Used Cars: 5 to Avoid (and 5 Better Alternatives)

Even though auto manufacturers have greatly boosted quality and reliability, buying a used car can still be a process fraught with anxiety. In addition to worrying about the honesty of the seller, you also want to be sure to avoid vehicles with poor reliability records.

To help with that, MoneyWatch looked at owner surveys to see which cars look like trouble, focusing on five separate categories. We focused on 2008 models -- the year ranked in the latest dependability study from J.D. Power and Associates. Buying a 3-year-old used car also lets you shop after the biggest new-car depreciation already has taken place: Because used car prices have risen so sharply this year, 1- and 2-year-old used models can make worse financial sense than buying new.

To make our list of used-car rejects, a model had to get the minimum two out of five in the J.D. Power "circle ratings" for dependability. It also had to be ranked below average as a used car by Consumer Reports in its annual April car issue and online car rankings.

Here are our recommendations for used cars to avoid -- plus some better ideas in the same categories. Volkswagen has two entries on our avoidance list.

Next up: Small car

• no previous page
• next

1/6

[Think_Tank_Frank]

To all the geniuses dogging on VW saying the Japanese make cars better... The VWs listed above were made in MEXICO(just like your Honda is now), and the new ones are made in the USA. GERMANS make cars better. Mercedes(invented the car)(as well as SMART), BMW(as well as MINI, ROLLS ROYCE), PORSCHE(as well as any other subsidiary like VW(made in Germany),AUDI,BENTLEY, BUGATTI, LAMBORGHINI! Tell me any of your Japanese car companies can compete(esp. on the track)! I'm telling you this and I own a modded 2012 Subaru Impreza WRX(350+HP/13.1)! The fact is you can't afford a German car just like me, but that doesn't make them worse than our slightly less built and engineered Japanese cars so shut your mouths and get over the fact you're not making enough money to buy one(yes, I'm an engineer that hates his boss for having one too, but can get over myself).

[enlightenu]

German cars are all overly complicated headaches. Japanese is the way to go.

[varigdc10]

I have a 2007 Buick Lucerne with the Northstar V8 with 95K miles, besides normal wear and tear stuff and maintenance the only thing I had to replace was a water pump. This is the best car I ever had, and would buy another today, but they don't make them anymore, a very bad for Buick, and GM.

[N2un]

While reading one of the prolific responses above, I couldn't help but reflect on the irony contained within. The genius of the underlying Doctorate quality document lauding macro recycling and legacy birthed US manufacturing processes laced with the venom of an overtly political rant. The masking of symptoms created by a culture of greed and profit above all else with the sacrifice of a small group of organized hard working Professionals in the Auto Manufacturing Industry and those who negotiate for livable wages and working conditions on their behalf. The very idea that anyone associated with the final product is in any way responsible for planned obsolescence is absurd on its face. Those decisions, procurement of undesirable components, and implementation of the process is exclusively managerial and greed driven. While the Manifesto above arguably would not withstand the scrutiny of plagiaristic review, it candidly offers proof of the collective ignorance of sociopathic individuals.

[jimatmadison]

Their alternative to the $23k Ford is a $31k Toyota?!?

I can do an awful lot with that extra $8k. How can they put this crap out with a straight face?

[deanovzw]

Yeah, like save it when you need to repair that $23k POS. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra $8k on a quality vehicle.

[jjthejetplane11]

We have owned both the Beetle and the Passat. We had issues with both that we have never had with other cars before or since. It's well known about the quality issues with VW. Right now we have a Mazda 3 and a Toyota 4Runner. Both have over 100k miles and have never been in the shop. Bottom line: the Koreans and Japanese make a better car.

[alex_glaz]

I was certain Honda would come atthe bottom of the list judged by the high fatality rate its drivers experience in an actual collision. Honda/Accura have always been my least favorite car due to them being immitator and copy-cat whilst GM and Toyota have been innovators. Reliability is one thing but losing your life in an accident is another. The lopsided test results with a (literally) dummy does not cut it for me when it comes to safety comparison. It took Honda/Accura two decades to catch up with the rest of the world on ABS and airbag and even now they lack advanced safety features.

[delfmast]

WastingtonDC: Part Three: Look around for parts one and two of this continued comment.

Part Three:
Recent studies have revealed, and the Lame Stream Media have been forced to print, the facts, about lower accident fatalities, and costs in blood and treasure, for those American families empowered to "Ride High", above the impact death zones established and driven by our lobbyist owned Congressional Club's failing to serve America, most of my life.

My many comments related to using surplus 45KW fork lift batteries, in a family of Hybrid Vehicle Profit Centers, built on light, medium and heavy truck frames, instead of Chinese design, and Chinese quality, high energy batteries in BEV and other mini-hybrids, preceded the Re-Volting recalls that I predicted, based on the test fires I required and reviewed, as the Chairman's representative to the US Advanced Battery Thrust, prior to my retirement from JSOA, OJCS.

Having survived a number of mini-death traps bouncing off my larger diesel's heavy steel frames, including one that hit the same 250 gallon fuel tank, two times, annoyed, but uninjured, while I watched far too many Americans die, or get savaged in non-fatal minor accidents, during half million miles, living full time, in my post retirement family ICC Common Carrier auto hauler, I can attest to the fact that the untold numbers of US taxpayers killed, maimed out of the work force, and thus ruined for their whole economic lives, are far higher, due to the silly lobbyist rules enacted for special interest group's BEV and mini-hybrid supporters, political agendas, using highway safety, or fuel savings, as their excuses for stupid regulations.

We have also harvested US surplus metals, at pennies per pound, for farm fencing, roofing and electrical use, including life long dual use, as each pound eventually becomes part of our "real stuff" retirement accounts. Those untold tons of copper, brass, aluminum and titanium, et al, include numbers of whiskey barrel sized CuNickle (extreme original cost) submarine propeller shaft cradles, that will serve on our farms as perfect half ton gleaming strawberry or Petunia planters, while they also serve as part of our semi-precious metals retirement accounts, and reward US taxpayers for our bidding up treasury returns, during GovLiq auctions. Our many pallets full of Kingsbury ship bearings comprise similar tons of high value alloys, that Floyd, our able ktmachineandweld genius will recycle as windmill weight support bearings, to allow our farm's windmills, to instantly face the wind, for one percent of the cost of the usual Swiss or Chinese illegal copies of US and Swiss machines.

Wake up, go green, by paying US taxpayers fair prices, for recycled US taxpayer's property built better, and maintained better by US veterans, for all your life, than anything you can get today. You too can buy a half dozen or more exquisitely near new vehicles, stronger, safer and at far less total cost of ownership, for less than the price you'd pay for a single mini death trap, built with 5000 hour maximum life parts.

[delfmast]

WastingtonDC: Part Two:Look around for parts One, and Two of this continued comment.

It would take otherwise too expensive materials, to build up our camper vans and those motor homes best possible solar powered RV camper bodies without GovLiq. We use our own US taxpayer's highly insulated $14K plus operational working/living containers, designed to fit the F-700s F-350s and most other sizes of military vehicles, albeit, sometimes US taxpayers having read my comments, are now forcing me to bid between $320 and $1500 for the most perfect and best equipped of them, since my many comments on their great values. Fortunately, years ago, we picked up over a dozen $37,000 US Coast Guard cutter windshields, 1/2 inch thick, heated, with stainless steel frames, perfectly new in shipyard crates, for any windows Hippy needs to Huck Rivet into the sides of those motor home containers, long before my first articles spoiled my early, and easy win auction experiences.

With mostly Cummins two million miler six cylinder diesel engines, those last century trucks, most built at the Kentucky Ford Plant, before the 5000 hour maximum life (UAW unearned profits stream) parts designs we now live with, with their speedometer mileage readings at purchase, from 23,810 to 52K for the larger Fords, one can consider their fuel mostly free, since all of the vehicles listed cost less than 10% of their well documented remaining values. Even now, I rarely have to bid more than 1% to 2% of their replacement values, and quit bidding when the richest of you bid an item up to 5% of present day replacement costs. Remember, about all their present century replacement vehicles are plagued with impossibly high prices, and parts designed for parts sales profit steams, not the decades of trouble free driving UAW/CAW provided working Americans, a few decades ago. The only competition that remains, to this centuries ruined, and spoiled, UAW, and its sinister political masters, with their wholly owned demon-crat politicians, are the wonderfully skilled UAW/CAW workers of our last century. Those old hands built my 1985 International Eagle, Class 8, Forty Ton Car Carrier, that reached 1.25 million miles, at 3.25 MPG, with its 475HP Detroit 8V92, before its first in-frame overhaul. Its parts lasted from 300,000 to a million or more miles, in hard service, and it was still running, last time I checked, after my own, post retirement, 125 round trips, hauling 8 vehicles from NYC, Denver, Stockton, La, Houston, Miami, and back to Elma Lomax Incubator Farm Park, my Mother's farm, that she donated, and is now in use, for teaching aspiring NC farmers the same sustainable farming we will teach our grandkids, using these, now two million mile capable, Cummins bio-diesel capable vehicles, with fully synthetic motor oils that basically end wear on well maintained engines.

You surviving US veteran taxpayers get "All this, just for a flag." when you bid for our surviving military equipment antiques, in addition to the "free", Laws of Physics, insurance policies inherent in seating your entire family high above the usual impact zones for the mini-death traps our auto makers are being forced to build, by lobbyist driven CAFE standards that keep our highway fatalities above 40,000 per year. We love these nearly antique, various near show room new farm vehicles, (photos available) thus acquired. Pouring our vehicle buying dollars into our US treasury will allow us to count on continuous use, for half a century, of far more than enough bio-diesel capable vehicles to keep our crops growing, and our farm's domestic stock in feed, our extended families well fed and safe, and all of us safer in transport between and among our family farms, and the Motor Home camping station Mom's county manager installed for my use, beside the homes/office that I let them use, in teaching each class of aspiring NC farmers. The vehicles still perfectly usable parts, plentiful in junkyards worldwide, will allow for their occasional repairs and our continued farm use, for the several Bernake generations of hyperinflation, depression, or worse, that are now inevitable, with only the number of those generations, and their start and ending dates unknown.

[delfmast]

WastingtonDC: Part One: The Least Total Cost of Ownership, and the Utmost Green vehicle and energy sources in America are best bought by US taxpayers, from US taxpayers, with profits to our US treasury, all at a few percent of the cost to acquire a new replacement vehicle of the same brand and model.

Better yet, the US taxpayer owned vehicles offered have been operated very little, as low as 23,810 miles in my own experience, and maintained by the most expert quality committed mechanics, with no regard for the costs of maintenance. The total purchase price, plus a ten percent auction fee, often totals less than 10% of the lightly used, often near showroom new vehicles remaining value.

More importantly, since many of the best of the thousands of vehicles offered at www.govliquidation.com, in perfectly fair auctions, and only to US taxpayers, were made prior to Detroit/UAW adopting 5000 hour maximum parts life, to beef up their unearned profits, from failed parts sales streams, the half dozen last century and up to 2005 model Ford Explorer vehicles I have bid in, at incredibly low prices, will last longer than most new vehicles that cost 5, to 10, or even 25, to 50 times the prices we pay our US treasury, for older vehicles that comprise marvelous bargains. Using fully synthetic motor oils, my favorites among the US vehicles we have collected, will run the same 1.25 Million miles my last Class Truck ran, or perhaps twice that mileage, with individual parts lasting up to 300,000, or even a million miles.

Full disclosure: While the author owns no stock in Liquidity, the ultimate green contractor that recycles billions of dollars worth of near perfectly new US taxpayer owned military surplus, machines, metals, vehicles, et al, almost all better than anything available on the market, this century, I am constantly bidding for the most perfect of them, for my military collection, and for use on, and between our family and our friend's farms and hunting retreats.

Photos of the vehicles in hand are available, but you can go to www.govliquidation.com, the auction site, that posts videos of the vehicles starting, running perfectly, stopping, reversing, and parking with ease, with any defects noted set out in the listing.

I fear that my writing about GovLiquidation.com auctions may have increased my competitor's bidding for the best of US taxpayers goodies, thus reducing my wins of amazing bargains, and pumping up US treasury returns, from GovLiq auctions, to US taxpayers, of the stuff US taxpayers paid full retail for, decades ago. Just last month, you other US taxpayers bid well over my usual few percent of replacement costs, for a near new F-450 Dump truck, 26 miles from this computer's trading screens. In the first of three days of bidding, US taxpayers poured twice my usual bid into our US taxpayers treasury, as some half a dozen demanding US taxpayer's overbid me, and forced US taxpayers to accept some three or four times the bid I used to almost always win with, prior to my dozens of articles/commentary, praising this ultra green recycling effort.

This GovLiq auction process pours cash into our US treasury, and incredible bargains into the hands of the very US taxpayers who paid for the vehicles last century. How ultra-green is that, instead of pouring billions of US taxpayers dollars into high dollar political donor's flavor's of the day for wrong headed renewable thrusts, CAFE mileage standards, BEV and mini-Hybrid production, et al.

GovLiq sites, hundreds of them, nationwide, near enough to every American's home, are the sole source of my last decade's green vehicle purchases including: a 2005 Ford Explorer, one F-350 crew cab Range Maintenance Dually with straight sides, on oversized single rear tires, two F-700 Motor homes, including two crew cabs, with the six seat belts necessary to haul my Fab Four Grandkids between family farms, hunting and the beach, several G30 Chevy Custom Campers and Vans, and an F-800 Ford, single axle, over the road tractor, that allows my farmer friend, and factory owner, to move about my collection of a 13,984 pound 1970 F-5000 Ford 62 HP diesel farm tractor, with an unused long reach hydraulic mower, a new engine and transmission, and a pair of John Deere FD-1145 Yanmar Diesel golf course mower tractors that work perfectly between our vineyard's rows, and around our farmsteads, along with untold tons of other stuff necessary for use on our farms.

Come on in, US taxpayers need the millions that www.govliquidation.com pours into our US treasury each year, and you need a solid military veteran car, truck, van or camper, to haul you around, at minimum Total Cost of Ownership.

Continued: Just look for parts two and three to check the rest of the details of this comment on real US taxpayer bargains.

[Kieren1]

I don't know why anyone would buy a Toyota given their massive quality and safety issues over the last several years. Millions of cars recalled in the US alone and globally more. Ford, Hyundai, GM and VW much better options.

[hypnotoad72]

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_prius.html
(never mind their only advantage is in city driving; highway driving makes many cars, like the Focus and Fusion, almost on par (40/36 respectively)...

[kimsun3]

You nailed it. Avoid Toyota abd buy Ford. See these
http://www.carproblemzoo.com/most-deteriorated-car-brand.php
http://www.carproblemzoo.com/most-improved-car-brand.php