters ago.

The way I see it its just a matter of luck, the car could be a lemon or it could be worth every penny.

17

challenger mike are you fucking high? find me a 92 taurus or similar domestic car with over 200k on the clock (original drivetrain) that has been abused as much as my beloved cackord has and you win. go now

18

I had a 98 grand prix with 108k on it, picked it up a few years ago for cheap and rebuilt the tranny. Wound up selling it after year and a half with 190k for 500 more then I paid for it, never had any problems besides the tranny which I knew about when I bought it. It was a fun car, but lacked speed, comfort, handling, MPG’s, etc… Now I have a 95 audi with over 200K and still gets 25+mpg city, handles like a dream, and is faster but not quite where I want it to be (new 2.8l supercharged soon :)). I think that how long a car lasts/well it runs, does depend on where and how its made, but it also kinda depends on luck.

19

I see so many classic import car shows, I mean its rare to see any american cars at classic show cause american cars don’t last 7 years.
There are reasons wht 99.9% of the cars at classic car show are from the big three…Cause they are cars and not appliances with wheels.

20

sooo many hurt vaginas over jams great story. All he did was express his experience with american made cars from the 80’s and 90’s which we ALL know were piles of shit. Unfortunetly this is what turned many americans from the big3. Its quite sad actually:( I dont like seeing our economy this way, but we did it to ourselves.:frowning: