Is technology getting less reliable or is it just me?

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

It makes me suspicious of the driver

Originally Posted by JSH

Transmission failure makes me suspicious of driving AND maintenance or lack of maintenance.

But the thing is they just bought this a few months ago and I don't think they've even taken it out of town. I know them very well and they're very cautious drivers, afraid to do anything that might hurt the vehicle. They've basically only driven it to work and to the store in a town with a 25mph town-wide speed limit and 35mph on the main drag through town.

Now did the previous owner drive it like a maniac and didn't change the ATF when he/she was supposed to?

It reminds me of my Prius. The Prius has galled cylinders at about 210,000 miles. I've driven it less than 50 miles so don't blame me. Everything that I've researched indicates it was from not doing the oil changes on time in accordance with the owner's manual. There've been people who have gotten 400,000 miles or more out of this same engine by properly maintaining it.

How do you know if the car has been properly maintained and driven? You can have the vehicle inspected by a mechanic, but are they really going to do a bore scope, an oil consumption test or tear apart the whole transmission to see if something is about to fail?

Originally Posted by Nissandriver

That makes me laugh. My 240SX has 200,000 miles on the original clutch, pressure plate and release bearing. The Infiniti G20 has 253,000 miles on those parts. I think it had the original gear oil in it when I bought it at 217,000 miles. I had never seen that color of gear oil come out of a transmission when I replaced it´s gear oil. It´s release bearing sounds horrible though. The 4 speed in the 1975 280Z I had still worked fine when I sold it at 225,000 miles. The 1997 Sentra I had, had over 200,000 miles on it and I bet it´s transmission had never been repaired. My 1994 Sentra SE-R has 182,000 miles but it did have the notorious 5th gear ¨popout¨ problem repaired before I bought it.

I would be wary of anything from Nissan newer than year 2000. They started having a lot of quality control problems in the 1990s. I might be willing to take a chance on a newer Nissan if it came out of the Oppama plant in Japan. I think they still build good stuff there.

In my life, i've seen three manual tranmission Nissan trucks from the 1980's (I drove two of them) and all three had a gear you had to hold the shifter into place because it would pop back out. Strangely it was a different gear in all three, or at least between the two I had driven. None of them had more than 200,000 miles from what I remember.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

But the thing is they just bought this a few months ago and I don't think they've even taken it out of town. I know them very well and they're very cautious drivers, afraid to do anything that might hurt the vehicle. They've basically only driven it to work and to the store in a town with a 25mph town-wide speed limit and 35mph on the main drag through town.

Now did the previous owner drive it like a maniac and didn't change the ATF when he/she was supposed to?

It reminds me of my Prius. The Prius has galled cylinders at about 210,000 miles. I've driven it less than 50 miles so don't blame me. Everything that I've researched indicates it was from not doing the oil changes on time in accordance with the owner's manual. There've been people who have gotten 400,000 miles or more out of this same engine by properly maintaining it.

How do you know if the car has been properly maintained and driven? You can have the vehicle inspected by a mechanic, but are they really going to do a bore scope, an oil consumption test or tear apart the whole transmission to see if something is about to fail?

For maintenance you spend the $40 for a CarFax or go to a reputable dealer that provides that info for free. Every time a dealer or reputable service center does work on a vehicle that data is reported and linked to the vehicle VIN. CarFax pulls that database and provides a report with the work that was done. Go with the approach that if service isn't documented it didn't happen.

I've pulled the records on the last 5 cars I purchased before I signed the papers. It also shows where the vehicles were registered and I won't buy any car that has been registered in an area that uses salt on their roads.

For example - the 2011 Acura TSX wagon I purchased had been to the Acura dealer every 3,000 miles for an oil change. There were records of every transmission service, brakes, coolant flushes, etc.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

For maintenance you spend the $40 for a CarFax or go to a reputable dealer that provides that info for free. Every time a dealer or reputable service center does work on a vehicle that data is reported and linked to the vehicle VIN. CarFax pulls that database and provides a report with the work that was done. Go with the approach that if service isn't documented it didn't happen.

I've pulled the records on the last 5 cars I purchased before I signed the papers. It also shows where the vehicles were registered and I won't buy any car that has been registered in an area that uses salt on their roads.

For example - the 2011 Acura TSX wagon I purchased had been to the Acura dealer every 3,000 miles for an oil change. There were records of every transmission service, brakes, coolant flushes, etc.

I got records for my Avalon before purchasing it. I also was looking for one that had 50,000 miles or less thinking that if it wasn't driven with care that they couldn't have done that much damage in that amount of time.

This is their very first car purchase, and I'm afraid they didn't know to do that. I would have steered them in the direction of getting a CarFax and a independent inspection, but it was a surprise to me when all of the sudden they had their own car.

But anyhow, they are still trying to see if the extended waranty policy they bought along with the car is going to help them or not. I hope it does something for them, but the suspense is nerveracking.

The records also don't tell you how the vehicle was driven. This is why I either buy something with 50,000 miles on it or less, or I assume it's going to need a new-everything.

[me and my metro]

Unfortunately there are lots of poorly designed car and truck models sold.
There are also cars and trucks that fail due to the type of use they get and or lack of maintenance.
The 80s were very difficult for auto manufacturers with the transition from carburetors to fuel injection. To the point of my advise to my customers was to never buy a mid 80s anything.

The same thing applies to Diesels in the 2000s. As the smog rules changed to add EGR and variable geometry turbos in 04 to compound turbos and exhaust filters in 08, and then Diesel exhaust fluid in 2011. It has been an expensive learning curve for the customers. All brands suffer from the curve, some have been ok and some have been nightmares. The compound turbo trucks without DEF are the biggest problem and the most expensive to maintain.

[Isaac Zachary]

UPDATE!

I'll ask if they got a CarFax report,

But regardless, Ford says that the transmission fluid should be changed every 150,000 miles. It hadn't reached those miles yet before the transmission died! (about 95,000 miles, less than 100,000)!

https://www.fordservicecontent.com/F...&buildtype=web

So, even if the CarFax report is fine and good as far as maintenance goes the transmission still died and early death.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

UPDATE!

I'll ask if they got a CarFax report,

But regardless, Ford says that the transmission fluid should be changed every 150,000 miles. It hadn't reached those miles yet before the transmission died! (about 95,000 miles, less than 100,000)!

https://www.fordservicecontent.com/F...&buildtype=web

So, even if the CarFax report is fine and good as far as maintenance goes the transmission still died and early death.

If you go to the next page it says to replace the transmission fluid every 30,000 miles if you: tow, use a top box, excessive idling or low speed driving, or drive on dusty or gravel roads.

EDIT - This vehicle has an oil change computer that varies oil changes from 3,000 to 10,000 miles based on vehicle loads and driving conditions. If the car was routinely calling for oil changes every 10,000 miles that 150K ATF change might be OK. (Personally I wouldn't go that far). If it was calling for more frequent oil changes you are on a more severe usage and therefore more frequent maintenance schedule.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

If the car was routinely calling for oil changes every 10,000 miles that 150K ATF change might be OK. (Personally I wouldn't go that far).

Too bad not everyone is like you (and me. I wouldn't go that far either without an ATF change).

I've talked to folks that buy a new car every 3 to 5 years that say they'd never even think of changing the ATF, regardless of what the manual says, nor do they ever go by the shorter oil change schedules regardless of how they drive. After all, by the time they sell the car it's not very likely to be a problem for them.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Too bad not everyone is like you (and me. I wouldn't go that far either without an ATF change).

I've talked to folks that buy a new car every 3 to 5 years that say they'd never even think of changing the ATF, regardless of what the manual says, nor do they ever go by the shorter oil change schedules regardless of how they drive. After all, by the time they sell the car it's not very likely to be a problem for them.

Only thing I've ever changed ATF on was my truck. No transmission failures on other vehicles.

I did change the manual gearbox oil in the Acura at 10 years (yeesh, that was 7 years ago now). A decade seems about right to do infrequent maintenance like changing fluid you otherwise don't. Flush the radiator, consider replacing the air filter instead of just knocking the dirt out of it. Never replaced power steering fluid before except that time I replaced the PS pump on my wife's POS Pontiac Grand Prix. Funnily enough, it was named appropriately as I sold it for a grand.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Only thing I've ever changed ATF on was my truck. No transmission failures on other vehicles.

I did change the manual gearbox oil in the Acura at 10 years (yeesh, that was 7 years ago now). A decade seems about right to do infrequent maintenance like changing fluid you otherwise don't. Flush the radiator, consider replacing the air filter instead of just knocking the dirt out of it. Never replaced power steering fluid before except that time I replaced the PS pump on my wife's POS Pontiac Grand Prix. Funnily enough, it was named appropriately as I sold it for a grand.

I've changed the transmission fluid twice already on the Avalon. Scheduled maintenance by Toyota is every 60,000 miles. I bought it at 50,000 so I did it soon there after, then once again when it hit 120,000. I changed the coolant at the proper intraval too, as well as the sparkplugs, not to mention I made up my own brake fluid change intraval since Toyota doesn't have one.

But getting back on track with the observation, how much investigation is enough? Of course investing nearly $20,000 or more into something means you'll want it to last a long time. But Ford says 150,000 miles, unless other circumstances, then it should be 30,000 miles. Well, now we need to do some detective work to see if 1) how often it was actually changed and 2) if it wasn't every 30,000 miles, is there proof the car was driven only on flat highways? And that's just one part of the whole car.

Like I said, I don't know how much work they did to make sure the car was a good candidate. There's a good chance they just walked into that dealership and were fed the "Here's the car of your dreams, you must buy it!" line from the cars salesman. And now it's back at the same dealership for that $3,500 or more transmission swap.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Like I said, I don't know how much work they did to make sure the car was a good candidate. There's a good chance they just walked into that dealership and were fed the "Here's the car of your dreams, you must buy it!" line from the cars salesman. And now it's back at the same dealership for that $3,500 or more transmission swap.

I don't have my vehicles inspected prior to purchase because a mechanic is going to do the same basic things, with the most important simply driving the car and observing if it runs smoothly or not.

That's the thing with stealerships, that they have no information on the history of the vehicle, and no personal experience to convey. At least with private party you can talk to the person. If they're dirtbags they won't even clean the car before showing it, indicating something about the lack of care they had for the vehicle. The stealership will clean all surfaces giving the appearance of immaculate care.

It's fairly common for someone to trade in a vehicle knowing an issue is developing, knowing the stealership isn't going to thoroughly inspect it or be aware of issues when assigning a trade in value. They build enough profit margin into the trade in, and pawn these poor vehicles off on buyers that they have little interest in thorough inspection. In fact, the less they "know" about a vehicle, the less their requirement to disclose problems.

There's a reason used car dealers have a poor reputation.