Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 15:40:24 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: 50 worst cars, and the vanagon isn't one of them
In-Reply-To: <008301c7f329$9466c400$bb5f9904@gpa207joel>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nope, I don't see Vega on their either.
Further evidence it's not a very good list.
GM in particular, has made some of the cheapest and worst junk ever sold in
the US. I'm appalled that they even stay in business.....and indeed they are
slipping, month by month, year by year............toyota will take over
soon.
Toyota will also decline somewhat......it's turning into GM and one thing
that sure might hurt them is unionization of American Toyota manufacturing
plants. Toyota will continue to rise, while GM sinks, while Toyota also
becomes GM-ified.
Regarding short engine life, as in the Vega - the first Mazda rotary cars -
same thing ....engines only lasted 30K or so.
There are many cheap and terrible cars not on that list. Many of them I
agree with, like the Renault Dauphine.
I didn't read what the guy wrote, but a Dauphine basically can not cruise on
the freeway on a hot day at any decent speed without overheating. It's
fundamentally way underbuilt for our market and conditions.
That is says the Lambo LM002 is 'one of the worst 50 cars of all time'
....if he wants to show how they break down a lot or whatever .....fine, but
he doesn't. He's just critical of the car because it exists.
He might have said '50 Worst Popular Cars' for example - that might make
more sense.
The list is a bit of a joke, but interesting all right.
Take his criticism of the BMW 7 series when it came out. If he wants to
list '50 worst Features on cars' ............and mention the 7-series'
iDrive system - yes, most definitely ! ...............but to list that car
as one of the 50 worst of all time ......due that one crazy feature and the
controversial styling ......sorry .......the list isn't titled correctly -
it's more like a personal list of what things in various cars bug the author
the most.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
joel walker
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 2:37 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: 50 worst cars, and the vanagon isn't one of them
> Is the Vega in there?? Couldn't find it. It should be!
> To this day, I can't believe Chev made, or sourced, that failure of
> an
> engine with its' piston/rings scraping away on aluminum cylinder
> walls.
> How could they do that? Surely they must have known.
they knew. they just didn't care.
the air filter on the vega was $40 back then. you replaced the ENTIRE
metal air cleaner, not just a paper element. the whole thing was a
sealed unit... into the trash.
it had metric AND sae nuts and bolts all over the engine.
the interior panels were plastic, and the holes/slots for door handles
and window cranks were cut out jaggedly, as if by hacksaw.
and the killer was, my mother bought one (against my advice), and it
lasted about 30,000 miles ... but beyond the warranty! ... when the
front lower a-arm fell off the car as she was backing out of a
neighbor's driveway.
it wasn't just a failure, it was a disaster!!
and nobody sued GM, like they did with ford and the pinto.
wonder why?
OVC: my vanagons NEVER had those problems!!! i've never even heard of
a vanagon lower (or upper!) a-arm falling off. :)
unca joel
