They do have plenty of hydraulic gubbins inside. My sister in law's Chevy Venture is eating its own tranny after only 11 years and 110k miles. To be honest the car looks and feels way the hell older than that. I don't want to make generalisations about American cars, but...
coffeeking - MemberAutomatics are inherently more inefficient and cost a damn sight more when they fail than manuals (and I have one in bits in my garage at the moment to prove it, with the torque converter leaking fluid all over the floor), unless they're DSG or robotised manual, in which case they'll cost even more. Steer clear of autos unless you do tens of thousands of miles of mind-numbing city driving and don't care about fuel efficiency.
Crikey ... that bad eh ... mine is not DSG or robotised manual. It's a Toyota auto so not sure that is except relying on my friend advice. I will ask him again on the pitfall of auto gear but if he is driving one himself, a Landcruiser and his daily work car is Hilux, then there must be something I don't know.
molgrips - MemberThey do have plenty of hydraulic gubbins inside. My sister in law's Chevy Venture is eating its own tranny after only 11 years and 110k miles. To be honest the car looks and feels way the hell older than that. I don't want to make generalisations about American cars, but...
hhmmm ... not sure how reliable are those American cars but this is Toyota so I wonder if that makes any difference at all ... hhhmmm ...
Indeed toyota do make pretty reliable cars on the whole, I wouldn't argue with that recommendation. I'd just avoid autos as the cost of repair is very high and there's less chance of DIY. Unlike small manual ones where a clutch is a hundred quid, a flywheel generally a couple of hundred and about 3 hours to do a swap. I also hate small cars with auto boxes, but that's from experience of driving an auto 1.0 micra across cyprus with it unable to decide which gear it wanted to be in.
br. YGM.
Dual Mass Flywheel failures are pretty common on turbodiesels. Seems like somewhere between 80k and 150k, you can be pretty sure it'll let go. Had exactly the same kind of bill on a HDi Peugeot, and it wiped out any fuel savings I'd made and more.
The only time I think it makes sense to buy a TDI now is if you're doing 20k a year upwards, and you're buying new / company car, so you've got someone else paying any mechanical bills.
Or of you tow, or like the way they drive. I reckon mine has saved around £600 over its 85k miles, very roughly. If I keep going til 170k I may have saved enough for a new DMF 🙂