They can pry my 2005 Scion xB from my cold dead hands for this exact reason. Insanely light, manual shifter, manual everything, timing CHAIN, 30+ mpg, more internal space than a SUV, looks ridiculous. Check, check, and check.
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.
The more time goes on, the more 1998 being the height of human civilization in The Matrix starts making sense.
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.
In America, anyway, 9/11 was a triple-huge giganto turning point for the national character. It's really hard to overstate, especially for the young 'uns, who don't remember life before US PATRIOT, PALANTIR, and all the other spookshows that helped bankroll "web 2.0".
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.
Agreed on 2015 being the peak - I have a Mazda 6 which has similar mpg and is big enough to be a stealth camper.
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.
I've had 2 Mazda 6's. Great cars, but the second one had keyless ignition, which I found really annoying. If I am leaving something valuable in the boot (trunk) I want to try the door handle to check the car is locked. But as soon as you walk up to the car it unlocked. I would have to give the key to a family member and have them walk away first. Grrr.
My 2015 Passat is of course very similar. It has in a way the perfect amount of features, regular backup cam, parking sensors all around, acc. Actually ours don't even have satnav and I don't care since it has Android Auto. Id like this car but EV, please.
It is a diesel though so I worry a bit about the particle filter clogging, which can be somewhat expensive afaik.
I was so mad our 2016 Jetta was totaled in an accident last month for all the reasons you listed. VW makes effectively the same car, but the cost for a new one went up $10k since we bought ours.
To your list of highly desirable features, I'd add four wheel disc brakes. I was pretty over the moon when we sold off the last car in the household with drums on the rear. Drums are a pain in the ass. Maybe they're not too bad if you deal with them often enough, but discs are simpler by miles.
...And then we bought a '47 Willys Jeep a year later. Which has 4 wheel drums. And the worlds least conveniently located master cylinder.
Is the claim that they produce less particles, or that they distribute less particles because the shoes/drum is more of a closed system? Generally drums are worse brakes than disks so if they don't brake as efficiently, you'd be grinding them for longer, likely making more particles.
I haven't heard much about drums lately except that cheap cars still sometimes have them in the rear.
That makes more sense, if the fronts are regenerative, that's where most of the braking force comes from so I can see drums being sufficient in the back. A lot of lightweight motorcycles (especially classic styled ones) have rear drums.
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 share your disdain for drums. Only issue is every four wheel disc vehicle I own still has a drum for the parking brake. Except these days they're electronic and need a scan tool to release them and get the rotor off!
Electronic drum brakes sound like my personal version of hell. I knew of the existence of electronic parking brakes, but hadn't realized that any car would be silly enough to need a scan tool to release it for service.
Oh, I can't remember a single car me or my father had that had drum brakes anywhere else than on the handbrake. How old cars are we talking about? The oldest I can remember was SAAB 99, about 50 years old model.
I have a '98 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's new enough to have well-sorted fuel injection, good AC and heat, old enough to have zero tattletales, nags, and subscriptions. It has the best sightlines, is comfy and roomy on the inside, and frankly relatively compact compared to many of the behemoths on the road today. If it ever dies I'm really going to miss it!
2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee here. It gets driven hard so it has some problems, and everyone around me keeps pressuring me to get a new car. I've looked, and I've driven a pile of rentals, and everything is just so awful. I think 2010 is about the latest model year I'd ever go.
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.
> They can pry my 2005 Scion xB from my cold dead hands for this exact reason. Insanely light, manual shifter, manual everything, timing CHAIN, 30+ mpg
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.
My 2007 Honda Fit has over 200K miles on it and I'm keeping it as long as I can. They discontinued it in the NA market too, unfortunately, even though there's a snazzy looking new model in Japan.
Mine has fewer miles on it, but my hope is that it's like compact smartphones. Honda will keep it out of the North American market for a couple of years just to release one a few years later to pent up demand, just in time for me to get (and be able to afford) a new one. Another bit that gives me hope is that there's an EV version in Japan - Honda isn't on Toyota's hydrogen train.
We have one of these too! We call it GOAT (Greatest of All Time) because it just keeps going and going well. There was mention higher up of Hondas having trim issues around this year and yeah, the paint is faded, etc. but it is just unstoppable, and the manual shift is a joy.
This is why I absolutely love my 1993 Miata. Every control is physical/mechanical. Whenever I use my wife's 2017 minivan, I'm reminded of that. Even changing the radio station requires going through a menu. The one I listen to is on page 2 of the presets, and the UI is so slow that changing station becomes a planned multi-step activity. Eyes off the road / find next page button / eyes back on road while page changes / eyes off the road to find preset 8 / eyes back in the road. In my Miata I can change the radio station without looking (but ironically, I never listen to the radio in it).
We ordered a Ioniq 5, and I hope it's better, but I'm not looking forward to it.
They can't pry my 2001 v8 4wd 14mpg[1] Tundra bought new for cash from my cold dead hands because I am seriously thinking of when I die I get laid out in the bed and the whole shebang put in an enormous hole and buried somewhere. I'd prefer if it was hauled out by helicopter over the Pacific somewhere and oops dropped.
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.
20 years on the hard 4wd trails of AZ, CA, CO, NM and both MX BCN and Sonora. A couple of hundred miles on the Baja 1000 route with a bed full of camping gear did one suspension in. And there's a lift/helper leaf in there.
Struts and shocks can last maybe 50-100k. If you’re beating the crap out of your truck you might be on the low end of that scale. Maybe that’s what they mean?
I have an 2009 4Runner and while it's got more "bells and whistles" (power seats, power windows, power 2WD/4WD switcher), but it's still very much a "dumb" car compared to any relatively modern car with an infotainment system.
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.
Nice. 2001 Tundra's a good candidate for "best pickup truck ever made". You might very well get 2x-3x new cost for it on the used market now, but there's absolutely nothing that replaces it, so that makes it a one-way cash thing. Your plan's better.
My family has been passing our 2001 Tundra around for a very long time now after it retired from being the ranch truck. We call it Ed Truck the red truck. It has 363,000 miles now and I’m the current owner. The engine and whole truck is incredible. I think about how different it must have been made when I think about things like it still being on the original AC compressor and never needing even refrigerant after 363,000 miles and 22 years. Such a testament to the Toyota Way. All the buttons and controls still work, which is very much not the norm after owning many other cars.
I had been admittedly a bit depressed before the big move across the country and the Tundra had been a bit neglected except for oil changes/tires etc. So after the life reset settled down Mr. Tundra got the full mechanics inspection with me ready to put in Whatever It Takes to make it ready for the next 20 years. And nope! Nothing mechanical needed fixing except for the timing chain. Rats had done their thing but that's just wires and money. I've got brake pads and a spare fan clutch stockpiled. Might replace more of the basic suspension bits if they become noticeable. Two things the mechanic told me that I found surprising is neither the AC nor the cooling system(!) needed maintenance after 22 years.
> Whatever It Takes to make it ready for the next 20 years. And nope! Nothing mechanical needed fixing except for the timing chain. Rats had done their thing but that's just wires and money.
I am mostly with you, but preferring a timing chain to a timing belt is... interesting. Virtually every engine I know with a chain ends up either regularly failing early, or requiring early (and labor intensive, and thus expensive) unscheduled replacement off all the tensioners, etc.
Timing chains used to be a non-service item. Robust metal chain that runs well-oiled inside clean conditions inside the engine: there's not much wear that happens there in the first place.
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.
Care to share some? Because that's the exact opposite of my experience. I've never heard of a chain itself failing, but the plastic guides can get brittle and break. I think BMW and some Fords are bad at that.
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?
Belts tend to fail abruptly and catastrophically, but generally only if they're neglected and used well beyond their design life. Chains fail more insidiously, because they get longer over time. The pins eat away at the plates, increasing the spacing between the rollers. This isn't immediately noticeable, because the timing sprockets will wear to match the altered dimensions of the chain. Worn chains cause all sorts of subtle timing problems and the lifespan of a chain is much less predictable, because it's highly dependent on lubrication; missed oil changes or poor oil quality will drastically accelerate chain wear.
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.
I'm more of a hobby bicycle mechanic. Isn't there some similar tool for the meassuring of the chain as you get for bicycles? Just push it down and you directly see if it's time to change the chain. If not done early enough you have to change all the sprockets too because of wear. If done in time, you might not have to change all the sprockets.
You can measure it with an ordinary caliper, but the problem is getting access. The timing chain needs to be continuously supplied with oil, so it is in rather than on the engine and can rarely be accessed without pulling the engine from the car. It takes several hours just to access the chain for inspection, so it's not something you'd periodically check - if you suspect a timing chain problem, you might as well replace it.
VW had a few years making cars with chains that would catastrophically fail. Lots of destroyed engines. It was the EA888 put in Golf GTIs from 2010 and on. After like 5 or something revisions they finally improved the tensioner that caused the failure.
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).
Can confirm, have a 2012 GTI, replaced the stretched chain on it about 10 days ago. The problem is that they provided no service interval for the timing chain when it really needs replacement every 80K miles. It’s an enthusiast car so there are a ton of aftermarket parts that are of good quality and VAG cars share so many parts (the 2.0T e888 engine is in a ton of vehicles from 2008 through today). My car has 211K and I intend to take it well over 300K.
Oh, the chains themselves can fail, in a quite a dramatic fashion, flying through your engine hood.. But that tends to happen well after the mileage they were designed for.
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.)
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.
I've had two bmw e39's with a m57 engines, and these chains last literally forever. One of my engines has over 500k clocked on it, no chain rattle still.
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.
It's a general rule, and it's mostly because I can tell when the chain's wearing down. If the belt is accessible, it's also not as big a deal.
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.
Chains usually have no service interval, so at the outset they seem cheaper and more reliable. But the unfortunate reality is they still fail, or something related to keeping them on fails, you just live in a false sense of security for a few 10's of thousands of km more
And since they're not meant to be serviced on a regular interval, they're designed that way too. A timing chain might be over four times the expense to replace when compared to a timing belt, but possibly without actually lasting over four times long.
Mo tech mo problems. My 87 Toyota 4x4, 89 bmw e30, 83 Toyota Land Cruiser and 76 bmw e10 are an effortless joy to drive (for someone with a little mechanical acumen).
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.
That reasoning hurts my head. "Those cars are dangerous. I'd like one, too, but only so I could drive it under conditions associated with the highest possible fatality rates per vehicle-mile."
Huh? How is a rural road or parking lot with literally no other cars around "the highest possible fatality rate"?
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.
lack of response during an incident, poor road conditions, little or no flood control, rapidly changing road conditions over timne poor lighting, randomized rural traffic (tractors/goats/whatever), and inconsistent street placement.
rural driving has always been historically pretty dangerous, even on an otherwise empty road.
Track day fatalities are also extremely rare. Most tracks have tons of run off, and obviously one should drive within ones on capabilities.
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.
Fuel injection systems are pretty reliable by now.
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.
Cars from the mid-noughts (the right ones of course! [0]) are the sweet-spot for me. New enough to have modern safety features (like airbags - I know, funny to refer to that as modern) - but still be user-serviceable.
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).
I think you may have changed my life. I have never seen this car before. It took me a couple of minutes to be able to appreciate it. But zooming in on the tech, it looks very electric, vs electronic. The infotainment system is modular, how awesome is that.
> It took me a couple of minutes to be able to appreciate it.
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 had one. It is the one car I’ve had that I truly miss. So many clever little features that made it an absolute joy to own and drive. Slow as absolute molasses, but still such a wonderful experience. So spacious for the size, with things like the rear seat adjusting so that you could have more storage area or more rear passenger legroom, which, holy crap, why was that not more widespread?! That car had significantly more legroom than _any_ “midsize” SUV on the market in 2023, certainly more than the Mazda CX50 we ended up getting, which I genuinely thought this article was about because all of the annoyances were ringing true.
'96 Mustang Cobra. You couldn't even buy it with an automatic. It doesn't ding about the seat belt, let alone any of this other bullshit.
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.
you know, it's weird. I have a Miata. It's not particularly fast, but it's fun to drive. Went on a bit of a road trip over the summer, and parking was tight at one place I stayed, so was valet only.
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.
I've routinely had to have valets walk me to my car since nobody who's working that day can drive it. As a result, I've - more than a few times now - gotten the hotel to comp the parking since I end up doing the actual parking and retrieval myself.
It's the same with home automation. Spending hours a month babysitting/updating/fixing/configuring it, to shave off valuable seconds otherwise spent on turning on lights or AirPlaying some music.
I loved my 2006 xB (thunder cloud metallic, manual transmission). It was the first new car I purchased. Traded it in a couple years later and regretted it.
Oh it's a compact. That xB is like the length of a Mini, but you got this cave inside because each wheel is perched at each corner, maximizing usable space. It's insane. It's like someone took an Econoline van and hit it with a shrink ray.
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.
I was going to say a Mini is far smaller, but apparently the current generation ones are almost 4m long. I was still assuming the 3.65m original BMW Mini.
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.