Tercel has more than 1.2 million km on it, and still going strong

oldbrownhat

oldbrownhat

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That's about 745k miles. Story here. He has an '86 as a spare and three others for parts.

It's not just that it runs perfectly, or that it's practically in mint condition.
The only thing wrong with this Tercel is that the odometer doesn't go up high enough.
It reads 253,070. But it's missing a one. As in, one million.

andy-campbell.JPG

Andy Campbell bought the Tercel around 1990, when it had 125,000 kilometres on it. (Brian MacKay/CBC)

Campbell acknowledges that Tercels have a reputation for being "rust buckets," but says his secret is to fill all of the crevices with grease. "They've got pumped every one of them right full."
 
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In 1980, I bought my oldest daughter a new Tercel sedan for college. Despite the fact that it was the cheapest car in the Toyota lineup, it was well-made and fun to drive. It had a peppy little engine that was smooth as silk and an excellent 4-speed stick shift. I'd like to be able to report that our Tercel went hundreds of thousands of miles, but it never got the chance. It was the unluckiest car I've ever owned, or heard of.

It started when it was just a few months old. It was parked in a near-empty parking lot when some guy who'd never ridden a motorcycle talked a friend into letting him try riding the friend's high-powered street bike around the parking lot. Predictably, he lost control and slammed the bike into the left side of the Tercel. The rider wasn't hurt badly, but the Tercel needed major body repairs. A few months later, my daughter was driving down a city street when the driver in the next lane to her left tried to switch into my daughter's lane without looking. Once again, the left side of the Tercel sustained major damage and was repaired again. Several months later, the Tercel was parked in front of our house late at night when I heard a huge crash. I ran out and found that the whole left side of the Tercel had been obliterated by a hit-and-run driver. The left rear fender was sticking out perpendicularly and the door and front fender were also torn and gouged. It was beyond Bondo at this point. The dealer had to order an entire Tercel left side to make the repair. Fortunately, my other daughter and her boyfriend had just pulled into our driveway when the Tercel was hit, and drove after the driver (an elderly man) and got his license number. The police contacted him and got a confession, so his insurance paid up.The Tercel now had been in three major accidents in less than two years of ownership, none of which had been my daughter's fault. I'm not superstitious, but in this case, I decided the car was jinxed, so I sold it. Maybe a new owner would have better luck. Nope, the woman I sold it to had it for less than a year, when she was hit head-on by a drunk driver driving on the wrong side of the street. Fortunately she was uninjured, but the poor little Tercel was totaled. It was a wonderful car, and didn't deserve its fate. It's hard to believe a car could be be "born under a bad sign", but that's apparently what happened. Little blue Tercel, RIP.
 
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When I worked at Toyota in the mid-90s, base model Tercels didn't stay on the lot more than a month.

They weren't bad cars, but they were tinny, and loud inside from road noise. The worse thing about them, at least when they were new, was the vinyl interior. The vinyl off-gassing, we called it vinyl sweat, would fog up the interior glass bad within days of coming on the lot. Corollas, too. If you wore shorts in the summer you'd burn your legs. Honestly, there wasn't too much that would go wrong with them. Even the non power steering ones weren't that bad.

If auto manufacturers returned to offering base model stripper cars and trucks, I think they'd make a killing! Not everybody wants a loaded vehicle they have to finance for 7 years!
 
Some cars just refuse to give up. Down in Mexico there is a thing called a Nissan Tsuru, sort of a local spec version of the old, square Nissan Sunny from the early 90s. They continued building them in Mexico until 2017, long after the rest of the world had moved on to the newer versions and the Nissan Versa. Despite not being very big, they were very popular as taxis, largely because the mechanicals are unkillable unless you are using a JDAM or +P depleted uranium. The engine electrics are simple and any body damage is easily beaten out by the average amateur to "good enough" because of the basic square shape. I swear that the irradiated cockroaches will be riding around in Tsurus after the nuclear apocalypse.

The only way Mexico prevented its cities being overrun by the things was to ban their use as taxis and finally the entire line using the (fairly valid) excuse that their 90s safety features did not meet modern expectations. By all accounts, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about this, particularly as many drivers then bought Nissan Versas which were more difficult for the average guy to fix due to OBD II. The cycle is being repeated as Mexico still builds a version of the old Versa the rest of the world quit on in 2019. Surprise, these are now the favorite tool of the local taxi drivers.
 
Nissan Tsuru AKA Sentra. I have a soft spot for them. I learned how to drive and drive a stick at a driving school when I was a teen. Tinny, just like the Turdsel, I mean Tercel. Those things sold like crazy, too.
 
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