125K miles, 3rd suspension, zero problems, manual windows, door locks, seats mirrors, everything. The odometer seems to be digital. It even passes GA emissions now.
[1] It was so... liberating when we started buying Priuses and I discovered I could drive them like race cars and get 44mpg more or less reliably. X-country + urban miles almost all go there. The current 2015 is so comfortably very dumb.
Say you're rich without saying you're rich.
Never once left us stranded.
I hope Toyota keeps making their cars as dumb as possible. The 4Runner had it's best sales year 10 years after it's redesign and I think that speaks to the market for "dumb" cars.
So instead I'm getting a really sweet new motor built for mine. Still the same 4.0, but with updated components and a focus on improved efficiency. My target is 25mpg highway. ...and a little bit of hooning around the desert racing circuit maybe. :-)
Even with a fancy motor (and transmission), it'll still be less money than a new replacement vehicle, and most importantly, it won't piss me off all the time. With already-upgraded suspension, steering, and some electronics, it's kinda fun and quite capable.
The only thing I'm really missing is safety. Jeeps are pretty terrible at the moose test to begin with, and 2001 was too early for side curtain airbags. I think I can retrofit 2004 side curtain bags into mine, and I'm redistributing weight in the vehicle that, along with some of the newer electronic suspensions, should improve its highway handling.
Same for my 1998 Honda Civic. It just keeps going&going. Cheap to fix when it breaks down. I'd say late 80s through the 90s were the high point for Honda. I just don't think there will ever be many cars that will be as good & reliable as Hondas from those years. They really set a high bar during that era.
I will inevitably end up with a Civic hatchback.
It'll be a dark day when it goes...
Pretty soon I won't have to deal with valets because none will know how to drive it. WIN.
On a side note, one day I was driving along listening to a Cubs game on the radio when I realized I was hearing stereo... AM. Ford radios of that era were stereo-AM capable. Now they're getting rid of AM in cars altogether.
Oh yeah, today I had to get a new tire and the guy at the shop reminded me of the most offensive regression in cars yet: NO SPARE TIRE. This should be illegal. Nobody should accept this.
They had to get a janitor to pull my car around the next day.
I mean, it's a little unusual to need to push the stick down to go into reverse, but I guess it's like secret knowledge now days.
I really love that car. Who knows how things'll go. I hope it'll outlast me.
And regular hatchbacks and station wagons are now "SUVs."
All VWs do that. I quite like it.
I call upon you all: reclaim agency over your driving experience, learn how a carb works, drive a cool classic and cut bullshit tech out of your life (while not contributing to the throwaway culture lithium ion has brought us).
I also know how modern cars are designed to survive collisions. You can keep 'em. I'd consider something like as a fun weekend car, but it's be relegated to rural backroads and track days.
It's not ME that scares me. It's Sally Mae driving a 7 thousand pound suburban while talking on the phone and putting on make up. She won't even notice anything smaller than a full size sedan.
rural driving has always been historically pretty dangerous, even on an otherwise empty road.
Sure, not many people die in autocross events. It happens, but so rarely it's ignorable.
But you said "track days." That's different. Safety is (ideally) considered a higher priority there, not a lower one.
One of the big differences is response time. If you had a wreck at a track day, you’d be noticed within 30 seconds and the on-site EMS at the accident site within a few minutes. That vastly improves your odds.
It’s all about determining risk vs reward. Driving in track once or twice a year is relatively low risk (annd those risks are largely within one’s own control) and lots of fun (and more fun the more fun the car is). A fun car is not going to make sitting in traffic more funz
If it’s a fun car with a stick, aftermarket clutch, lightened flywhweel, etc it’s gonna be miserable around town, and when you get hit by some idiot that runs a red light, it’s probably not going to go especially well for you. For a faily I’ll take big crumple zones and 17 airbags, blind spot warnings, etc etc.
That said, you can tune a carb with a screwdriver. You can't tune an ECU with a screwdriver. So you can make a barely functioning carb vehicle run again relatively easily, for years, with minimal parts required. Usually it just needs some cleaning if it sat too long. Compare that to a car that requires the entire electrical system and computer to function to even start moving gas from the tank to the injectors sometimes, a vehicle with a carb can be built like a lawn mower - simple fuel system, basic electronics, and you can make a reliable enough vehicle that's intended to be repaired.
Like sure, you are not gonna tune them with a screwdriver, but in exchange it more or less just operates the engine on the best available point all the time.
I bought an relatively "bad condition", top of the line (at the time) 4Runner for well less than 10 grand, spent 40 hours of effort on DIY repairs and maintenance over the course of a month. Ended up with a "bulletproof" machine that not only passed inspection - it's a pleasure to drive, is modded to my liking. That 40 hours of effort would have been less than 10 for a seasoned mechanic, and the bill would have brought the total cost of the car to maybe just slightly over $10k.
Finding a physical copy of the service and repair "manual" (it's 8 volumes...) for the exact make, model and year of the car was easy and cost $100. Spent a few hundred on specialized tools, and about 1.5k on parts. The car is old enough that there are several old-school forums with a wealth of knowledge on everything from muffler replacement, rust-removal tactics, to transfer case repair - and those forums are still incredibly active!
Also, now that I'm apparently mind dumping, my personal advice for people living in rust-prone areas (the rust belt, northeast, etc.) - if you can, get a used vehicle from another area. If you can't - fine - but make sure you can inspect the frame rust, do the "hammer check", etc. Remove any rust you can, get an undercoating, and wash regularly (especially during winter). BUT don't be too scared of some frame rust, especially if the price is right. Lots of body-on-frame cars/trucks are actually pretty structurally repairable if you hire a good tech to do the rust cleaning, sawing, and welding. Also, a frame swap is actually quite doable for a few grand if you find a good shop (people do do it themselves but without experience and a full shop it's a pretty dangerous and hardcore endeavor) and are able to source a frame (often less than $1k plus a few hundred in shipping from a scrap yard in the south - or just buy a second used car that's "worthless" for all the reasons yours isn't, and swap that frame).
[0] My experience with cars of this era is mostly with Toyotas and Subarus - both makes are very user-serviceable (IME Subarus are easier, but on average the parts more bespoke and more expensive, Toyotas are more finnicky to work with on average but way cheaper part-wise and way easier to patch together in a pinch). I've worked on a Honda Pilot from that era, it was also a breeze - and tons of DIY-focused car people are "Honda for life". I know a couple people who swear by Nissans from that era, but they caveat that with transmission issues for certain models in certain years (I don't remember which).
...And then we bought a '47 Willys Jeep a year later. Which has 4 wheel drums. And the worlds least conveniently located master cylinder.
I haven't heard much about drums lately except that cheap cars still sometimes have them in the rear.
The only thing I hate about driving a front disk/rear drum car is how deep the brake pedal is before you feel it activating the brakes. Going from responsive brakes to "oh shit they aren't activating yet..." panic for a second can take some getting used to!
I've owned several high mileage vehicles (over 300k) including Toyota 22RE, 3RZ, and Chevy LS with their original timing chain. Now that I think about it, does the LS even have a tensioner or chain guide?
From an enthusiast's perspective, a chain is probably preferable, because it tends to give you some warning before it fails - you might hear a rattle at idle, you might have problems with starting or misfires, you might get a check engine light and an EBD-II code from the timing sensors. That's a much less scary prospect than the potential for a sudden and catastrophic failure of a timing belt.
From a manufacturer or dealership's perspective, belts have some clear advantages. Unless there was a manufacturing defect in the belt, they'll almost never cause trouble if replaced according to schedule. That has obvious liability implications - it's not their fault if the customer ignores the specified replacement interval, but it potentially is their fault if a chain wears faster than expected. BMW, VAG and Jaguar Land Rover have all recently settled class action lawsuits related to the premature failure of timing chains.
Previous gen GTI was a belt. Garage told me they preferred belts because people know they need to replace those. People aren't expecting to be told your chain needs to be replaced plus it's much more expensive and labour intensive.
Never heard of Honda having problems with chains, though. Some of their motorbikes even had gear driven cams! (VFR I think).
They are by no means immortal, but, by design, should have a much longer lifespan than belts.
> Virtually every engine I know with a chain ends up either regularly failing early [..]
But I have no idea which early-failing models OP is referring to, as the engines I know about where quite reliable. (As in 1e6+ km reliable, with chain maintenance per manufacturer guidelines.)
Buuuuut, there's also modern Opel engines where timing chain is guaranteed to kill the engine if not replaced every 100k km.
So it really depends on the engine rather being simple chain vs belt.
For example, on BMW Minis, which all have timing chains:
- 1st gens Minis (2002 -> 2006 roughly), with Chrysler engines, have a bulletproof engine, and replacing the timing chain is a rare occurrence
- 2nd gens Mini (2007 -> 2013 roughly) with PSA engines modified by BMW have a suicidal engines, especially the pre-LCI (2007 -> 2009) engines, that are known to often break timing chain guides. The symptom for that is named "death rattle", which is chain slap.
- 3nd gens Mini (2014 -> 2022 roughly) with BMW engines are so far known to be pretty bulletproof. Note that some of them now have high mileage with no large-scale issues.
So a well-designed engine with a timing chain is preferable to a timing belt. But a timing belt is preferable to a problematic engine with a timing chain, which will break at the most inconvenient time and leave you with an unexpected large bill.
As with all things, the build quality and overall design will overrule single atomized design decisions. GM iron dukes have geared cams, which should be frickin' bulletproof, but they use a nylon spindle that tends to blow apart under variable load or just using weird fluids.
Then they started reducing the amount of material they could minimally require in order to still produce something resembling a chain. Newer chains are narrower, made of thinner steel, lighter in all aspects, you name it -- all in the name of reducing drag and friction, and thus the relative load on the chain increases and the strength of the links and pins decrease. Add in chain tensioners adhering to the same philosophy. Bang! We have timing chain failures.
If you want ultimate resilience, get a car with non-interference valvetrain. Doesn't matter if the timing breaks up, you'll just install a new chain/belt and continue.
It's definitely bigger inside than the wife's 4Runner, but yknow . . I guess a 4runner is a "small" SUV these days, huh?
Honda Element is probably the closest thing to it I can think of, but it's a much bigger/beefier car, not the subcompact the xB is. I would love to get a Kei van if they could pull highway speeds.
Damn shame they ruined the xB post-2006, but ah well the writing would soon be on the wall for all of Scion in general. Poor Scion.
You're saying that based on specs! To really appreciate a Scion, you have to drive one-- they're nothing special compared to EVs now, but for ICE vehicles they're pleasantly zippy.
The Scion iM for instance was supposed to be some kind of cool, young people car, while its European counterpart - the Auris (which I drive in its station wagon incarnation) is a sleepy mom car/taxi for the city.
I certainly wonder how repairable cars will be in ten years. Or will they further progress down the path where everything is cryptographically serialized and has incompatible firmware versions. So they can only repaired as long as OEM parts and tooling is available. And then nothing.
I know some folks that can attest to the 1960s being a bit challenging.
Ever notice that's when all the new sports cars started trying to look like muscle from the 70s? Just a tiny slice of what was happening in our collective brains in the 21st century.
The telemetry has long since stopped working but I’m left with is a car with adaptive cruise control and between 50-80mpg (imperial).
Record was 82mpg after following a lory on a 150 mile motorway run.
It’s still got useful satnav, infotainment systems and all the safety features I’m aware of.
It even has nice little touches like the self-dimming rear-view mirror, for when you’ve got a berk with full-beams on driving up your arse at night.
I’d miss that stuff on an older car.
I can afford to get a new car every year if I wanted but modern cars are annoying and creepy.
I have no idea what I’d replace it with so I just keep it running.
The only contrivance I could do without is keyless ignition, which provides an effective attack vector for thieves and the ability to lose the keys while driving.
A mobile phone in works well to augment the aging infotainment / satnav, the only issue being UK law is unclear on whether it's allowable to touch a phone in a cradle. The police say you cannot touch your phone when driving and lawyers say you are only banned from using a handheld device, which a phone in a cradle is not.
It is a diesel though so I worry a bit about the particle filter clogging, which can be somewhat expensive afaik.
We ordered a Ioniq 5, and I hope it's better, but I'm not looking forward to it.
I'm jealous, because the manual has actual gears that will last forever.
(I should buy another one and garage it until this one blows up at 300K+.)
Mid nineties to mid aughts are the absolute high point for me, where you get all the technology but none of the heinous "you rent all your things" features that smear newer vehicles. The downside is dodging the mid-aughts quality hangover Honda seemed to have suffered in the period - really just fit and finish, but still annoying - and more importantly the long train of suck that was Hyundai Theta/Gamma family engines and derivatives. Hyundai reached a leeeetle too far in the late aughts, with some sci-fi internal combustion tricks, but oof, that was a hard pill after their fantastic Delta V6s.