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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Maintenance and Repair / November 2007Any true Lemons?
There seems to be lots of cars where one person could tell you the horror stories of *theirs*, but compared to the hundreds of thousands of other cars identical to it that soldiered on unfalteringly, it's relatively easy to write it off as a single 'bad apple'. Or owner habits. etc. But were there ever any cars in which each and every one that rolled off the assembly line was indisputably a complete POS in most every way possible? Even one way possible? I find it hard to believe that such a thing would exist. -phaeton Well, I think I would like to own one of those old East German warbling Wartburg cars to play around with. cuhulin > There seems to be lots of cars where one person could tell you the > horror stories of *theirs*, but compared to the hundreds of thousands [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > -phaeton What's your timeframe? I'd wager that in the last 20 years there haven't been any real "lemons" per say, instead, it seems that most cars out there that suffer all have some kind of "design" flaw where you go "WTF", such as the engine bay on the 93-2002 Camaro/Firebird. Plug changes on these things are a major PITA, and I can't even fathom how I'd pull a cylinder head off with the motor in the car. (I own a 2001 Trans Am...) The cars are better designed and better built, but it's obvious to me that the engineers still don't ever spend time looking the prototypes over for serviceability. Ray I postulate three kinds of lemons: the Statistical Lemon, the Systematic Lemon, and the Comprehensive Lemon. Consider random vs. systematic error. There will be a few of these Statistical Lemons in any manufacturer's basket due to statistical scatter of quality. The LEMON as Left-hand Extreme Modal Outlier from the Norm. This also suggests the existence of antilemons - machines that get the best parts, machines in which all the tolerance stacking cancels out instead of being additive, that sort of thing. Total quality management and sheer skill and diligence can help bulge the curve and shift it to the right. There are also cars that have a fundamental design flaw; no amount of six-sigma philosophy or machining skill would have kept an unsleeved Chevy Vega engine from leaving behind a horizontal blue tornado of oil smoke, for instance (there are numerous other examples). Lincoln's late 50s attempt to go too far too fast in scaling up the unibody, requiring porcine extremes of reinforcement. The first generation Corvair suspension. There was a whole era of cars in the late 70s and early 80s with underprivileged trannies and/or finicky and baroque engine controls, some worse than others (variable venturi carbs and all that). And don't forget GM's first generation attempt to make a diesel out of a gasoline small block. If those are small things we call them annoyances and competitve disadvantages; if they are big, or medium-sized and numerous, we may think of that car as a Systematic Lemon. The kind of Comprehensive Lemon you described -- a car that from bumper to bumper was '62 Mets bad (for non baseball followers, their manager supposedly moaned, en route to a record-settingly awful season, "Doesn't *anybody* here know how to play this game?") -- is a rather less common beast, thanks to the competitive pressures of a free market. You might look at some Iron Curtain offerings. I've never had the dubious pleasure of the Trabant, but it might be considered an example. There were also cars that weren't necessarily bad for what they were, but proved to be "a solution in search of a problem" or else not enough car for a given market (the early attempts to sell microcars from Honda and Subaru in the US come to mind). Of course, both companies eventually came to be considered quality leaders that did good business here. That makes me wonder if at the opposite extreme, your question will turn up not only Comprehensive Lemon models, but Comprehensive Lemon makes -- companies that never managed to turn out what, in their place and time, was considered a good car. Interesting proposition! Those Ford MUTT Jeeps had an interesting suspension system.If I remember, they had individual four wheel suspension with coil springs and U Joints on the shafts to each one of the wheels.At one least one (or more) of those Jeeps, after going airborne from hitting big enough bumps and then coming back to the ground, the wheels folded inward.Contrast that with the World War Two era Jeeps.Army Air Force had some real Airborne Jeeps, they were dropped to the ground via Parachutes.Those Airborne Jeeps didn't look much like the regular Jeeps. cuhulin > Those Ford MUTT Jeeps had an interesting suspension system. It's widely said that they were supposed to have the rear end destroyed at the end of their service life rather than sold to civilians on the surplus market, but plainly a few survived the process. (I've certainly seen them though I've never driven one.) They say suspension changes on the -A1 and A2 versions fixed the problem but the rule lived on. See for instance http://www.4wdonline.com/Mil/M151/M151.html > some real Airborne Jeeps, they were dropped to the ground via > Parachutes.Those Airborne Jeeps didn't look much like the regular Jeeps. There were a few experiments with small/lightweight Jeeps -- the wartime MBL, the postwar/early 50s M422 Bobcat , and the early 50s Mighty Mite -- that were meant to be airlift friendly and (especially the Bobcat) possibly for Airborne use -- but I don't think any of them made it to procurement. AFAIK, a great deal of equipment that couldn't withstand a parachute landing in its own right could be, and was, put on a platform with a cargo chute at each corner. Paratroop outfits tend to be pretty "light" in terms of firepower, mechanization, and supplies anyway, at least in the (hopefully not too many) days before being reinforced or pulled out after a combat jump. I think the Humvee, which of course is the replacement for the replacement of the Jeep, is supposed to be able to survive either a regular parachute drop with appropriate 'chute or a LAPES (rolling delivery via "low altitude parachute extraction system"), as are a lot of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles nee armored personnel carriers, but such treatment is tough on even rugged equipment and is really, really a lot to ask of something that is, more or less, a pickup truck. Cheers, --Joe Many years ago, there were ads in magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and Science and Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated magazines about Army surplus Jeeps in crates for sale for $50.00.You could buy them, but first they were cut up in four pieces. Right after World War Two, some people in Asia wanted to buy left over Jeeps, but instead of U.S.Government letting them buy the Jeeps, they were dumped in the water.Later on, some of those people in Asia pulled some of the Jeeps up out of the water and refurbished them.I read about that somewhere on the internet a few years ago.I own a 1948 Willys civilian Jeep. cuhulin On Nov 15, 11:47 pm, cuhu...@webtv.net wrote: > Many years ago, there were ads in magazines such as Popular Science and > Popular Mechanics and Science and Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > that somewhere on the internet a few years ago.I own a 1948 Willys > civilian Jeep. Learned to drive a stick on a surplus '44 Willys, myself (much to my benefit and its detriment). It's an interesting car to bring up in the context of this thread. Its usefulness and ruggedness are legendary, but it did have a couple of Achilles heels at first. Those bolts that would pull out of the front hubs, for one thing. (The famous Bill Mauldin cartoon of a sergeant shooting his disabled jeep is great because of two things. It depicts the results of this failure accurately -- the late cartoonist was a Jeep aficionado who, I'm told, did his own work deep into his senior years. And the tough old top kick looked like he was crying -- this is of course a cultural reference to cowboy movies in which a horse broke a leg, but also depicts how a lot of people feel about Jeeps.) A brake master cylinder down in the mud and water part of the vehicle was another intriguing early "feature." For sure, though, the original Jeep is the last thing most people would call a "lemon..." The "cut-up $50 Jeep in a crate" urban legend persists to this day, and the ads were in the magazines (sort of like "Sea-Monkeys" for grown-ups) long, long after one would have expected most all WW2 stuff to have emerged from the surplus pipeline -- I saw these ads as a kid in the 60s, and by then any Jeep in a crate would have needed at least overhaul of the engine and brakes and other liquid-involved systems, after sitting 20 years without being operated. This page has an example of one of the many ways departing US forces disposed of equipment judged not to be worth bringing back: http://www.olive-drab.com/od_mvg_jeeps_50dollars.php3 (The more something resembled a weapon system, the more enthusiastically it was demilitarized, if no approved new owner, such as a friendly government, could be found. Note also that a lot of the stuff was thoroughly "war weary," if not pre-destroyed by the time it was dragged onto a pile or into a hole.) This page has some interesting speculations on the origins of this widespread and persistent story: http://members.aol.com/brimiljeep/WebPages/JeepInaCratePage.html --Joe The social context was that a substantial amount of military surplus *did* come onto the civilian market when our huge and, by the standards of the day, highly mechanized armed forces were drawn down. (To this day the "Army-Navy store" is a fixture of American cities, though most of their business seems to be in newly manufactured goods of more or less military character. ) Some was passed down to other governmental uses too. Our town had a couple of "Ducks" (DUKW amphibious trucks) that, if memory serves, were part of the Civil Defense organization -- maybe not too important in the nuclear-war aftermath that most people associate with civil defense, but great for flood rescue and so forth, not to mention parades. I'm sure they're long gone, or sitting derelict in the city "corporation yard," or otherwise retired by now. --Joe Jeeps are one of the Tools that helped us win World War Two.General Eisenhower and General Patton once gave some speeches about that.Jeeps, Bulldozers, LSTs, Dakota Airplanes,,,,,, cuhulin > I think the Humvee, which of course is the replacement for the > replacement of the Jeep, is supposed to be able to survive either a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Cheers, > --Joe The original HMMVV was a lot tougher than the civilian versions. And slower and uglier too. And more expensive. I don't want a HMMVV. (Hummv?) I too say they are ugly.There is somebody who is part of management of the Goodwill stores around.I have seen his Hummv close up.A World War Two Jeep is in (or was in) the Smithsonian.A much better looking vehicle, in my opinion.Even better is the Bantam BRC 40 Jeeps. cuhulin > HMMVV. (Hummv?) HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle), but trying to say that makes you sound like they just got out of a visit to a novocaine- happy dentist, so it turned into "Humvee." It is a late 70s concept that came along in the mid-80s. Desert Shield/Desert Storm greatly raised its public profile and resulted in some demand for a civilianized version -- I think action movie star (later to be governor of California) Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the first in line for an official version, dubbed the "Hummer," and some say he persuaded the company to get off the dime on their existing plans to offer one. Quite big (especially in width) for a civilian daily driver, rather stately in acceleration with its 150-hp non-turbo diesel, and not exactly designed for comfort -- also quite expensive -- it seemed to find a market mostly among people or businesses who wanted a high public profile. As time went by, it got better engines for civilian use and other amenities (http://www.amgeneral.com/vehicles_hmmwv_vs_h1.php) and acquired a considerable reputation in recreational off-roading if used properly. Just watch out for narrow roads, be prepared to unstick a BIG HEAVY vehicle if you do manage to get it stuck, and brace yourself to write some military-industrial-complex checks when certain things do eventually break. Of course the purchase price of the beast -- I think they were up to $80,000 US by the end of the production run -- probably preselected the market for people willing to pay the price for maintenance and their formidable thirst. When rumors flew that there'd be a smaller Hummer (from General Motors, which bought the civilian lines from the similar sounding but AFAIK unrelated corporation AM General), I was hoping for Humvee technology at maybe three-quarter scale, but what actually came out was sort of G.I. Joe's Chevy Tahoe -- a well equipped but basically familiar pickup-based SUV with body styling like a stagecoach or horse- drawn hearse. This was called the H2, and the original was retronymmed H1. More recently came another effort along those lines, the midsize- pickup-based H3. I think I've seen two of each of the latter ones with actual mud on them -- though quite capable, they seem to be bought more often as a lifestyle/self-image statement than as farm and jobsite vehicles or serious off-roaders. I think most people would judge the Humvee a success for what it was meant to do -- it is nearly 3x the size of the original Jeep in some parameters, but has proved versatile in mission-specific body variants, and replaces up to 1 1/2 ton trucks, something its ancestor could never do. Improvised explosive devices have of course exposed one fairly predictable limit of its entire class of vehicle -- they aren't IFV's, just as IFV's aren't tanks -- and the "up-armoring" effort has gone fairly far into the design pattern's extensibility. The military is thinking about a next-generation direct replacement and also about other classes of vehicles for use in higher threat environments. No surprises there; you don't enter a Clydesdale in the Kentucky Derby, nor plow with a Thoroughbred. Cheers --Joe I don't remember the name.title of that particular tv series programs that were on tv in the 1970s, but the star of the series drove a HMMMV in the tv series.It was like everytime he stopped the vehicle, the vehicle would sway back and forth two or three times.Sort of like a horse winding down and getting some air. Yep, high price fancy vehicles are status symbols for people who can afford them and I think that is a (Martha Stewart) good thing.It helps the auto industry. cuhulin > When rumors flew that there'd be a smaller Hummer (from General > Motors, which bought the civilian lines from the similar sounding but > AFAIK unrelated corporation AM General), ... AM == American Motors. AM General was originally a wholly-owned subsidiary of AMC. (In fact the early Humvee prototypes were powered by AMC 401 CID gasoline engines, just like Matador station wagons.) AM General also built commercial vehicles such as transit buses.  SignatureRoger Blake (Subtract 10s for email.) >The original HMMVV was a lot tougher than the civilian versions. >And slower and uglier too. >And more expensive. Not much slower or uglier... the original Civilian hummer is pretty ugly. Really uncomfortable, though... and you have a blisteringly hot transmission case right up against your right leg. I got to drive one for a week or so in the middle of the summer in Dallas... did I mention that it doesn't have any air conditioning and there is a blisteringly hot transmission case up against your right leg? So when it's 106'F outside you think you're going to die even without anybody shooting at you? It handled... well, a lot more poorly than an M-1. Plenty of clearance, though. --scott Signature"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." 99-02 Dodge Intrepids with the 2.7 liter engine. Engine failures common under 30K especially if the oil was not changed frequently. We had a 99 and an 02 at our shop a couple of months ago with well under 100k thta had toasted engines. 1 had already had the engine replaced and the owner didn't bother changing the oil in the new engine either. I sold quite a few used 2.7s while I was in the auto parts business. $3K a pop. OUCH. I sold my 99 with 166k on it and still running but weak oil pump and lots of blowby. Oil got changed religiously. Most expensive repair on the vehicle was 2 transmission switches for $12 each and $85 to install em. Do the maintenance! Andy > There seems to be lots of cars where one person could tell you the > horror stories of *theirs*, but compared to the hundreds of thousands [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > -phaeton > 1 had already had the engine replaced and the owner didn't > bother changing the oil in the new engine either. "Reverse robbery" -- Some customers stick a gun in your ribs and force you to take their money. There have always been people who add a quart of motor oil whenever the burnt smell becomes noticeable in the passenger compartment, and never change the air filter because it has gotten so dirty they don't want to touch it, and... ah, you know all the signs. For sure, an abusive or neglectful owner and a perhaps otherwise decent machine with an Achilles heel add up to that scent of lemon. I wonder if such engines are behind the "lifetime powertrain warranty" that Chrysler is touting these days. Another example might be certain allegedly oil-sludging Toyota fours of the early-mid 90s. I'm not sure what I think of the cause and extent of the problem, exactly, but for sure I wouldn't buy a used one from that period without reason to believe that the owner had changed the oil on more or less the severe service schedule. --Joe In the 1970s, I bought a 1962 Ford Falcon four door six cylinder standard shift transmission.The next night when I was driving that car out on the interstate, it came to a stop just as though I had turned off the ignition switch.I had plenty of gas in the car.I popped the hood, the air filter was so clogged up the engine wasen't getting any air.Then the car ran like a champ. cuhulin apparently due to the lemon laws in the states, the lemons are shipped to canada and sold on used car lots. > There seems to be lots of cars where one person could tell you the > horror stories of *theirs*, but compared to the hundreds of thousands [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > -phaeton A few decades back, Vauxhalls imported into Canada were dying in such droves that the surviving owners organized a caravan to Ottawa to demand some sort of justice. A bunch of the cars in the caravan caught fire en route. > There seems to be lots of cars where one person could tell you the > horror stories of *theirs*, but compared to the hundreds of thousands [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > -phaeton Each and every car is a lemon with no hope?? Come on - you know that there isn't a car around like that. Lemon laws are designed to take care of situations where one car may have an unusual number of problems or where the dealer and/or manufacturer can't fix a problem with a reasonable number of tries. "phaeton" <blahbleh666@hotmail.com> wrote in message > But were there ever any cars in which each and every one that rolled > off the assembly line was indisputably a complete POS in most every > way possible? Even one way possible? > > I find it hard to believe that such a thing would exist. The Yugo pretty much fit that category.. Some models of the Fiero were deeply flawed, mostly with engine problems. But then, GM made a lot of really poor engine designs. On some of them, essentially all engines of the series failed prematurely. I'll have to add that the GM Reatta and Allante are also very troublesome, possibly due to the overengineered electrical systems they use. You might find a few good ones, but there are lots of really bad ones. (Engine and tranny tended to be pretty good...) > I'll have to add that the GM Reatta and Allante are also very > troublesome, possibly [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > to be pretty > good...) The '81-'83 Chrysler Imperials got the same reputation because of the over-complex (for the time) mass-air-flow digital EFI system. Speed-density would have been a lot more workable at the time and was used successfully on GM and even other Chrysler (turbocharged) models during that period and beyond. In retrospect, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with either the car (it was just a member of the F/M/J-body family loaded to the gills with luxury items and given some seriously love-or-hate-it styling) or the basic EFI design. It just had a bunch of little quirks that when combined together wouldn't tolerate casual maintenance or lack thereof, not the least of which was that the MAF sensor was on the aircleaner snorkel so *any* leak around the air cleaner housing or aircleaner-to-throttle body junction would skew it off calibration. The cars are something of a minor collectible now, although virtually all of them have been retrofitted with carburetors (a factory program in the 80s to appease disgruntled owners). But I have in fact seen a few purring along with their original EFI as recently as 2003-2004. Interestingly, Chrysler did the exact same thing with the Bendix mechanically injected 300s back in the late 50s- offered to convert them to dual quad carburetion for disgruntled owners. '74 911-S Signature"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Whatever happened Hacking the Trailing Edge! : to Tom Nelson? www.nmpproducts.com ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words--- Audi. One book on buying used cars said to avoid all Audi. They are high maintenence an spend a lot of time in the shop regardless which year model you get. |
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