Yes but as a Car and Driver once said if you buy an MG open the hood and become friends with the engine, the two of you are going to be friends for a long time.
Don’t get me wrong MGs, Triumphs, Jags and the rest have various issues. But and this is a huge but, the base engine were as reliable as a crowbar.
As opposed to VWs which blew up with amazing regularity. The thing that made VW famous was the fact the dealers stocked the parts to rebuild the engine in a day or do.
OK, I remember my dad putting a VW engine back in by hand when by brother took it out and then went into the Navy. I don’t remember them grenading but it seemed like they always ran like a well oiled rock tumbler even when new. It was hard to tell if they were run out. People drove them into the ground and then they turned up somewhere else like a bad penny.
Back in 1971 I worked in an independent foreign car shop in Central California. We had 6 guys that did VWs. I did everything else that rolled in the door.
We used to joke that my customers got a tune up every 10K miles the VW owners got a new engine instead.
VWs have a 3 quart oil sump. The oil pump will not pick up the last 1.5 quarts. Driving in 100 degree F weather if you get a quart low there is only a half a quart between you and a new engine.
No BS we had customers with 40K miles on their car that had had 4 valve jobs / rebuilds.
I don’t consider that reliable. YMMV.
Agree, that qualifies as a bad design. Sounds like the 2.0L Pinto engine with the oiler bar above the solid lift cam. if it was low on oil the outer lobes didn’t get oil which destroyed them. The worst part was that the cam came out the back of the head. I finally cut a hole in the firewall to change cams.
Getting upper 20s to low 30s mpg overall (which smaller SUVs and SUV hybrids are capable of achieving) compares well with many sedans and other cars.
Good for you if you can get 50 mpg in a Geo. But that’s not anywhere close to what is being reported elsewhere.
Actually I think that’s exactly what is being reported. Many people are driving vehicles that are way too big for their needs. And the nature of the vehicles changed simply by public desire. The station wagon is all but dead and was replaced by a less efficient taller SUV design that is taking away from gas mileage. Yes, you can get a 35 mpg hybrid SUV but that is not the norm. What people should be buying are diesel mini-station wagons that get 60 mpg. Not even SOLD in the US. There is not enough demand for such a high mileage vehicle.
This is in sharp contrast to the oil crisis of the 70’s where people were tripping over themselves to buy small fuel efficient cars. Kids could play punch-truck (punch the person next to them every time they saw a pickup truck) and arrive home unscathed. Today they would be in a trauma center after a one mile trip down the highway.
Yes, gas mileage has risen across the board and you can make the claim that a 2013 SUV is more fuel efficient than a 1970 car but that’s not what is being discussed.
I’m pretty sure the thing with the sump isn’t true. If you drop the sump plate to clean out the dinky shower strainer oil filter thing, the pickup tube is right there just a hair above the low point in the sump. But, yeah, the aircooled engines are definitely more sensitive to low oil levels, especially in hot weather. Being a quart low is asking for trouble in any weather.
Interestingly, air-cooled VW’s are far more reliable these days than they were back in the day, mostly because they benefit greatly from more modern oils. Getting much past 50k out of a motor back in the 60’s or 70’s required some combination of babying and luck, but these days an air cooled motor will easily hit 150k or even 200k provided you keep the valves adjusted and the oil changed.
I definitely want a cheap efficient car. $20,000 for a Honda Civic is too much.
It can be simple but it has to be reasonably safe and must be reliable. And how about modular? Standard fittings for alternator, fuel pump, radio, etc. I want crank-up windows as well as electric (can’t it be both?)
How about bumpers that can actually touch something and get a ding or a scrape without costing you $1500? The auto manufacturers, insurance companies, and autobody shops don’t seem to want that. I don’t think they want the same things that we want.
I cut my automotive teeth on VW bugs. I learned a lot about motors from working on them and it was very easy to work on them. Because…you HAD to work on them constantly to keep them running. I don’t even need this book anymore, I think I have it memorized. How To Keep Your VW Alive, the Complete Idiot’s Guide.
You could service almost all parts with the tools available in an average tool box, including splitting the case apart to remove the cam, pistons, and crank. But like I said, you needed this knowledge to keep the damn thing on the road. The valves would tighten up and you had to re-gap them every oil change or they would start to stay slightly open and burn the valve. The bolts depended upon little warped washers to keep them from loosening up. If you didn’t use them engine would fall apart.
Poor design in many ways. The battery was under the rear passenger seat, which was nice except if someone actually sat on the seat there was a good chance of a shorting ground electrical event. Not to mention that the battery acid usually rotted out the floor pan. You would be hard pressed to find an old VW that does not have a hole in the floor under the rear seat where the battery goes.
I rebuilt several engines and the Baja cars I had were fun to drive in the local hills. But I would never hop in a VW bug and head out on a long road trip. I learned to carry certain weak parts with me at all times, the throttle cable being one.
I finally gave away the 22mm socket that removes the flywheel, and a grease stained "Idiot’s Guide, the last VW related parts I owned twenty years ago. And told my family that if I ever decided to buy another VW then family intervention was needed. 
Mandated safety regulations kill cheap little cars in the US now anyway. Now even standard back up cameras are becoming the norm.
My theory is there are so many SUVs and vehicles like the Dodge Charger and Chevy Canaries with terrible rear visibility that the manufacturers are giving customers what they want. Plus the cameras are getting cheaper.
See link posted earlier.
It’s swell that you have taken it on yourself to decide what their needs are.
What are these vehicles?
Actually, during the oil embargo it didn’t help that much to have a fuel efficient car, when supplies were so short there was a line around the block to buy gas. And the small cars churned out after that which had better gas mileage were atrocious, especially compared to today’s options.
Nor is it what I addressed - which is that many SUVs get good mileage compared to today’s cars, rendering generic anti-SUV sneering hopelessly outdated.
Efficient and cheap usually = tiny, crappy deathtrap. When that is no longer the case, more Americans will buy fuel efficient cars.
This. If the mpg is in the 20s, it had better be because I’m working a V6 or V8. The kinds of cars I like don’t have 6 or more cylinders like those, but the minivan has a V6. It’s a necessity and I don’t own it for joy.
If I were in the market for a new commuter, I would want a small ride with a maximized 4-banger (SC preferred over turbo). MPG in the 30s, good reliability, sporty look/feel, and reasonable price will get me interested. Scion FR-S would work although the MPGs are a little disappointing. But then, I have a 10-minute commute which I can walk in <30 minutes. If I was driving from B-town to Seattle and back I’d probably care a bit more about fuel use.
Yeah, I bought the '97 Sentra when I was single, and I am 5’1", so let’s just say leg room wasn’t such an issue. But then I met Tom Scud, who is a leggy 6’2". If he wanted to drive the Sentra, his knees were bumping up against the steering wheel. And that’s not considering any other people we might want to fit in the back seat now and again.
Can’t remember what car I was in but every frickin thing in it was computerized. Even the damn turn signals. Seriously, the turn signals.
I’m now in constant fear that a johnson rod is going to break and I won’t have the special tool needed to fix it.
So what’s your point?
It’s cheaper to build and more reliable to do it that way.
Basic math, bro. Username = Magiver, ISTR he likes to be able to fix stuff. The more mechanical something is, the more easily it can be diagnosed and fixed with stuff you have lying around your average garage. Electical/electronic issues (TPMS for instance still needs a good electronic talking to after you’ve replaced a damaged sensor) are a PITA without the right equipment to find out why the motor has decided it doesn’t want to run anymore. Mechanical cars are fun to work on because there aren’t any tricks (electronics are magical, and therefore count as tricks).
How do you figure a switch that operates a bimetal blinker is cheaper and more reliable. In 40 years I’ve replaced one blinker at a cost of a couple of bucks. Are computerized turn signal computers cheaper?
And The Great Sun Jester is right. I want to be able to fix something on the side of the road. I use to be able to carry around the computer that drove my ignition (TFIC). It was pretty cheap and installed easily. If the ignition died, that was it. done. Before that it was was a set of points.
The last time my car died on the road I was lucky. The designers tied the engine computer to the accessory plug and were nice enough to include the dashboard lights. I knew it was a fuse right away when it blew. Didn’t know there was another fuse block under the hood but that was easy enough to figure out.
Wire, mounting, and a blinker cost $. Plus you have additional parts to inventory, warranty and ship.
Adding turn signal programming to an existing computer? As close to free as you can get. Pay the programmer once and you are done.
Do you know how to make a million dollars in the car business?
Save a buck a car and build a million of them.
As far as reliability goes back when I was a wee pup working in a gas station we used to sell a flasher every week or two.
Now with the cars I have been around since 1998 ( when the turn signals went electronic) in fifteen years I have yet to hear of a module replacement due to a turn signal failure.
My current store sees about as many cars a day as my gas station saw in a month.
That is a quantum leap in reliability.