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Well I have to say that the care really is what matters, key word is taking CARE of you car or truck, domestic or import, my truck s (the F150 that I had [sold that and upgraded] had a little under 230k on it and would have kept going well into 500k mileage wise im sure, yes I knew the entire service history of the truck, my current truck (ex work truck that still gets worked) looks like cr@p as far as the bed is concerned, you can see its been hauling heavy loads its entire life but it has 440,986 on it and the only thing I have had go bad on it is a transmission main pump seal. so that alone should speak volumes to what taking care of your car or truck is able to do. LAST thats what…yes I had to farm the work out to a shop as I do not have a house with a large enough garage to install a 2 post lift (wish I did) but while I had the transmission out even though I didn’t need to I replaced other seals and gaskets like the rear main seal as preventive maintenance.
how did I get so many miles on this truck and transmission (all factory original parts aside from the usual maintenance items like the fluids and the replaced seals), simple one word care, I take care of my trucks and my Mustang, granted the Mustang has only 77K on it and lives in a garage but I still take it for regular services when required.
[quote=”13aceofspades13″ post=145322][quote=”Chevyman21″ post=145313] I tell ya man, that’s most of it. I see mostly American vehicles being worked on in the driveway and imports going to shops more often. Most import drivers just want their car to go from my experience and don’t care much about how it works. As an American car/truck owner you NEED to know because as much as I hate to say this, you will have to keep up on maintenance more on American vehicles. Alot of American makes kept 50s 60s and 70s mechanicals and tech in cars until the mid 2000s.[/quote]
or like you said, we could also assume import drivers don’t want to work on there cars like american car drivers do, they just want something they can get in and drive, and in most cases i find this true. but i want to work on my own car.[/quote] Exactly, and that’s just my experience.
In general I agree with the comments that the driver makes the biggest difference. Regular maintenance pays dividends. There certainly are differences with certain vehicles that just don’t seem to be designed/made right. I’m not much of a mechanic. In that respect the best thing I did was to start working on my own motorcycles. Getting a KLR650 that most owners work on themselves was the catalyst to doing things myself. I still won’t do major stuff because I’d rather get it done right the first time. Sort of like when Eric ended up buying a rebuilt Odyssey transmission after fixing it three times. I’m now getting confident enough from the bikes that I’m starting to do more things on the cars that before I would leave to a mechanic shop or the dealer. I’ve owned many domestic and Japanese cars and trucks and I’ve had good and bad luck with both.
Just a guess on my part, but when Toyota had so many recalls a few years ago, I noticed where the parts were coming from. I don’t know if they were always sourced there, but Toyota had been for a few years growing very fast and I wonder if they started sourcing parts in ways to get them cheaper to keep up with demand and in doing so sacrificed quality. Today in the family we have two Nissans, a Chevy, a Honda and a Mitsubishi.
I work as a tech in a small independent shop so i see a little bit of everything and my personel preference is domestic i think the imports should stay in whatever country they came from. Now working on them consists of scraping or burning half your skin off your arms there is also pathetic service info and parts are just as rusted and seized as anything domestic. I admit domestic cars commonly require more service and repairs however imports don’t have all the little things they have one big failure which is just as costly.
Which brings me to engineering Honda and toyota for example as so far ahead in engineering yet it took until well into the 2000s to figure out what this crazy thing called a timing chain is. Couple common domestic problems here that the imports are just as guilty of
oil leaks and burning
broken ball joints
rusted out exhaust
sagged suspension
brake noises
engines and transmissions.
belt squeal (hondas manual tensioner).As far as the owners go there are some really good owners and some really bad owners domestic and import.
BUT WHAT REALLY PISSES US OF IS WHEN SOME IDIOT WITH AN INFINITI or ACURA or some sort of high end import calls us to price out an oil change.
Or Import owners are shocked when it takes 3 days to get parts because we are in a small town. (ford and chevy dealer only). So that being the case are parts system does not move at lightning speed.So that is just my opinion but don;t be to suprised when your honda breaks a ball joint and cv axle when u are in the middle of nowhere and
nobody has those parts in stock.What Eric is saying is pretty spot on.
My theory: Most import owners know they don’t know much about their cars, and know they are specific, so are more likely to take them to a qualified, or dealer. With domestics, “hey it’s a Chevy, anyone can work on those” and so “anyone” can work on them, right?
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