Continuing the discussion from Ford vs. Chevrolet vs. Dodge - Which are you and why?:
@LSLGuy said
ISTM that other than families who worked for the big 3, any brand loyalty in the 1960s-1990s was a form of ancestor worship: following our parents’ prejudices formed by their 1950s anecdotal experiences.
So let’s move up to the 70s and later, when Japanese cars increasingly gained popularity around the world. Do you have a preference, a loyalty or some undefinable draw to one brand over the other?
Currently own a Mazda and like it (a 2016 Mazda 6, no longer available in the US). Have owned a Nissan and liked that one (a 2000 Maxima). Next car will probably be a Honda (likely a traditional non-plug-in hybrid Accord) and I expect I’ll like that.
So, no - no brand loyalty at all. I’ll say Nissan seems to have been having some maintenance issues of late with their CVTs, so I’d give them a wary side-eye without completely ruling them out. I also just don’t love how Toyota sedans ride/handle. They seem too isolated from the road, kind of “floaty”, which I don’t care for. Horses for courses - some people prefer those quiet, gliding rides. I don’t hate them, though. They’re just not my preference.
I do prefer mid-sized sedans. I do want a non-plug-in traditional hybrid, because plug-ins and EVs are logistically problematic where I live (no prospect of convenient home charging). That leaves me with Honda and Toyota at this point. So, Honda by process of elimination. But my Mazda has low miles for its age due to my last decade of short commutes and is holding up well. So who even knows if I’ll get around to it before old-style hybrids are a thing of the past.
For me, just Toyota. Most reliable. But I may be biased since 2 out of my 3 cars have been Toyotas.
No brand loyalty, but all of our current vehicles are Toyotas. But that’s mostly because options for PHEVs are comparatively limited, and the Rav4 and Prius PHEV are really good examples of that subset (there isn’t really any other sedan-factor PHEVs at all below $50k in the US).
If I had gone with a traditional Hybrid I’d have had no problem with Toyota or Honda’s offering in that form factor, though Toyota probably would have won because I would have gotten an AWD Corolla.
So features, reliability and cost all come before brand for me at least.
I’ve had two Toyotas: ('89 and '01 4Runner) and three Mazdas ('81 GLC, '07 Mazda3, currently have a '14 CX5). They all served me well on various road trips. The '89 V6 4WD 4Runner is my all-time favorite, it was a much better off-road vehicle than I was an off-road driver.
I had a 1987 Mazda B2200 pickup. It was the absolute worst new vehicle I have ever purchased. My only experience with a Toyota was a beater Corolla which was already long in the tooth and ready for the junk yard. I have never owned a Nissan, although I spent many a day giving rides to my 280Z owning girlfriend. The most fun car I ever owned was a Mitsubishi Eclipse and the longest lasting is a Honda Element (22 years and still going).
I’ve owned six Toyotas since 1974. Reliable. Long-lasting.
1969 Toyota Corona (beat to death)
1978 Toyota Pickup (stolen)
1980 Toyota Pickup (totaled)
1998 Toyota Camry (240,000 miles, bearings failed)
2010 Toyota Tacoma (242,000 miles, still going)
2023 RAV4 Prime PHEV (41,000 miles, like new)
Mazda. We’ve had two of them (a 1991 Protege sedan, and a 2007 CX-7 SUV), and had great reliability with them both.
When I bought the Protege, I went to the Mazda dealer after getting yanked around by the local Honda dealer, who did some skeevy bait-and-switch tactics when I was looking to buy a Civic. We later experienced similar issues with the Toyota dealer – in both cases, it felt like the dealers knew that their cars were so popular that they had no incentive to work with prospective customers on a good deal.
We had a similar great experience with the Subaru Outback that we used to own, and now that we’re starting to think about a new car again, it’ll be a Subaru or a Mazda.
I think it’s hard to find anyone who is seriously knowledgeable about cars who would disagree with the proposition that “in general, if you only know the make of the car, Honda and Toyota are the best value proposition for long-term reliability vs. total cost of ownership, and everyone else is behind them by either a lot or a huge lot.”
That is not to say that there aren’t some models of Ford or Nissan that are better than some models of Toyota, or that you can’t decide that long-term cost isn’t your personal biggest priority, or that you shouldn’t investigate the specific car you are thinking about buying.
We’ve had 3 different Mazdas in the past - I really liked the 626, but the Miata not so much. Then there was the 4th or 5th hand Toyota pickup 40-ish years ago - it served a short-term purpose before we sold it. Never owned Nissan or Honda. We’re a Hyundai family.
You should definitely include Subaru in this discussion as well. In the latest Consumer Reports automobile brand ranking, they came out as #1.
Anyway, in my immediate family, we’ve owned two Toyotas (4Runners), four Subarus (three Outbacks and a Forester), two Nissans (Maxima and Pathfinder), and one Mazda (a GLC back in the ‘80s). Plus my girlfriend currently has a Honda Odyssey and my parents had a Honda Accord back in the ‘80s that I frequently drove.
I think Toyota is the best for performance and especially reliability. But they’ve all been pretty good.
With that said, I think Nissan and Mazda have slipped in quality over the last couple of decades (or at least not kept up with the others).
I would have no hesitation buying any of these. But I would probably rank them as:
My two favorite cars were the Infiniti G35 sports sedan and the Lexus ES hybrid. Dramatically different in feel and intent but both were great at the time.
We used to be a two-car family but as part of our downsizing we moved to Kia, for a Niro PHEV. Happened just before COVID, which was wonderful timing. We bought gas about four times in 2020.
So not real brand loyalty, just that Japanese cars have been great for decades and South Korean cars are getting close. Just do the research to eliminate brands and then buy the car you like from the rest.
I really like my current Mazda and would definitely buy another one if I were to buy another gas powered car, except I want my next car to be electric and Mazda really doesn’t make a decent EV (they do, technically, make one EV, but it’s not great).
My old Corolla was reliable but dull. Until it broke down and left me stranded an hour from home. I later learned the '09-'15 generation Corolla was one of Toyota’s least reliable models.
Never owned a Nissan, but I’ve driven a few as rental cars. I hated the Versa and Sentra, mostly I think due to the CVT they had. The Altima was ok.
I have less personal experience with Honda. I did learn to drive on my parent’s old Acura Legend, which was a nice car to drive, but I haven’t had much experience with them since. I would consider the new Integra if I were buying a new ICE car, though.
Huh. As of a few years ago Consumer Reports ranked Mazda as tied with Toyota for most reliable car brand.
Other than my current new-to-me Toyota Camry, my only other direct experience was owning a new 280Z for a while (Nissan, but at the time the model was called Datsun). It was a fun car and I drove it like the sports car it was, but I eventually decided it was just not my style. My next car was a very sedate, conservative 4-door Chevrolet Caprice.
The 280Z had two peculiar problems. One was that the heater control was either full-on or full-off and it was hard to find a middle range. I brought it back to the dealer several times and finally complained to the regional Nissan office, at which point the dealer did yet more things to it but it was never really satisfactory. The other issue was that driving long distances in cold weather, the steering would stiffen up.
One of the million things I loved about my new Chevy was, in contrast to this temperature control problem on the 280Z, it had thermostatically controlled cabin temperature. Set it to the temperature you like, and it kept it there, winter and summer, adjusting heat and/or A/C as needed!
My motorcycle was Honda and I loved it, but otherwise have no experience with Honda. A friend’s wife had a new Honda Civic for a while, and while I understand these are very popular and generally reliable cars, this one was a lemon right from the start, even leaving them stranded on the highway at least once. It was so bad that his wife, prone to be aggressive with bureaucracy, managed to get Honda to take it back and give her a refund – something almost unknown in the car industry!
As for the new-to-me Toyota Camry, I’ve had it less than a year but so far no problems. I guess it speaks to the car’s quality that it passed the stringent safety inspection required for ownership transfer with no issues and no repairs required. I keep hearing about Toyota quality and I hope it lives up to the reputation. Everything on it works and the car has a very solid feel to it.
Toyota due to reliability. Way better than any other car brand I’ve owned
We drive an old Mazda 6 and have been really happy with it. It is slowly succumbing to rust issues, though, which is the Achilles’ heel of many Japanese cars here up north. Engine-wise, I think it would go for decades more.
I’ve driven several Toyotas, and all were really comfortable & reliable. When my last one was stolen about a dozen years ago, I bought a used Honda CRV (2003) which I’s still driving – it too has been very reliable. So I’d go for either Honda or Toyota.
But NEVER Mazda!
As a teenager, I was once suckered into buying my first new car, a rotary-engine Mazda. What a lemon! Constant problems. And worse was the treatment by the company and their dealers. Nothing ever fixed the first time, never ready when they promised*, never for the quoted price, always battles about charging for warranty work (even when you came in with a mailed recall notice, they tried to claim it wasn’t covered by the warranty). And the way you were treated by the dealer – like a real nuisance expecting them to fix their lousy car.
It’s been 50-some years since that, and I would never ever consider buying any car from Mazda. Wouldn’t even take one if it was offered to me for free. Absolutely awful company!
* I did eventually find a way to get their mechanics to work on my car promptly. I used to leave it at the dealers & go home, after they promised it would be ready for my second shift starting time – only to arrive then and find the shop had not even started on it yet. But I found that if you stayed there for hours, waiting around in their customer lounge, asking every half-hour or so how the repair was going, they tended to work on it sooner. And if you moved from the repair lounge (located behind the shop, far from the sales floor) to the main showroom floor, and join in when a salesman is talking to a possible customers, and even add comments from your ownership experience (like ‘the big trunk is handy for carrying a few quarts of oil, cause after about 3,000 miles, you need to add oil every 40-50 miles’). Soon the salesmen are going to the shop to encourage the mechanics to work quicker on your car.
My favorite cars have all been Hondas but we currently own a Subaru and a Kia. So… Not a ton of brand loyalty, i guess.
Eons ago I had a Mazda 626 manual shift that I loved, and I drove it almost 200k with no major issues.
After a couple of random cars in there, I bought a new 2011 Mazda 2, also manual. I’m still driving it and she’s got almost 220k on her.
My husband has a Mazda CX5 that’s a good car, but I don’t like it quite as well as my own little skateboard.
I’d love another Mazda but I also want a hybrid next time, so unless they come out with something good pretty quickly I’ll probably go with a Toyota.
My wife has had only Toyotas all her adult life, except for one Volvo purchased when we moved to our affluent suburban town and she felt the peer pressure. It crapped out at 70k miles and confirmed for her that Toyota was the only choice.
I’ve been a lifelong Subaru fan. I had to buy an Acura once because my job required I drive a prestige brand (this is over 30 years ago). It was terrible in the snow. I went back to Subaru. But now I’m driving a Honda because my wife cannot abide the Subaru engine noise. Mini Mouse has the hand-me-down third Subaru. I’m liking the CRV Hybrid, so maybe we will be a Toyota & Honda family from now on.