What's the most reliable vehicle you've owned?

[RobertK3026]

My wife's 2005 Chrysler 300.
121,000 miles, only major repair was complete front-end replacement, parts are total junk.
Car runs great with regular maintenance and has no rust.

 

[Breakaway500]

2001 F350 XL 7.3L diesel 4x4 automatic. 285k miles all plowing and towing. One alternator,one starter. Tires,brakes. Other than that it has been the most reliable workhorse I have ever owned. And..it gets about 18mpg!

 

[woodsltc]

2001 F350 XL 7.3L diesel 4x4 automatic. 285k miles all plowing and towing. One alternator,one starter. Tires,brakes. Other than that it has been the most reliable workhorse I have ever owned. And..it gets about 18mpg!

Love the printed message on the side of the truck bed: "Do Not Load Bodies Over The Sides". Don

 

[Rat458]

This would be a tie with my 1970 Jeep Wagoneer and a 1971 Plymouth Fury III.
Worst was my wife's 2007 BMW 328 Sportwagon.
Loved driving it , lots of power with the straight 6 and handled like a slot car on rails.
That thing broke down more than all my other cars put together.

 

[djohns6]

Well THAT was a bit harsh!!

Sorry , it was meant all in fun . I couldn't find the smileys.

 

[Born2saw]

2002 Lexus RX300. Bought used with 50k miles for less than a similarly equipped/milage used Highlander (what I was originally looking for). Drove it to 150k, only needed tires and did the recommended timing belt/water pump at 100k. Sold to our godson who drove it trouble free to 230k then his dad drove it to 250 k. Was quiet, nice ride and rattle free its whole life. Never had a repair beyond the recommended maintenance and consumables.

 

[cruiserdan]

Now thats a good question! Considering I have went through over 70 cars and trucks and all had some sort of problem/s I realy had to think.

I will go with my 80 Toyota 4X4 pick up. The biggest problem I had with it was easy and cheap (no cost at all) to fix.

It was parked outside and in NYs winters temp could get down to -25 at night. Trying to shift the gears in the manual trans was almost impossible till it warmed up. My free solution to that was parked it in my flat driveway in 3rd gear with the transfer case in neutral.

Go out start the truck and let it run till I finished breakfast and took off for work. Just shift the transfer case back to high 2 wheel and the transmission shifted perfect as it was well warmed up.

Ah yes... the side-shift L43 4-speed. I had one of those too. The shift lever retainer bolts also liked to back out on those. Especially the 1979s.

 

[Hair Trigger]

I'm not interested in hearing about anything new with less than 50k miles. I'm wanting to know what was the most reliable vehicle you've owned long term.

It would have to be the 2006 Toyota Sienna van we bought new. My oldest daughter still drives it, 422,000 miles showing on the odometer. It uses about half a quart between oil changes, gets 22 mpg. All the Toyotas we've owned have been utterly reliable with no major repairs needed, just routine maintenance. I have a 2011 Tacoma now, 145K, no issues at all, we had a '97 Camry that made it to 224K or so before my younger daughter totaled it (no injury to her). My wife had an '86 Camry when we got married 33 years ago. She finally gave it to her Mom at about 285K, her mom drove it to about 425K before it died, most likely from less maintenance than we gave it.

On the other side of the coin, we have a '99 Avalon that belonged to my Mom before I made her quit driving at 8o years of age. I own it now, it gets driven fairly little, and only has 42K on it. I would expect that car to live well past me.

 

[Sistema1927]

I would be stupid to mention one that I presently own, for fear of it making a liar out of me.

Of the many vehicles that I have owned down through the years, there is one that stands out. It was a 66 Ford F100 with 352 and 3 on the tree. I think that I gave $500 for it around 1972, and that included the stick and aluminum camper shell of the type that was popular back then.

Other than tires, oil changes, and a couple of tuneups, I didn't spend an additional dime on any repairs. It just kept on going, kind of like the Energizer Bunny, and I drove it hard in those days.

 

[Heinz]

I am with ladder13 on the Mazda's. I have over 135000 on my 2015 CX5. One set of brakes, front pair at 115000; Rear a year earlier. I did have trouble with a *** battery I got from AAA. After screwing around with AAA looking for a phantom leak for a week I took it back to Mazda. They said the battery is bad I put a new one in and drove it with no problems. Recently I had some front end work done. More a result of a 79 year old driver driving too fast on I75 through construction zone and going off the normally travelled way. Drives like new now.

 

[dben002]

1955 Schwin Black Phantom

 

[garddogg56]

A 2003 Dodge Larime with a 5.9 gas motor,8' bed mega cab with 375 K on the clock,only had to replace the water pump,great truck I traded in 2019 for a F150.. recently a 2014 Ford Escape that my wife is still using 4wd 2.0 L turbo goes as well in the snow as my Volvo XC70.

 

[greenwellg]

I'm not interested in hearing about anything new with less than 50k miles. I'm wanting to know what was the most reliable vehicle you've owned long term. It seems like the last 15 years, everything I've driven has started to show issues and needing parts replaced right after 100k miles. One of my first cars was an early 90s Nissan Sentra with a twin cam 4 cylinder. It wasn't anything fancy but I ran that car to 320k miles before selling. I was young and drove it hard, cross country, and all over the place. The most I spent on maintenance was for regular oil changes every 3k miles and new tires every few years. Do they make anything as reliable today?

I owned the same Sentra and my step daughter bought one new in 1992 for $9995. I got a D21 ST truck in 4wd for that same exact price. Ours were manual transmissions and got 40 MPGg on the highway (not the truck).
If you can find one get a Toyota Echo 2000-2005. They have no distributor, coil overs one each cylinder, never need valve adjustments just like your Sentra. Many of those Echo's have seen 500 k miles. If you can't find one of them the a Corolla would be close to as good up to about 2010. The more basic the better, manual windows etc, but with factory AC, you could get an Echo without AC but it's practically impossible to retrofit AC unless you have a parts car.

60k hours working on cars here.

 

[xfarfuldog]

I have owned mostly muscle cars my entire life. My first car was a 3 year old 64 GTO convertible at age 16. What followed was a series of several GM performance cars. I now own a Toyota Camry. After an expensive AC compressor replacement, it has been flawless.

My previous vehicle was a GMC Jimmy 2 door 4 wheel drive. I loved it and felt that would indeed by my last vehicle. But after 2 transmissions, AC, heater core, computer, etc I swore off my beloved GM vehicles

 

[Harrison]

2010 Toyota Tacoma. 180,000 trouble free miles. Replaced the fan belts once, brakes and spark plugs. I traded it in on a new Tundra.

 

[Farmer17]

I think if you polled auto mechanics around the nation they would mostly agree Toyota has been the most reliable brand for several years. With that being said they are also more expensive and when I bought my Ram 1500 in 2018 an equivalent Toyota Tundra was about $13,000 more. I've had about $4K in repairs on my Ram with 215,000 miles so even if I had bought a Toyota with zero repairs it would still have been cheaper to own the Ram over the last 7 years. A Toyota does have excellent resale but I drive my vehicles until they're worth almost nothing then sell them or donate them to my church.

 

[Golddollar]

Probably my 2008 Mercury Grand Marquis that I bought new and sold with 238,000 miles on it.

 

[steelslaver]

My 97 Ford heavy duty 7.3 has 270,000 miles on it and still going strong. A few parts replacements but very trustworthy

My 98 Lincoln Towncar has 180,000 on it drove it 1900 miles to south east TX and back recently and am now 850 miles away from home in WA with it and putting about 40 miles a day on it.

 

[rwt1405]

It sure as heck wasn't a jeep product! Those things sit in your driveway contemplating what to do to you next.

Ah, the Jeep hate....


The White one was my 2013 JKU that was pushing 200,000 miles on it when I traded it in (Dec 2023) on my silver 2023 JT.

The Yellow one is my 2004 TJ Rubicon, bought new in Nov 2003, I'll likely keep that until it dies, or I die

Oh, and feel free to try to keep up with me and my Rubicon off road, it's all stock and there are few other vehicles that can go the places I can take it.


You feel free to hate on Jeeps all you want

They've always worked well for me

 

[Imissedagain]

1955 Schwin Black Phantom

Here it is!