Saw the new '07 Sebring Thursday

Your observations make a lot of sense...

Japanese women spend money on designer clothing and purses, and men spend
their money on new cars and golf while their family of 4 live in a 500 SF
condo called "mansions."

 

How many engines in those? That Chevy "Blue Flame" knockoff of
Toyota's was VERY famous for frying exhaust valves, as were all mid
'70s Toyotas. I know one guy who bought a new '74, forced to since
Japan Inc. had dictated that Nissan would stop selling their competing
model in the US, while Toyota would stop selling the Crown. First
fried exhaust valve was covered under warranty, but not the rest. I
used to joke with him that he needed Dzus clips instead of head bolts,
that thing was apart so much for valves. It would even fry induction
hardened valves on unleaded! Anyone familiar with the Chevy 216/235
knew that Toyota simply stuck drawings of the old "Blue Flame" into a
copier to produce that engine...and then they screwed up the head
castings! Almost as bad were their OHC straight 6s..the 2M and the
4M...complete dogs in performance AND economy. They were found in the
Toyota Crowns, the last one of which ('71) was bought by my
grandmother who nursed it along for a number of years. A "luxury" car
the size of a Ford Falcon that got 10 MPG...what a friggin' concept!
After giving that thing away, she went back to Pontiacs, where she'd
been since 1946.

False claim. My sister had a Maxima with the first year of the V6.
What a piece of crap that thing was! Cheesy interior material that
would disintigrate, electric heater and AC controls that would fail
regularly, fuel injection system hassles galore, dash electrics
(guages, lights, tell-tales) that would fail regularly, steering rack
that would develop play due to soft steel, lousy braking system...the
list went on and on. I got tired of fixing it for her again and
again...I'd seen people do less work keeping a friggin' Fiat running!
After 140K, it went to the crusher, as she finally gave up on sinking
money into basically a disintegrating car. The previous year used the
2.8L straight 6 right out of the Z car, and would run forever...with
the car falling apart around it. The V6, at least in its first year,
was a piece of garbage, almost as bad as anything from
"It's-A-Shitty." Worn OHCs were a specialty on that engine, even with
regular oil service.

Sorry, I have personal experience with both the Land Cruisers and the
Maximas. Your story doesn't hold water, at least with certain years.
Modern Maxima buyers don't appear to be the kinds that maintain
cars...they drive them until they quit, and never talk about them
again..

 

That's when all this happened....Texasissy.

 

Exactly the point of the LA Times article.

 

I'm sure my Concord would do that mileage easily and based on 11 yrs and
about 100K of 70% city driving the 3.3L engine would do it without major
repair. It's still performs as new, including the pollution test results.
Very high mileage is usually from highway driving, much easier on a
vehicle than city driving.

My 11 yr old Concord's interior has surprised me as well. Usually the
drivers side is worn from getting in and out, but it looks as new,
particularly after a recent professional cleaning.

 

DESERTBOB (not its real name) is a troll.
It regularly frequents at least twenty news groups,
including many rabid/sex/racist/liberal idiot/wannabee mechanic groups.

Normally, it starts off with reasonable, even witty lines,
but rapidly drifts into lies, abuse and stupidity.
Check its details at Google Groups at this URL:

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...YFW4KG3QbhQogR222h-kUg4S0n7nbF1Te82ZIng&hl=en

See it's pathetic picture and myspace page at this URL- as it searches
for companionship at age 50- looks like a quart of oil for the car in
that hair...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=30321125

It had 2 Ebay usernames, both banned due to abuse, auction
interference, and harassment- they were VOXPOPPER and XCALIBER44- see
them here- search history of VOXPOPPER to see how it left (8) negative
feedbacks for a seller, for items that cost only a penny each !

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=voxpopper

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=xcaliber44


It is a sad creature, deserving of pity, not anger.
Any direct response simply feeds it,
but it will go away if you ignore it.

 

Rich wrote:

Its not, as its actually quite common. Chrysler products last forever.

 

ROTFL! There are that many in my immediate *family*! There are probably
5-6 in the little 30-member Mopar club I belong to.

I know of 30 or 40 Toyotas in my small little

Trucks maybe. Older ones (ie not T-100s or Tundras). Nothing
front-drive, that's for damn sure.

 

How many M-bodies do you want?

If it's an M-body Le Baron, probably quite a few. If it's an EEK Le
Baron, probably none, but I do know one chap out here with an EEK Le
Baron who has 245K on the original everything. Blistered clear coat
on the paint was his only real gripe, and after a repaint, it is
resplendant as new.

 

This was true when Japan, Inc, was crushing the US economy, but it
ain't so anymore. Japan's mired in a prolonged recession, and housing
prices continued to climb, thus cutting disposable income even more.
Most Japanese in urban areas live in VERY tiny accommodations, true,
but that's necessity driven by real estate prices that still make US
prices in major metropolitain areas look dirt cheap in comparison.
When the disposable income starts to dry up, the first thing that the
Japanese salesman will do is drive his Lexus another year longer.

 

I can't understand why anyone would do that. Old-fashioned brakes,
old-fashioned and dangerous construction, probably no seat belts or air bag.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

And no modern safety features (all cars, not just American).

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

So, you're not terribly familiar with US cars, are you? Of the list
you suggest, only "no air bag" is accurate.

 

did the 78's have disk brakes? I thought they had drums?

 

Front disc brakes, rear drums.

 

Schmetterling has outed himself as someone who posts about things he
knows nothing about.

"Safety equipment" had progressively been mandated on US cars since
1966.

The '78 Newport has:

1.) Front disc brakes
2.) 6 passenger lap belts, front 2 passenger shoulder belts.
3.) Far beefier construction than the later M-body version that came
shortly thereafter. The Ms had one safety flaw that was serious: lack
of side impact protection. Earlier C-bodies didn't have a problem
with that.

 

Of course they had front disk/rear drum. I think 1969 was the last
year for drums -- it certainly was within a year or so of then.

 

So you're telling me that crumple zones and were so developed then as they
are now? Internal cabin design to minimise injury?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

There were huge improvements made in the 1960s, with only incremental
changes since then. By the early 1970s cars had side-impact beams,
collapsible steering columns, and, yes, designed-in crumple zones
along with active safety features like vastly improved brakes compared
to a decade earlier.. Is it *as* advanced as a modern car? No. The
modern car is able to get comparable levels of survivability with less
material. But the difference is probably less than the difference
between a modern small car and an SUV. To put it another way, my
crumple zone isn't as well designed as a Honda's, but I've got a *lot*
of crumple zone.

Going over to the NHTSA's crash test data site, I compared a 1979
Newport (that was the earliest I could find; the 1979 was a redesign
going to Chrysler's old mid-size platform, so it's a smaller car than
my 1978) against a 2006 Civic. The only directly comparable data was
head injury; for the Newport, head injury indexes in left and right
front seats were 897 and 106. They tested two Civics and only gave
information for left side front and rear for both. For one, left side
front head injury criterion was 237 and rear was 751; for the other,
the numbers were 356 and 355. So the Honda scores better, but they
are close enough to have substantial overlap -- my passenger is in
better shape than the Honda's driver.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/database/aspx/vehdb/occupantinfo.aspx?LJC=181
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/database/aspx/vehdb/queryvehicle.aspx

Incidentally, results for a 1979 Honda Civic showed head injury
criteria of 2029 and 2095 for front left and right seats.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/database/aspx/vehdb/occupantinfo.aspx?LJC=94

 

I accept your point about much of the progress having been made by the early
seventies, though I wonder if all the features actually helped (side-impact
beams are good only if designed correctly) but, anyway, the NHTSA's facts
speak for themselves.

It is interesting that you should take a Japanese car for comparison. When
I was following European crash test results in the nineties (usually
conducted by consortia of leading motoring organisations and trade mags or
newspapers) the Japanese cars performed poorly compared with European
models, and some European models performed markedly worse than others.
'American' cars (i.e. those made in the USA as opposed to made by
American-owned companies) were never tested because there were too few of
them being sold.

However, within a product line there would usually be improvements so that,
e.g. I would expect a Chysler of today (or of 5 years ago) to perform
significantly better than one of 20 years ago in safety and handling.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
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