the most reliable car you have ever owned

[SPArKy_Dave]

It's an XF 'Family Edition', which came standard with two tone paint, 6 seats, steer and air.

Pic's from the day I got it -







And I'm ashamed to say I never even detailed the interior.
I started cleaning the drivers seat base, but gave up and got a custom made velour seat cover for it instead.

I'm only now starting to give it some semi-retirement presents - proper detail, interior clean and A/C overhaul.

[tweeked]

Still have my 2002 Camry as a daily.

379000 km. Bought new as a company car for my Warehouse manager. he left in 2009 and it had 300000 km on it. Bought it off work. It has had regular services, just about to get its 4th set of tyres, new discs once, and that is all. Still drives like new except for a slight whine in the tranny in 1st and 2nd.

Just amazing.

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Every car I have ever owned has been reliable, and I have had many old cars, it's all about looking after in and maintaining it I believe.

Most trouble free km, may be TE Cortina, added 120000km to the clock and no issues, Toyota Landcruiser, sold with 780000km and still going strong, EL XR8 nil issues, and none of my current rides have any issues.

[mytgxl]

My wifes car that I brought for her is a toyota after 10yrs it has never broke down & now I feel guilty for not servicing it! before that I had a toyota on my p plates I overheated it & it still was good! it took a suberoo going throw a stop sign to kill it! And I`m a ford nut through & through!

[robjh80]

Mitsubishi L300 van ... used it for business, tortured it every day and it never ever had an issue, never broke down .. it just kept on going and going.

Sister in law has an old Daihatsu Charade 1.3L ... must be over well over 20 years old and it's still going strong, she's never had any problems with it at all.

[ryeman]

Any Jag with Lucas electrics, single handedly destroyed almost all British auto reputation!

[DMN8RX]

ED XR6 - holy crap that thing took daily punishment for 2yrs without an oil change, 1000kms a week of hard driving, bumper to bumper city and high speed country, every day...she sat in my backyard for another 2yrs after that, ignored, til I sold her...new owner brought fuel and a spare battery and she started first pop...she's now been rebuilt as a drag car...go Pep!! :-)

Should add she'd had a hard life before me, when I bought her she was full of hay, had been used as a paddock basher to feed livestock on a property.

Legend!!

[BF-2K7]

Mine would be my Ford Econovan (short wheel base)

Its been a great lil goer

Only thing Ive replaced was a radiator (but that was preventative as previous owner had never looked at it) other than that its still chugging around the roads

Its simple and basic not alot CAN go wrong (touch wood)

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by ryeman

Any Jag with Lucas electrics, single handedly destroyed almost all British auto reputation!

I hear this comment so many times an laugh my head off , EVERY Merlin & Griffon in fighters , bombers , torpedo boats etc etc , every Ford DFV , FVA , BDA etc etc had Lucas ignition .

[XR27]

I did 150,000km in my AU 11 XR6 in 7 years, I had a trouble free run and only replaced batterie, oil,etc..
Worst car was an XF panel van, had it for 10 years before the AU, anything that could go wrong did.

[ryeman]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

I hear this comment so many times an laugh my head off , EVERY Merlin & Griffon in fighters , bombers , torpedo boats etc etc , every Ford DFV , FVA , BDA etc etc had Lucas ignition .

You can't compare aviation to auto, different divisions.
R&D was ignored by Lucas management to its cost.
Complexity was all too difficult, if they don't like it attitude. Bosch eliminated them....and we all 'laughed our head off' at yet another example of bean counters ruling and destroying!

[chevypower]

My current F-150 and I had a couple of Barinas in Australia, never had to do anything to them. Least reliable was my HX Statesman DeVille, followed by the automatic transmission in a 1996 Laser that kept dying.

[XWGT]

We need multiple options

Our 2010 Prado now has 120,000klm on it and is absolutely rock solid
However our 2000 Porsche Boxster S was also rock solid and felt as tight at 100,000klm as it did new.
1998 Toyota Hilux SR5 was also indestructible.

2003 Audi A4 however was the greatest POS I have ever owned and am glad I'm shunt of it. Never ever ever will I own an Audi again after that nightmare.

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by ryeman

You can't compare aviation to auto, different divisions.
R&D was ignored by Lucas management to its cost.
Complexity was all too difficult, if they don't like it attitude. Bosch eliminated them....and we all 'laughed our head off' at yet another example of bean counters ruling and destroying!

DFV's , FVA's and BDA's are Automotive , also ANY Jag would include the ones that won Le Mans numerous times . Lucas consistently gets much worse press than it deserves .

[ryeman]

Too much pheasant shooting and cigar smoking at the club.
Not enough work in the test labs.

[crdave]

Ours would have to be our old AU. 330,000 on the clock and still going strong. She's now used as the spare car so I'm afraid it doesn't get much attention these days other than when we need a back up.

[Brians]

HJ Monaro I bought brand new in 1976, 750.000 Kays, It never missed a beat, even after I put LP gas on it,
The 4 speed gearbox was different matter, every two years a full rebuild, first gear would crap out and throw bits through the cluster, Totally demolishing the box,

30 years later, I deregistered it to keep my licence, Horrible points thingys,

But my 3 Effies have been reliable, but not the mileage the Monro did,

[badasgof]

My best car has to be 1997 Telstar XRi (Mazda 626)2.5 liter brought it when it had done 40,000 and drove it hard up to 125,000 wanted to bring it to Aus with me but the powers to be could not make up there mines as to what I would be paying in taxes (WA) to import it.
No 2 has to be the Escort Ghia 1600 great allround car.
Worst car a Lada but great to work on because you had to for the next day to get to work.

[JeremyK]

I dont know, probably my mums 1993 Toyota Camry. Did 315,000 kms with not-so-regular servicing (due to not being able to afford it, we did 80,000ks without doing one single service, ran like crap towards the end though, finally got it serviced at 300,000 and it was fine again!). When I was to turn 18 it was to be mine but alas, someone stole it! I miss that car, so many memories in it. We got it when I was born and it was always going to be my 18th birthday present :P

The most reliable car I have owned? Well so far none have been particularly reliable, the Green Eunos needed $3000 in work to keep it running, the red Eunos had a blown head gasket, the Telstar has taken so much money to get it working and Im not convinced Im at the end, my new white Eunos seems okay but its done alot of kays and Ive only owned it for like a month, so, we shall see?

[Ibanezteve]

Had an old corolla that was submerged in rain water up to the bottom of the windscreen, left it for a few days and it started first go. The interior stayed wet for about 1 month and stunk till I destroyed it 12 months later.
Also had an old BMW e34, 535. Speedo stopped dead on 300,000km's. LSD and 5 speed box took an absolute bashing, never had to replace or fix a single thing. Car was bought by a country guy so it's probably still doing the hard yards somewhere out there.

[ebv8]

i never keep cars too long but the VX commodore is so far the most reliable, had it 3 years and only ever replaced, tyres, brakes and oil
every ford i have owned had broken something it shouldn't have, from seized steering columns to broken engine mount bolts.
but i always buy sh!tbox's so i am prepared for them the break down on me that just means i can then modify it.
but my cousins N16 1.6 auto pulsar did 450,000km with servicing every 30,000km and same auto fluid, engine craked a head at 350000 due to a split hose so that was replaced and its still running today.

[v8 tc]

86 toyota cressida

[greenfoam]

This would be more interesting as a thread if anyone had a car that needed warranty work or any other work before 200,000kms. The only car I've had that needed work before then was a V6 VN which needed a fuel pump at 190,000. Everything else has been trouble free up to 200,000. Including a VH, couple Magna's a VP V8 a VT V6 an AU 6 and a WS Fiesta which is almost there. I'd call anything that's broke down at less than 100,000 a pike of junk to be honest, that should never happen.

As a kid we had a Morris Marina that broke down practically every single time we went for a family trip more than 50km Lol. Failure of a car.

[ute83]

We had an 89 VL in the early 90's. By the time we had finished with it it had done over half a million ks and was still going strong.

[damo03]

EF Falcon Series 1 Gli. 400000km and no issues apart from the obligatory head gasket every 100000km or so. Engine untouched and doesn't burn oil.

[mr smith]

86 Telstar - I ticked Mazda as its really a 626.

480000km - one radiator, one set of CVs. Few sets of tyres, brakes etc.

Ace

[jpblue1000]

So what have we learnt.
Members of a Ford Forum believe their cars to be the most reliable, Toyota owners seemingly wrote about it but didn't push the vote button.
many claimed perfect reliability then quoted issues. (ie a head gasket every 100,000kms is unreliable!, possibly time and cost expensive)
What would have been useful is to see when voting what other cars had the voter owned to compare against. Id hazard a guess that most Ford Forum most reliable car poll voters only drive fords.
Some definition of what reliable is or should be to compare against the voters recollection of the car and how old are the cars in the memory. I figure if anything breaks down in the first 3-5 years or sub 200-250,000Ks its likely to be a lemon.
If we discount the largest polling and smallest polling groups, (standard statistical analysis) to remove bias and statistical error it would appear that Toyota is the most reliable car in the universe. HAHAHHAHHAHHAHHAH

JP

[buggerlugs]

Wow, what a suprise with the poll ....................2005 Pajero Exceed Turbo Diesel. The old man's Ford Telstar never gave us any grief either.............

[motorcycles4eva]

been very lucky with all our cars.. currently driving my dads old xb ute for the last 6 years.. daily ride, mrs has been cruising in her ef fairmont ghia... for the last 6 years also.. been good to us...
we're now looking to purchase our first new car..ever... nervous decision...i've heard of lemons out there..

[vbvbvb088]

Can't go wrong with subaru's... toyota Aurions.

93-98 VB Commodore (202 gas - first gas price 16c) - put 220kms on it. In the end it had maybe 500kms.

Had a few issues - mainly rear wheel bearings, cracked floorpan, brake light flashed when indicator on, wiring loom chafing around rear of motor... in the end a stripped dizzy teeth killed it. Sold it - a strong selling point was the octopus strap wrapped around the booster holding headlight in. was stolen three times and each offender caught - but that is a whole another story.