new car purchase....

[ParNone]

I had a Toyota Rav 4. My mom has it now and it's around 9 yrs old, with 90,000 miles on it. The only thing that's had to be fixed on it was replacing a battery. Toyotas are hard to beat in the reliability category.

The only 2 issues I had with it were, too small for the Collies and the seats could be more comfortable. My Jeep seats seem luxurious in comparison.

Par...

[Jessika]

I'm sure with a nine year old car you've had to replace more than jsut the battery.. lol. At that age you've HAVE to replace wear-and-tear parts like, belts, spark plugs, etc. :P

[Lobodeb]

My mom has a Toyota Camry and has had so many problems with it. She's forever at the mechanic with some difficulty or another.

[ParNone]

jessika writes:

I'm sure with a nine year old car you've had to replace more than jsut the battery.. lol. At that age you've HAVE to replace wear-and-tear parts like, belts, spark plugs, etc. :P

Actually nope. The battery's the only engine thing that's needed to be replaced. My mom replaced the tires at 60,000 miles, but I don't consider that repair work. She did mention the brakes are finally needing to be done, but getting 90,000 miles out of them, is pretty good I would think.

[Jessika]

jessika writes:

Actually nope. The battery's the only engine thing that's needed to be replaced. My mom replaced the tires at 60,000 miles, but I don't consider that repair work. She did mention the brakes are finally needing to be done, but getting 90,000 miles out of them, is pretty good I would think.

That's actually really unsafe that you haven't done any routine maintenance on the car in nine years. Wow. Brakes should be changed at least once every one or two years depending on driving.. have you never had your oil changed either? That's really bad on your car!

Oh and the battery has nothing to do with the engine :P

[Logan]

I don't consider oil changes, new tires, new brakes, etc as "repair" items. They are regular maintenance items in my opinion.

I think you're going to get tons of different opinions when you ask a question like this, just like you have! Everyone has had a bad experience with one manufacturer or another. I have never owned a car that was not made in the US. Never purposely avoided the foreign made cars, just never found one that captured my interest the way the American made ones did. Of course with gas costing more these days, I may change my mind, having driven pretty big, gas guzzlers for many years now (dog and kid hauling cars).

I wish you lots of luck with your decision. You know, whatever makes you the most comfortable, driving, expense wise, insurance wise, etc, is what you should get! I also like to look at the warranty situation, especially when buying a brand new car. Good luck and have fun!