Your hatred for me is mis-directed.

You sir sound bitter and quite frankly don't know what your talking about. You think you do but don't have all the facts.
I happen to be a toyota master tech and do know the facts. 10 hours for a V-6 camry water pump? LOL Either you paid this amount to have one done or it takes you this long to do one. Warranty pays 2.5 hours and I can do them in 2 hours. As far as failures yes we have seen some bearings go bad but for the most part, not that many. This pump is not a conventional automotive water pump. It uses an industrial seal which may leave a little crust at the weep hole. Techs all over the world are replacing these pumps because of what they think is a water pump that is going to blow out any day.

Go Volkswagen! I just want to go on record to say I have a 2011 VW Golf TDI with 40,000 miles, and have had no major issues just yet. (so I may be eating my words as I speak).

Originally posted by jimmiec
reply to post by Benchkey

 

Old Volvo's and Mercedes run forever. A good old diesel Mercedes will go 600k easy. Those are some good choices.

Especially if you run a bypass oil filter a la Frantz...

reply to post by infidel666


ALLDATA quotes 10 hours labor on the water pump. They claim the engine has to be removed. I did my first one in uber 5 hours without pulling the engine. They came to me from a Toyota dealer that quoted them 10 hours. They may have revised it but that dealer did not, nor has ALLDATA. The quality nevertheless is junk comapared to 10 years ago. You have either not been working in the business long enough to see the quality go downhill, or you are biased toward your employer. The vendors Totota is using to manufacture their parts are Chinese/Korean/Mexican/etc. They are not Japanese parts. Any part manufactured by the Japanese people is of the highest quality. I will choose a Japanese manufactured part over any other manufacturer.

And i am angry, I am angry for the people who pay top dollar for cars that used to be the most reliable on the planet but have turned to total crap from the use of inferior parts vendors and poor engineering.

Toyota dealer techs work the team system ( at least in metro areas) what is your team grade? A,B,C,D?

reply to post by Angelsoftheapocalypse


You may be in for a surprise when it gets above 100k. The interior switch's fall apart. The transmissions have serious issues. The crankcase ventilation valves have issues. I have no experience with the 2012 models however. They may have cleaned up their act. Let's hope so.

I haven't owned a Subaru, but talking to owners, they appear to be the best quality cars sold today. I own a 2008 Suzuki Forenza I bought new for $9000 US. It has never had one problem, it has over 110,000 miles on it. It was made by GM Daewoo in Korea. It has an Australian engine. I also have a 2006 Mustang that has been very durable and reliable. My vote for reliable and durable cars is: Suzuki (100,000 mile transferable warranty) four cylinder cars, Subaru, Ford Mustang, Kia Soul (100,000 mile warranty), Nissan Versa (very low cost) and Sentra. All with a stick shift, avoid all automatics. I have seen too many problems with Honda/Toyota/BMW/Mercedes. Stripped cars are best, avoid all the unnecessary options.

reply to post by Matt1951


I can't complain about Subaru. They require few repairs compared to most. Kia is ok, the 100k mile warranty can be a bit hard to get them to comply with. They usually demand maintenance reciepts before they will cover anything. ( not always) Suzuki is a fun car to drive and very popular to tow behind an RV. I often wonder if the high mileage without a breakdown is related to that fact. Nevertheless, they do hold up. The old ones anyway.

Manual transmissions actually make everything run cooler. The rubber seals last longer. Valve cover gaskets etc. Not to mention the manual transmissions are nearly bulletproof compared to an automatic transmission.

Nissan is ok. I do see timing chain issues and exhaust manifolds cracking prematurely. I personally never liked their engineering.

Stripped cars are the cheapest to maintain. Rolling the windows up/down manually is really not that hard when you compare the price of repairing power vs manual. It is 10 times more expensive to repair the power window system as a whole. All power window regulataors are pure garbage. Cables and plastic. I have seen all 4 window regulators break at once in Houston due to extreme heat.

The Planned Obsolescence theory is interesting. While on one hand it makes sense to design/build a car that would eventually cost too much to repair, therefore be replaced by a car that pollutes less. That line of thinking is however flawed. The fact that they require more repairs makes it flawed. The lower the quality is, the more parts they require in a shorter time period. That means the parts have to be manufactured and shipped. That means more pollution, not less in the long run.

I always liked subarus until my father bought an 03 Forrester 2.5. I had to do head gaskets on it at 100k. Apparently from 96-04 ej 25 sohc engines kill head gaskets at around that mileage. I installed redesigned gaskets. The only reason I got angry was because supposedly they kept installing the original design gasket after they redesigned them.

I still think they're great cars from my experience.

I personally love small block chevys and the first gen SHO yamaha engines.

Im getting back into working on cars for a living. In my experience from going to lincoln tech was, there wasnt enough hands on at all. It was all about money. Supposedly theyve changed since 04, but that contributes to the problem of clueless entry level techs. I taught myself a lot of what iive learned in the last ten years through hands on work and refusal to pay to have my car fixed.

reply to post by tompumped


Yea, the 2.5 is an interference engine too. So if that timing belt breaks, it's done. The earlier 2.2 was not an interference engine. Both had some head gasket issues and engine removal was required to get the heads off. The engine is pretty easy to get out though.

You are right about the tech schools. I trained quite a few technicians from those schools. The first thing i would tell them is "forget everything you learned there". There really is no substitute for real world experience. You can teach yourself much quicker than a tech school. Just pick a part of a car and Google it. You can learn what it is for, how it works and how it ties in with everything else. Before you know it you are educated. Of course applying that knowledge is where experience comes in. The repair needed does not always make sense, especially to an engineer.

My former step father was a mechanic he owned his own shop. He worked mostly on foreign high end vehicles like Jaguars Porsche's Audi's and such. My grandmother purchased a brand new Ford Fusion in 2010. As soon as the warranty was up she started having problems. She's had so many problems with the car she lost count. Some sensor kept going bad and was causing the car to run like crap. They finally found it was a short in the wiring. She's had to replace her rear breaks twice rotors and calipers. Now it sounds like there's a short in the horn. The horn sound funny. She's fed up. It's bad enough you have to sign in blood to pay them $20k. But they can't even build a product that's reliable. For $20K I'd rather buy a few older cars and fix them up.

I didnt get into great detail, but I changed the spark plugs after doing the timing belt and they were green. That was a first. It wasnt over heating surprisingly or using much coolant.

Im sure you know this but others dont. Apparently horizontally opposed motors with head gasket issues can cause major problems. With the engine off coolant can seep into the cylinders and sit there resulting in rust and pitting. I dont know if theyre anymore susceptible than more common engine designs but it made sense when I read it. Changing coolant before it becomes corrosive amd eats gaskets and water pumps is very important.



I forgot to say thank you. Reading what you wrote makes me feel better about pursuing a career in a dealership.

reply to post by tompumped


It is a good career choice. There will always be work, every day is different. It is impossible to get bored since they change cars all the time. I hope you like math, there is a lot of math involved. Electronics too. It can be a dirty job but it wash's off. There is a lot of paperwork and PR involved as well. Just stay honest and quality control your work. I don't like it but every night i go over every nut and bolt i turned when i lay my head on the pillow. A few times it has resulted in my calling a customer to have them bring it back to tighten a bolt that i forgot due to getting sidetracked.

I like math and I feel living honestly is the only way to live. I quit more than one job because I worked for or with dishonest people but I have yet to work at a dealership. I can totally relate to going over every bolt. Im proud to say no one ever lost a wheel or crashed because of my work. Not everyone I worked with can say the same. Im probably ocd because of always wanting torque specs.

Thanks for the input. I always enjoy talking about cars and hearing what someone with greater knowledge has to share. I learned a lot from people like you on forums and with fsm's.

Factory service manuals are the only way to go, id never buy another haynes or chiltons.

No mentions of Mitsubishi, but I have a 2004 Lancer 2.0. Nothing fancy, but the thing has been rock solid for 225k miles. Have a gas tank issue that I think I will end up having to replace it, but there have just been minor things that have needed attention. The worst thing was I had to change the catalytic converter. But gotta say that I have gotten my money's worth from that thing.

reply to post by neonmeatdream


Mitsubishi's are pretty good mechanically. Other than balanceshaft issues. They have long been plagued by poorly engineered electronics. They may well have solved some of those issues of late. I think of all the manufacturers, I have replaced more computers in Mitsubishi's than any other manufacturer. Since around 2000, I have not seen near as many computer issues. The computer issues were generally not the fault of the computers, the fault was generally shorted components. Injectors,shift solenoids, etc. Todays cars generally shut down the computers if they sense a short, this protects the computer. Some have gone as far as adding a module outside of the computer to sense shorts and protect the computer.