My family owned a few American cars from this era (back when driving a foreign-made vehicle could get you labeled a traitor in the Midwest), and other than a mid-1980s Plymouth Reliant, they never gave us much trouble. One of them, a Ford pick-up, lasted us 20 years, and only recently did my dad get rid of it.
But to hear most people tell it, the era was the nadir of American auto making.
So, why the crappy reputation?
Also does anyone here have bad memories of driving cars from that time period?
Early 70’s to Mid 1980’s: Underpowered, overweight, long-stopping, un-maneuverable, gas hogs with terrible reputations for quality based on large amounts of data, and not anecdotal evidence as you’ve offered.
Honda has been ranked at the top with Toyota in quality, but you can find anecdotal evidence from someone who owned a 1999 Civic that was falling apart its entire life.
Overall, American cars deserved terrible reputations, because they had almost no redeeming qualities. Even if you bought a foreign car that had nearly identical reliability, at least it handled well, included better standard tires, suspension and brakes, and offered decent fuel economy.
Aren’t American cars still considered not that great?
Um… not really.
*Last fall, Detroit’s carmakers made big strides in Power’s long-term dependability study, with Buick tying Lexus for the number one position.
Now comes another study – this one gleaning data on initial quality – showing that the Detroit brands has continued to narrow the “quality gap” so much so, in fact, that the difference between imports and domestics, when it comes to initial quality, is almost negligible.
In the annual Initial Quality study, owners are asked to report problems with their vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership. In this year’s study, released in June, the overall industry average was 1.18 problems per vehicle, and the U.S. automakers’ ratings were so close to those of the imports that it was virtually a tie.
For example, the difference between Toyota, the highest-ranked high-volume brand, and Ford, was eight-hundredths of a problem per vehicle.
“Yes, the gap is significantly lower this year than in years past,” says Dave Sargent, J.D. Power’s vice president of automotive research. "The gap between the American carmakers and the average import has closed to almost nothing, if you look at the total corporations.*
And of the cars that actually pack the roadways, the U.S. leads:
“But, if you break it down by model, there are also some categories where the U.S. models actually ranked ahead of the imports,” Sargent said. “These were mostly in the larger-vehicle segments – SUVs, minivans, pick-up trucks, etc.”
FROM JD POWERS AND
Maybe you got lucky in the vehicles you chose.
I was lucky enough to own a 1984 Ford Escort. I bought it used in 1987. By 1991, it was a wreck. Every month, something went wrong - fuel pump, timing belt, and a bunch of stuff I don’t even remember. It had about 65K miles on it, and it simply disintegrated. I got $400 for it on trade-in.
I can’t imagine buying a car nowadays that doesn’t even last 10 years. Currently our main car is a 1990 Nissan XTerra, and it’s going on 80K miles, and we’ve had one minor issue with it that was taken care of by the warranty. Other than that, it’s going strong, we’re not looking to replace it anytime soon.
Bad styling, but that’s in the eye of the beholder.
Bad performance, due to the first round of fuel/emissions standards. Most manufacturers’ attempts to reduce emissions ended up with crappy adjustments to the engine. Better engines didn’t come along until the 1980s.
Bad ideas. This was the era of the Chevette, Pinto and Gremlin. They were cheap cars that looked and acted like cheap cars, particularly in contrast to the Datsuns and Toyotas that were just starting to get nationwide distribution.
Poor quality. I can’t emphasize this enough. The 70’s in particular had some of the shoddiest cars ever made in America. The Big 4 (AMC was still around) had labor problems that sometimes resulted in junk being left inside the door panels, improperly tightened fasteners, etc. GM was caught putting Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles. Chrysler tried using inferior steel, which led to terrible rust problems. A Ford executive once told me the emphasis during that time was to push production goals, and they’d fix any problems later, under warranty. All the manufacturers tried reformulating their enamels, to reduce VOC’s, which resulted in several years of peeling paint until they figured out what they were doing. GM tried mating aluminum engine blocks with cast iron heads, and converting gasoline engines to run diesel – both of which were engineering disasters. Newly designed transmissions, designed to save gas, either wouldn’t shift into overdrive or would get stuck there and not downshift.
As for personal memories, there was my 1972 Gremlin with the cracked pushrods, my mother’s 1975 LeBaron that backfired all the time, my father’s Crown Victoria, which burned out its air conditioning compressor every three months, my 1980 Fairmont with both electrical and paint problems, my wife’s 1976 Maverick that needed an engine overhaul in 1977, my father-in-law’s 1980 Dodge Aspen that rusted out in two years, my friend’s 1982 Bonneville that blew a transmission within 30,000 miles. . .
Wasn’t just American cars - in this era VW sales in America completely collapsed, Renault withdrew their awful cars from the American market, and British Leyland stopped trying to convince us to buy their electrical-fires-in-waiting before collapsing entirely some years later.
Japanese cars were better, though part of the reason for this was that they were simpler and had fewer things to go wrong.
Vega, Chevette, Pinto, Pacer – they all earned their crappy reputations. Getting into the 80’s, American manufacturers tended to produce stuff similar to what they’d always done at a time when Japanese and some European makes were putting out cars that had better handling, mileage, and reliability, and were more gracefully adapted to emissions regulations. The American cars came off as crappy in comparison to their overseas competition, and even to their 60’s predecessors. Some models, like Ford pickups, were actually quite good for their class, while others, like the Cadillac Cimarron, were really lousy for theirs.
To be clear, American trucks never had a bad reputation for reliability, and don’t have a bad reputation for reliability now.
The study is pretty useless. It only looks at first 90 days of ownership, which doesn’t tell us anything about the reliability of a cars in a year, 5 years or 10 years from now.
Bingo. I just kinda take it for granted that our Accords (we’re a 2-Accord family right now) will last 250,000+ miles. And get good gas mileage while doing it.
What American car can that be said about?
Last fall, Detroit’s carmakers made big strides in Power’s long-term dependability study, with Buick tying Lexus for the number one position.
Also, when pointing out quality, the initial quality rankings are frequently used to demonstrate Toyota/Honda superiority.
I agree with Kinilou-in the mid-1970’s Congress imposed new emissions standards on cars-and Detroit chose to do it “on the cheap”. In the case of Chrysler, instead ofredesigning the engines and moving to electronic fuel injection (as BMW. M-B did), they tried to lean out the fule-air mixture. That is why the Chrysler cars of the era would stall, idle poorly, and destruct after 50,000 miles. GM did the same-they made shitty little 4-cylinder engines that were noisey, underpowered, and unreliable. Plus, US car designers thought that Aerican consumers LIKED fake wood trim-they plastered that crap on everything (even the shifter knobs). Suspensins, brAKES, TRANSMISSIONS WERE A GENERATION EHIND THE JAPANESE-dETROIT THOUGHT THEY WOULD FORCE CONSUMER TO BUY JUNK-AND THEY DIDN’T!
The thing I never understood-GM and Ford made excellent small cars in Europe, Japan, and South America-yet when they decided to bring a European model to the USA, they fucked it up-with marshmallow suspension, sloppy steering, and slushbox transmissions-they actually thought that was what people wanted? How were they so stupid?
I remember when GM (Chevrolet) announced their “import fighter” (the Cavalier). It was supposed to compete with the Honda Accord-except that it was slower, didn’t handle as well, and got worse gas mileage-why didn’t they just COPY the Honda? instead, you got a lousy 4 cylinder engine (half of an old V-8), a noisey, slow-shifting transmission, and uncomfortable seats.
I believe if you imported GM cars from Europe and did little or nothing to them, the the UAW would have fits. Sounds simple, but so many GM problems are because they are/were bound to stamp out things and pay a large workforce, whether it made sense or not.
For the record: GM tried to build small cars, something others mastered, and didn’t do so well. But… did you know: Some Japanese companies started to build big SUVs and heavy-duty pickups trucks, something American companies do well… and Toyota and Nissan quickly found some their products on the ‘do not buy’ list from Consumer Reports (CR): The Nissan Armada and Titan, and the V8-equipped Toyota Tundra and Sequoia line. These are big vehicles meant to duel with the Dodge Rams, Chevy Silverado and Tahoes, and Ford F150 and Expedition. I believe CR has the Nissan and Toyota offerings on the ‘worst used cars’ list, which speaks to long-term reliability issues more than anything else.
Tundra, Ridgeline and Frontier are all considered “best of the best” in Reliability for used pickup trucks by Consumer Reports actually, across the last 10 model years:
Also a huge problem was rust. In some cases these Detroit monsters would begin rusting in less than a year.
1981 Ford Thunderbird- Crap. It was really just a dressed up Fairlane which was also crap. I was driving down the highway one day and the whole taillight lens cover just-fell-off.
1982 Chevy Monte Carlo- My God. GM was trying something to bridge the gap between carburization and fuel injection (probably to save money). The so called “computerized” carburetor was a nightmare almost as soon as I drove it off the lot. That damn car never ever ran right.
Also apparently the factory didn’t add enough lube to the rear differential causing it to glow cherry red…which happens to be right directly next to the gas tank. Lucky the wife and I didn’t go up in flames.
Any one you perform the same maintenance to. You’ve been indoctrinated to spend a chunk of money every 100,000 miles on a timing belt, hoses, waterpump, and gaskets and think nothing of it.
An automatic transmission requires maintenance (and a rebuild) to last 250,000 miles
A stick will most likely require a clutch (or three).
A person can have three major repairs over the life of a car and think it’s the crappiest piece of shit they’ve ever seen, another can have the same repairs and still think their BMW’s the best car ever made.
It’s more a factor of perception than fact. Further, it’s rare for someone to actually hold on to a car for that period of time. They tire at 75,000-100,000 miles and move on to something else. The car may last that long but not be in their care. The car may die a premature death due to impact, or a Salesdroid may ‘take it off their hands’ for $500, put a little money into it, and sell it for $2500, where it gets another 25,000 miles, or 100,000 miles depending on how it’s treated.
Not helping matters was that this was the era where car salesmen and the dealerships they worked in were at their sleaziest. The cheapness of the cars was hit further by the attitude at the dealership that ‘we don’t gotta fix nuttin’ under warranty, and when they did they did so half-ass so it would break again later on. Eventually consumers got fed up and both complained and went to Japanese cars. Most Lemon Laws are on the books as the result of that era.
I now have over 236,000 miles on my 1999 Toyota Solara, and it runs like a top. The only problem I’ve had with it is the driver side window control motor died and had to be replaced. I guess the paint could be spruced up as there are scratches everywhere if you look close, but other than that it still looks new. Best commuter car I’ve ever owned, comfortable, reliable, and stylish if you like coupes.
I’ve never owned an American car, nor do I think I would, based on horror stories I’ve heard.
**SO? PLEASE EXPLAIN? **
V8 Tundra? no.
Ridgline is a Honda.
Frontier is not a big pickup.
You should re-read my post.
Thank you.