this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Showerthoughts
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I won't diss other car brands, but Toyota is the the only brand I'll spend money on...after a bajillion years of them being at the top of the dependability list, why would you choose anything else?
Hard to go wrong with Toyota but let's not pretend they didn't have to face one of the most expensive (per vehicle) recall ever on multiple models with the full frame replacement on their trucks...
Honda is another brand that's extremely reliable in general.
If you're not in the States, Hyundai and Kia are in the top 5 for reliability, and are much more affordable than Toyota and Honda
Best avoided if you live in that one country who's manufacturing laws are designed to benefit shareholders rather than consumers though lol
The wave of cars being stolen in the US via the use of USB cords has soured me on those brands permanently.
The fact that the vulnerability was fixed via a software patch did not do wonders for my opinion either.
What is it about the US laws that turns those brands to shit?
I have about eleven cars registered in my name right now. Have probably owned about thirty. My Corolla doesn't even rank in my top ten favorite I've ever owned but God damn I'd never recommend anything but a Toyota to anyone. I think everyone who says Toyota is overrated either A) have never serviced a car in the first place or B) have never serviced a Toyota.
Whilst they have been fantastic in years past, I'm worried about their future. Short version is, they use a lot of plastic now. source, I've been a mechanic for 19 years and currently work at a Toyota specialty shop. But still they're probably going to be better than most others. Honda was good too though. I'm not sure about now, but my daily is a 97 accord with 265k miles. Amazing car.
Funny thing is that once I've told someone Lexus is basically a Toyota with sound dampening and a body kit and they were kind of less interested, seeing it as a cheaper car. The way I see it is, it's like literally the best thing that could happen to any car; being made by Toyota
Hi, Bob!
Oh hi Bob!
Honda 4lyf
If I couldn't get a Toyota, I'd buy a Honda!
Do you mean the Toyota with the airbag issues in the 90s, or their EV last year where the wheels would FALL OFF while driving? Toyota is a shell of what made it great, and the whole greenwashing of their hybrids (eg, their self-charging EVs bullshit) should make you think of other choices.
Fuck's sake. Flashback! People argued with me so hard about the Prius when it first came out, because I (correctly, thank you) pointed out that no matter how "hybrid" you make a car you can't escape the laws of thermodynamics to ever make it go farther than what can be achieved by the energy contained the gasoline in its gas tank. Period. Obviously the OG Prius was not a plug in hybrid, so there was ultimately no way of adding motive power to it other than burning fuel. Do I need to call in Scotty on this one? Ye cannae defy the laws o' physics, captain.
But regenerative braking! But synergy drive! But it can drive 12 miles on the electric motor alone! But! But! But!
You can cheat the stats a bit with the specific use case of stop and go city driving and achieve better short-term mileage than an ICE vehicle only because an ICE engine achieves a glorious 0% fuel efficiency at idle. But on average, over distance with sustained driving, it is literally impossible for an OG Prius to achieve better economy than an equivalent traditional compact car that doesn't have to lug around a fuck-off heavy NiMH battery bank. There is no free lunch. Even if you capture kinetic energy with the regenerative brakes, that energy was initially created by... burning fuel... and the regen process is less than 50% efficient anyway. Energy reused this way will be still eaten by the bearings, road friction, air resistance, and all the rest of it just the same as propulsion gained by burning fuel. And then what? You need to create energy to fill the battery which is done by... burning fuel again. All you're doing with a hybrid like that is shifting your energy losses into the future to have to pay back later. (Obviously the newer plug-in models aim to rectify this.)
So the 2nd gen Prius (the first version sold in the US) got a combined 46 MPG. Whoopty-do. So could my combustion-only Saturn SL1, which also weighed the thick end of 800 pounds less and didn't have a battery pack to wear out, and cost half as much. If it were shaped like a Prius (which was quite a bit more aerodynamic than most contemporary cars, and was the actual key to the Prius' MPG figures) you wouldn't have even had to drive it very carefully to do so.