Rick writes:
I was walking home and passed an independent mechanic shop. He appeared to be passing something like a black light (rectangle case with a “purple” cylindrical bulb) over the rim or tire of an older BMW 3 Series. What’s up with that?
FYI: while I enjoy the column and the rest of the writing, I suggested online that there is some follow up to the problems. I’ve learned a lot about what might be wrong but not so much about what was wrong. Thanks for reading.
Frequent Piston Slapper and TTAC Commentator HEATHROI writes:
A while back I wrote-in with a question about the back end of the Ford Focus wandering about at higher speed. Well, it turned out the bushings through the rear suspension were all worn out. Managed to fix that, but do you suggest replacing the fronts? Not because there is anything wrong, but fixing the rear was fun. Anything I should look out for?
Over the years, I’ve attended thousands of “old car” shows. At the most prestigious of these events, eligibility rules are clear, consistent and cast in concrete. Meanwhile, at the bottom end, the cars on display have grown to include brand new Chevy trucks and late model imports. As long as it has four wheels, it’s in. What kind of twisted logic allows a post-millennium car or a brand new truck to qualify for a car show when some poor schmoe who put thousands of unpaid hours into his ’57 Ford has to park away from the show in a dusty parking lot? I know: times are tough. If you want to shoot ducks, go where the ducks are; the money’s in the mods. But once again, we’re looking at an auto-related industry where the relentless pursuit of short term gain threatens long term survival.
Commercially, the lack of temporal quality control is lethally short sighted. I know of one show that takes place in a small town of 5000 people that routinely brought hundreds of cars and tens of thousands of dollars into the community. Over the years, they had a few bad weather weekends. As classic car owners don’t like to risk their ragtops to the slings and arrows of outrageous hail, the weather “inspired” the organizers to lower the bar and raise the gate.
Suddenly, dramatically, you saw a shift in the show’s philosophy.
At first, the show dedicated a side street to newer mini-trucks and cars-with obscenely loud sound systems. The peaceful family affair was turned into a cheap carnival overnight with moronic, pounding crap loosely called music dominating the atmosphere. A formerly peaceful summer day, once a benign, positive celebration of the car, became yet another example of hi-tech audio torture.
Not to go all get off my lawn on you, but the change came complete with what’s called a punk-ass attitude. Hats were turned around or tipped to the side like Gomer Pyle’s at the gas station in Mayberry. We lost a car show and gained a hip-hop Woodstock.
Needless to say, the show fizzled. It’s now a fraction of its former size. The revenue dipped to catastrophic levels; turns out the“hats worn funny” guys with the hellish music turned up to 120 decibels don’t like to spend money on restaurants. Or hotels. The best they can do for the local economy: pick up a case of beer for the trip home.
The guys that used to go to this event set up show-and-shines closer to home where the greed factor isn’t an imperative. Something was lost at that point because the show in the small town was always unique. The town was full of old main street buildings that readily lent themselves to that trip down memory lane.
This trend continues to spread. And I’m not happy (in case you missed it). I don’t care if these new car drivers worked ten jobs and every holiday to pay for their tricked-out Accord or brand spanking new Silverado—they still have a bog standard vehicle, not a Boss 302. Come back when you restore a notchback ’66 Mustang with a three-speed manual and a six-cylinder motor. Or similar.
Enthusiasts who are living in new car world have shows every day of every week. They’re called dealer’s lots. Or parking lots outside the Higgly-Piggly. I know I speak for every car owner in the free world when I ask for a hard-line adherence to the 25-year rule. In other words, bring that 2009 Mustang back in 2034. Until then, leave it in the dusty parking lot outside the show because you haven’t paid any old car dues. You’ve simply taken on monthly payments for a soulless clone made out of 90 percent plastic. That hardly qualifies as earth-shaking (although the sound system might), and it leaves you outside the fence in the “real” old car world.
It’s an unarmed fence. But don’t be surprised if somebody snaps at some point and unloads a few rounds of 12-gauge buckshot into a Honda with a brutally loud sound system at a so-called old car show. I’m not advocating violence, but I am saying that when worlds collide, bad things happen. Alternatively, hopefully, a little dignity and respect go a long way.
[Read more of Mr. Sutherland’s work at mystarcollectorcar.com]
Like tens of millions of American consumers, I shop for my cars online. I do due diligence; working hard to filter-out fraud and minimize the unavoidable unpredictability inherent to such transactions. My methodology is far from perfect—as my recent experience will attest. In fact, my tale of woe provides a real life example of how the biggest online seller—eBay—responds to fraudulent transactions.
I was looking for a sedan with relatively low mileage. Something a bit interesting, but not insane. Somewhere between, say, a Honda Accord and an Alfa 164. I trolled eBay’s No Reserve auctions looking for a deal. And there she was: a 2002 Mazda Millenia L 65k miles, good condition.
Before bidding, I ran a Carfax (clean) and checked the seller’s reputation (500 transactions, 98% good). It appeared that the seller wasn’t a dealer; the vehicle was listed as “my” (i.e. his) car. I checked the Mazda’s book value in comparison to the auction price. I researched the model and noted the Millenia’s predilection for failing automatic tranny’s and clogged egr valves. I asked the seller about these potential pitfalls. His response (recorded in eBay): the tranny had never needed servicing, shifted smoothly, and there were no dashboard lights on.
I placed a $4,050 bid and “won.” I paid my $500 Paypal deposit. Three days later, my brother and I embarked on a 500-mile round-trip road trip to pick up my new ride.
The test drive went well. Clean, nice interior. No funny sounds, bad shifts, etc. Being somewhat mechanically adept—but unable to put it up on a rack—I gave the Millenia L a careful inspection. I handed over the cash and hit the road. The journey home proceeded without event. And then . . .
The check engine light came on. I ran the codes at Advance: egr. The seller had the codes erased prior to selling the car. Then, a small transmission fluid leak. A slightly rough 1-2 shift. The leak grew larger every day. As I went into the glovebox for the manual to check on the recommended fluid level, I found a balled-up receipt for 24 ounces of “Lucas Transmission Fix.” The receipt was dated the same day I’d picked-up the car.
I’ve been had.
I drove the car into the shop. The mechanic identified a front seal leak, which required dropping the transmission—and my pants, to the tune of $850.
I contacted eBay. The website’s calm, helpful rep said working with the seller was my first, best option for recompense. Customers who’ve proved that they’ve done this, and still can’t resolve the issue, can then file a claim with the eBay’s “Auction Insurance Agency.”
When I contacted the eBay seller, he told that he didn’t actually sell me the car; he let his “boy” post it on his eBay account. When I called the “real” seller, he offered to swap-in a replacement transmission from a wrecked Millenia. Uh, no. I secured five different quotes for the work. I choose the shop with the best quote.
Once Cottman Transmisson dropped the tranny, they discovered that the Millenia needed a full rebuild plus torque converter. After multiple calls and emails between myself and the actual seller, it was clear he was unwilling to pay to have a reputable shop fix the car properly. So I sent an email to eBay’s Auction Insurance Agency (AIA).
I received a phone call the next day. I described my situation, including the receipt for the Transmission Fix. AIA’s requirement: get two quotes on fixing the exact problem from two ASE certified shops. But no one will quote transmission work unless they can personally get inside the tranny. Even so, I eventually convinced a shop to write-up an estimate on the same amount of work. I faxed my quotes along with the receipt for the transmission liquid, proof of transaction, and my story in writing.
AIA tried to get payment from the seller. That didn’t go well. In fact, the agent told me that they “may” shut down the eBay seller’s account. Which would still leave the “real” seller unpunished, but it’s the right thing to do. At least it’s not my problem anymore.
eBay’s insurance policy only covers major components: transmissions and engines and . . . basically, that’s it. I had to spring for the Millenia’s torque converter ($360), which somehow isn’t considered part of a transmission. But eBay paid for the transmission rebuild: $1600.
I consider myself lucky. But this was an expensive lesson. Aside from the out-of-pocket expenses, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to recover from my initial mistake. My big concern: how well would my claim have turned-out if the fraud not been so easy to prove? What if I hadn’t bought from eBay? I’ll always be a bit more weary of their No Reserve auctions, but I guess my experience proves the sometimes you get what you pay for—even when you don’t.
God forbid TTAC should criticize someone for making an outrageous suggestion to get people to think (rethink?) their opinion about an auto-related issue. But you gotta wonder if the book “$20 Per Gallon” is at least ten bucks too high in the hyperbole department. Still, credit where credit’s due. By setting sail on a ship fantasii, author, civil engineer (of all things) and Forbes reporter Chris Steiner has outed the environmental hairshirt wearers amongst us. Needless to say, the New York Times is chief amongst them. They’ve published a Q&A with Steiner that somehow manages not to lump-him-in with alien abduction deprogrammers—although the piece is filed under the Freakeconomics banner. Instead of demanding Steiner’s list of prescription drugs, the Gray Lady’s Annika Mengisen “asked him to give us his predictions for what our lives might look like with gas at $8 and $18 per gallon, respectively.” Fun!
Before we begin, an extract from the tome in question, courtesy of (who’d a thunk it) NPR.
In fact, many people’s lives, including many Americans’ lives, will be improved across a panoply of facets. We will get more exercise, breathe fewer toxins, eat better food, and make a smaller impact on our earth. Giant businesses will rise as entrepreneurs’ intrepid minds elegantly solve our society’s mounting challenges. The world’s next Google or Microsoft, the next great disrupter and megacompany, could well be conceived in this saga . . . This revolution will be so widespread and affect so many that it will evoke the Internet’s rise in the late 1990s.
But this revolution will be even bigger than that . . . This tale will bring with it all the global impact of a World War and its inherent technology evolutions — minus all the death. Some people even welcome oil’s coming paucity and expense as one of humankind’s grand experiments.
Utopia! We haven’t seen a good political polemic promising the best of all possible worlds since what, the sixties? To explore the possibilities, the New York Times turns on Q&A (the laziest, most editorially dubious journalistic format known to man). At $8 a gallon (2019), how will children get to school?
A: How you live largely depends on where you live. For people who live in walkable communities, life at $8-per-gallon gas will be far easier. Their kids will just hoof it.
Huh? Nebraska parents shudder at the thought. Anyway, you might have thought Steiner would be promoting mass transportation. Nope. Steiner reckons the school districts couldn’t afford to run busses. So . . . what?
Meanwhile, more family sacrifice at $8 a gallon. Steiner says Disney World’s toast; the cost of an economy class (presumably) round trip plane ticket will soar to a prohibitive $800. But hey, hybrids are go!
Consider this: driving will cost about three times as much as it does now at $8. That’s a giant difference. A family who now drives two cars 15,000 miles per year currently pays $325 a month for gasoline (assuming $2.60 and 20 m.p.g.). In a world of $8 gas, their monthly gas bill would be $1,000. That’s like a second mortgage. Costs like that will drive hybrids to be wildly popular — and so, too, will be the practice of cutting down on miles driven. The easiest way to do that, of course, is to get rid of your car, assuming you live in a place that will allow it (a lot of places don’t, obviously).
Obviously. But tough luck for them, eh? Next, the effect of $18 per gallon gas (2029 – 2039) on . . . sushi. Actually, that’s too far out there. So let’s go back to the “kids to school” issue:
By the time gas has reached $18, most people will live in places where density dictates that schools be grouped closer together, putting them within an easy walk or a brief bike ride.
Genetically speaking, that’s going to suck. But it does fit in with the whole smaller is better, global village, wear your hairshirt and like it mentality that’s informed the extremities of the environmental movement since ever there was one. As for personal transportation, fuhgeddaboutit.
At $18, you won’t have a driveway. There will be a whole generation of Americans growing up without cars at this point. They’ll live close to schools, close to new train lines, and close to places like restaurants and grocery stores. Electric cars will make an impact, but they won’t come in with the pricing power nor the volume to prevent massive changes in where we live and how we live.
So not even electric cars can save us? Holy shit that’s bad. So I guess we better enjoy our petrochemical lifestyle while we can, right? Right!
Eat sushi. Drive the trans-Canadian highway (in summer). Go to Australia. Go see Tokyo and take notes — life will be more like that and less like, say, Omaha, in the future.
So now you know: Tokyo’s going to be the new Omaha. So what of $20 a gallon gas? Too horrible to contemplate, I guess. Either that or the author, his argument and his interlocutor ran out of gas.
As time goes on, Opel’s chances to be rescued by an outside investor are dwindling. A member of the German government’s Opel Task Force told Reuters on Thursday that negotiations between GM and the two competing bidders (RHJ and Magna) for Opel could drag on longer than expected. The way it looks, the deal may never close—because GM doesn’t want to. There could be another rich sugar daddy: It’s you.
As far as Magna v.v. RHJ goes, “the process is just not far enough along from today’s point of view,” said Thomas Schaefer. In his day job, he is state secretary in the finance ministry of Hesse. On the Opel Task Force, he represents the interests of his state and three others that are home to Opel manufacturing plants.
Schaefer doesn’t understand what’s keeping GM from signing: “I believe there are only a limited number of issues still open. If one were to sit down and concentrate on working them out, a solution could be found in 24 hours,” Schaefer said.
GM doesn’t seem to look for solutions. They want to drag it out as long as possible. In the GM blog, Smith writes “We still believe this can be closed by the end of September.”
Dear John: You are delusional. The German national elections are on September 28. After that date, you won’t get a cent out of Berlin. Already, there is very little political leverage in Opel. German opinion has turned anti-bailout. Even the Social Democrats and their union buddies are amazingly subdued on the issue. Actually, the union buddies are distancing themselves from the Social Democrats: For the first time, the German metalworkers union will abstain from endorsing a party or candidate.
Dear John: Or maybe, you are not delusional after all. Maybe you never wanted to sell Opel. Maybe you wanted to buy time and collect the German €1.5b bridge loan. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung comes to the same conclusion voiced by TTAC a day earlier: “Quite possibly, GM doesn’t want to sell Opel. Hardliners at GM don’t want to set Opel free and want to keep them at all costs.” In a separate article, the Sueddeutsche writes that there is a scenario in which GM buys back Opel from the German trustees, using American taxpayer’s money. The Sueddeutsche picked up Vietnamesque rumors of “hawks” and “doves” at Government Motors. The hawks want to keep Opel. The doves want to sell Opel to an investor.
Dear John: In your blog, you deny that option, so vehemently that the grammar turns into collateral damage: “GM has not and will not approach the U.S. Treasury for funding to restructure Opel.” You also claim “GM does not seek to reacquire majority control of Opel, from any investor candidate.”
If that is true—honestly, we don’t think it is, unless these sentences are very carefully parsed—what’s keeping you from closing the deal in the 24 hours Herr Schaefer thinks it will take?
Here is the hawkish sentence parsing scenario: Your overlords in D.C. told you not to sell. You didn’t approach the Treasury for funding, Treasury approached you. They give you the money it takes to pay back Berlin’s bridge loan. Opel goes back to GM. That way, majority control doesn’t need to be reacquired from any investor candidate. Sound about right?
TTAC Commentator stingray writes:
My friend has a 2002-2003 Opel Corsa. In fact it’s “Made in Brazil.” I think it has GM’s family 1.6L 4 cyl engine. And here in Venezuela, this Opel is sold as the Chevrolet Corsa.
It’s throwing code 43: O2 sensor, lean mixture. Has a popping in the exhaust. I got the code using the MIL lamp and recommended that he change the air filter, fuel filter and clean the injectors. He did clean the injectors, also changed spark plugs, wires, coil and O2 sensor. Doesn’t know much about car fixing so got a bit PWNED on that. And the popping still continues . . . and the code too.
Speaking of barnyards, someone forgot to tell Ford watchers not to count their chickens until they hatch. The MSM is ready, willing and able to pronounce the Blue Oval Boyz’ turnaround plan for the ailing American automaker as good as done, and skip the “it worked!” part of CEO Big Al Mulally’s canonization. The Detroit News is down with this fait accompli meme. “As one fund manager who controls a sizable chunk of Ford’s stock and bonds put it: ‘The biggest threat to Ford’s future is that Mulally steps off the curb tomorrow and gets hit by a bus.’ Such sentiments, blunt as they may be, are a testament to the progress Ford has made since Mulally took over as CEO in September of 2006. He predicts the company should settle into profitability by late 2011.” So that’s it, then, save “Mulally is no stranger to success” and “He’s been an agent of change” and “For many Ford employees, he has rock-star status” and I think they ought to think it out again.
TTAC commentator deanst writes:
I have a question about the windshield wipers on a 2002 Chevy Venture minivan. The wipers function as expected, except that when they are turned off, they park in an upright position – not horizontally at the bottom of the windshield. This first occurred two winters ago, and they miraculously fixed themselves when summer came. This winter they again started parking in an upright position, and continue to do so. My mechanic thought a new wiper motor should fix the problem, at a cost of three or four hundred dollars. A quick search on the internet suggest that there is some reset procedure which might cure the problem. What is the best course of action?
Did we say the Opel sale is getting messier and messier? GM seems to be in urgent need to attend remedial reading class.
There is the German government making noises that if GM doesn’t say “Ja” to Magna, the government can’t guarantee that another suitor gets loan guarantees. Which in German means, they won’t. GM can’t read the writing on the wall.
Then, GM wants a buyback clause. RHJ happily wants to give one. The German government says: No way. GM can’t read the writing on the wall.
Then someone leaks a supposedly confidential analysis that says that all bids are no good. The specter of bankruptcy is being raised. GM can’t read the writing on the wall. Magna immediately sweetens their bid. RHJ, GM’s darling, does nothing. GM can’t read the writing on the wall.
Now John Smith, GM group VP (and GM’s chief negotiator for the sale of Opel), goes on GM Europe’s website and writes with a supposedly straight face, “despite media reports to the contrary, GM has NOT specified its preference for a bidder.” They did not?
The German government sure thinks GM has a preference: RHJ. According to Der Spiegel, John Smith just received a letter from the German government in which he is reminded that the “loan guarantees come with conditions.” The letter was prompted by John Smith telling the German government that he prefers RHJ. GM can’t read the writing on the wall.
Just in case anybody missed the fact that GM can’t read the writing on the wall, John Smith clearly spells out a preference in the same post on the same website.
He word-smiths that the Magna bid “contained elements around intellectual property and our Russian operations that simply could not be implemented. GM has partners in other parts of the world who have joint ownership of these assets . . . we simply could not execute the deal as submitted.”
Supposedly, “discussions with Magna continue in earnest to resolve these challenges.” Yeah, sure.
What about RHJ, for which GM supposedly has no preference? Smith gets excited: “The bid from RHJI is completed and would represent a much simpler structure and would be easier to implement. It would require less monetary participation by the government and would keep our global alignments solid, while still creating an independent Opel/Vauxhall organization in Germany. This remains a reasonable and viable option to be considered as the very difficult issues around the Magna negotiations continue to be worked.”
Does this still sound like no preference?
GM either can’t read the writing on the wall. Or they just aren’t interested in selling Opel. They also are totally ignorant of German politics.
Germany is heading into an election in September. Economy Minister von und zu Guttenberg had opposed an Opel bailout since day one. Guttenberg still “cannot rule out an Opel bankruptcy,” writes the Manager Magazine. This position made the baron from Bavaria the darling of the people. Guttenberg just advanced to Germany’s most popular politician, before chancellor Angela Merkel. Even the Social Democrats, who are indicated to lose the elections by a landslide, don’t want to touch the hot potato Opel more than absolutely necessary.
GM quickly needs to find their glasses and read what it says in big letters on the wall: “No RHJ. No buyback option.” If they don’t, and especially if the matter is not settled until the elections, German politicians will remember what is recommended as the best prevention against swine flu: Wash your hands. Of the Opel mess.
If that happens, Berlin saves billions in loan guarantees. Opel goes bankrupt. Then, BAIC might get Opel after all. For real cheap.
Frank A. writes:
This is not a question about mechanical malfunctions exactly, but more about the avoidance thereof. I’d like you to give us your advice on engine cleaning. Clearly, it’s not a matter of putting a baggie over the carburetor and sticking a hose in there anymore!
The engine in my ’03 Town Car is looking dingy, but I don’t want to do anything prejudicial to the, I guess, thousand or so computers under there. I’ve noticed that practically all the shops in my area that used to advertise steam cleaning have quit on it, so that makes me think even the pros find this tricky nowadays. What do you think?
This website has stood out front in condemning the pro-corporate cowardice of the paper car mags, and rightly so. But when they show some courage and get it right, they deserve a shout-out. In the proud TTAC tradition of recognizing all viewpoints, I salute Jamie Kitman’s latest column in Automobile. Kitman’s point: the United Auto Workers (UAW) make a handy whipping boy, but contrary to the new conventional wisdom, they are not the Great Satan that sank our auto industry. In fact, the money the UAW made for decades was a good thing. “Courage,” you say? If you’re like many here, that’s not the adjective you’d use . . .
You probably think about the auto workers union something more along the lines of “pinko Keynesian socialism.” We’re talking world-class wages for the lazy, shiftless louts who famously tied beer cans inside the fender as a practical joke on the buyer? The same bums whose panel gaps were so sloppy, it’s a wonder said can didn’t simply fall out in the second month of ownership?
Not so fast. Consider this: the heyday of the UAW just happened to be the heyday of the American auto industry, whose vitality we now mourn. It was Henry Ford himself who actively overpaid his workers by his era’s standards, so they could afford his company’s products. (Compare that to today, when Wall Street punishes Costco for doing the same.) For decades, the UAW was the mechanism by which America’s working class continued to share in the auto titans’ prosperity.
And what did those bums do with their ill-gotten gains? They became what those same corporate media organs (I’m looking at you, military-contractor GE employee Tom Brokaw) lionize today as The Greatest Generation. The generation that broke Nazism, built Levittown, beat polio, and put more of their kids through college than any generation before.
What made this generation of Americans so Great when they banded together to give up their bodies to the corporate war machine, yet such unpatriotic slobs when they banded together to resist the economic might of the corporate industrial machine? Perhaps the answer we’ve all accepted as gospel has something to do with the seven corporations who now own virtually every medium where you’ll hear the story.
But crack open a few dusty, pre-media-oligopoly history books. You’ll get a quick reminder that there was nothing casual—and a whole lot that was courageous—about the drive to unionize American factories. Workers in places like Haymarket literally gave their lives to get out from under rich industrialists’ thumbs. That isn’t the kind of passion that’s prompted by compulsive laziness.
So why did they do it? If you think this is a shopworn parable about an obsolete problem, consider how our largest retail corporation has made billionaires of its owners by selling us merchandise made by Chinese sweatshop laborers whose average—average—wage is 13 cents an hour.
Those owners have a choice, you know. They could make the choice Henry Ford made. The same choice Detroit’s workers enforced on their employers for decades, to the enduring benefit of the nation. The same choice Costco makes today. They just don’t want to.
Our economy is sinking in a deflationary spiral, precisely because the loss of jobs has sapped consumers’ buying power. Yet, as we slowly feel the quicksand rise past our chins, our last gurgled oaths are damnations cast on ourselves and each other for having ever greedily wanted to keep our jobs.
IM(not especially)HO, you can’t discuss The Truth About Cars without confronting The Truth About Car Workers. And like it or not, that truth leads you straight into the economics of class warfare.
The people who crucify this President for trying to keep America’s #1 middle-class job source alive are the same ones whose pet publications think nothing of trillion-dollar handouts to Wall Street. On the altar of this cold-blooded religion, they’re eager to sacrifice the easy target of a clumsy, mismanaged, uncompetitive Big 2-1/2. As for the millions whose lives dissolve into poverty, alcoholism and suicide when their sustenance is stripped away? Merely the collateral damage of some healthy “creative destruction.”
Ultimately, that’s where I can’t get on board with the gleeful UAW-basher crowd. All we hear today is that American citizens by the tens of millions can be fecklessly reduced to the gutter, but the artificial corporate entities we created to enhance the general welfare are somehow “too big to fail.” Pity is, the people pushing this pro-corporate groupspeak don’t realize their god is as uninterested in their faith—or their fate—as that funky bird-beaked statue Yul Brynner beseeches for plague relief in The Ten Commandments.
You know how that story ended, right? His son died anyway, and nobody cared.
Curbside Classics is taking you back to 1971 for a virtual comparison test of six small cars, based (and partly borrowed) from a C/D test.
I don’t have any shots of the Simca 1204. I haven’t seen one in over twenty-five years; have you? So I’m taking my lifeline (to Google images). The Simca 1100/1204 was such a remarkable and historically significant car, perhaps the most influential small car since WWII. Its DNA is in every transverse-engine FWD hatchback in the world. The VW Golf was a perfect crib of the Simca wearing a handsome Italian suit. Plus, j’aime les voitures françaises. And the Simca almost won the C/D test. It should have won. So forgive me, but we’re going to have show and tell without the show. Read More >
TTAC Commentator KalapanaBlack writes:
My mother has a 2001 Oldsmobile Aurora 4.0 with 60,000 miles. There have been four or five problems with it since new, but it hasn’t been as disastrously unreliable as I feared a $40,000 knock-off Caddy would be, especially given the “reliability” of the other K and G-Body sedans.
The problem: about two weeks ago, she attempted to roll the passenger side front window down and noticed that it wouldn’t budge. I thought it might loosen up with repeated closing of the door, but that didn’t work. The window lock button is not engaged, and the window refuses to work for the master (driver side) switch or the switch mounted on its own door.
Motorlegends.com‘s motor legend David Holzman forwards an e-mail:
My six year old 2003 Mazda Protoge5 is rusting out pretty bad [see: attached]. I had the left rear panel repaired two years ago (I didn’t realize then that the body was still under warranty). But the panel has continued to rust, to the point where the bracket that holds the bumper failed. From my online research, rust seems to be a problem with some vehicles of this model. I have seen some on the road with similar rust and others with none at all. I called the dealer and they told me to go away. Mazda has washed their hands of this problem and left those of us unfortunate enough to have bought the vehicle from this particular batch up the creek. We obviously can’t sell the car for anything near what others are selling for and I doubt it can be on the road for more than couple years before the rust renders it useless. Do we have any recourse?
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