At the moment it seems like Volvo to me. There seems to be plenty of 15-20+ year old V70s driving around in my area. What's Volvo's secret? Just the quality of the basics that make up the car, I guess?
After that I'd say Mercedes, but surprisingly you don't see many 20+ years old BMW's or Audis. Why is that, given all of the hype around these two brands? Poorer quality components?
Isn't this a case of who produced the most robust cars 20 years ago?
I'd be amazed if modern cars lasted 20 years, there's so much technology in them now that they'll become too expensive to repair and I suspect the whole motoring landscape will look a whole lot different in 20 years time.
"A man of little significance"
Seems to be vauxhall corsas in our nearest town. Though most have obviously had some bodywork, and most sound like their exhausts are rotted out.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
The owners make a lot of difference. Most Volvo V70 owners tend to keep their cars for a long time and when sold off, most Volvos are used for the school run, holidays etc. Volvos aren never used by young kids with white baseball or Burberry caps.Originally Posted by noTAGlove
Menno
VW Golf mk II (mk I not bad as well) has got to be the best out there. Loads still around of what was a run of the mill family hatchback, so not guaranteed a cosseted life like a Merc etc.
EDIT :
You don't see Escorts of Astras of the same era around.
EDIT 2 :
I had a frontal collision in a mk II Golf with a Escort of the same vintage - a slightly buckled front wing on the Golf - the front of the Escort was a complete mess :D :D
EDIT 3 :
God, I miss proper, solid, black bumpers that did the job intended :D :lol:
Landrover :)
Cheers
Simon
Ralph Waldo Emerson: We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
Toyota. :)
Mercedes W124’s get my vote (millions of foreign taxi’s would attest to that too) and I’ve found VW & Audi from the late 80’s/early 90’s to be very well built.
Not a car, but the Toyota pick-up’s I use out in the middle east are just unbelievable in the longevity stakes and a Land Cruiser I had from a fellow forum member looked and drove nowhere near it’s age and mileage. 8)
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
The electronic components are going to be the big problem in the future. It is already becoming difficult to get some electronic parts for vehicles build in the mid 1990's.
Robustness and reliability are not one and the same. For me being robust means taking abuse outside of the intented operating profile. Reliability is not breaking down inside of the intended operating profile.
I think that the older Diamler vehicles are a good combination of both. Robust and reliable.
Another vote for a Mercedes, e.g. The W124. I nearly bought one a year or so ago and they seem to be appreciating in value too!
How about Honda? My old 1994 civic was superb and when I sold it was still good for another 10 years I reckon.
I've just bought a 12 year old Volvo V70 t5 for mountain bike transport duties. It's in amazing condition compared to other cars of the same era. No rust on the bodywork and the leather interior is virtually unmarked, even on the drivers bolster which often show signs of wear. Drives spot on too.
Isn't another factor here that the golf is more desirable as a classic, iconic car? i.e. More likely to be kept, and well maintained by its owners
Pah.....it was an Austin Maxi. More tank than a tank,and impossible to damage except with use of nuclear weapons.
all these replies are totally wrong
The Morgan Motor Company makes the most robust cars
Toyota/Lexus would be my view. Although - Rolls Royce are pretty solid too :-)
Cheers,
There are lots of old honda cr-v's about, some well over 20. My last decent banger was a Pajero, which I had for 5 years. Not a bit of rust, and made in 1989!
Toyota Hi-luxYep. Jeep and Landrover, too.
Wasn't jeep the worst reliability brand in the UK and had the worst warranty claim records? & this was not that long ago. :(
It's just a matter of time...
A lot of good cars were taken off the road when he offers on minimum £2k or whatever were being offered off new cars after discount etc. I had friend who bought things like IQ's with £1500 discount and then £2k allowance for an old 5 series or a rusted out Volvo 345 (which must be one of the worst cars ever!).
It's just a matter of time...
Id forgotten those horrid 345's. Only those with out any care of what they drove had one. Usually no one under 70 either! Dreadful.. like a swedish allegro :lol:
Porsche 911 of course.
Bristol of course!
;-)
Saab , " Hewn from granite " was the description I remember from Autotrader :lol: . And it was pretty close to the mark .
Out of modern cars, I'd say Volvo and Audi.
I think Mercedes and BMW may have been up there too twenty years ago but seem to have slipped.
TVR
The Mercedes G-Wagen is a vehicle that makes most others look like they are motorised Airfix kits. Hand built in Austria, for Merc, they feel like they are hewn from a single piece of granite. Just a shame the rest of the Merc range wasn't built as well :wink:
The type of car you see still being used at 20+ years old doesn't always have a great deal to do with how durable they are, but it does have a lot to do with their image. You don't see many older BMW's and Mercs because generally the type of people that buy them new don't want a twenty year old car, regardless of how well its holding up. A twenty year old Land Rover still does the job the owner wants it to, ie driving of road with stuff in. A twenty year old BMW no longer fulfils its intended purpose, ie impressing other middle-managers.
A lot of the older Mercs have been exported, because they do last.
The price of parts is a big factor too.
I'd say Mercs and Volvos; both were massively over-engineered, and don't rust.
Jap cars see pretty solid.
Also BMWs from the 1990s / early 2000s are robust. My family have a 1999 BMW 728, we have put 150,000 miles on the clock, we thrash her pretty hard and only a year or so ago took her across Europe regularly cruising at 130mph. Only fault in over a decade was the parking sensors failing after a bump in a car park. Can't ask for much more from a car.
Very much depends on era, 80s/90s Germans were very good, old Mercedes are very prevalent in Africa and former-USSR.
If I had to buy one vehicle today that woud have to do me forever, it would be a Toyota Land Cruiser :)
We scrapped an austin a30 on scrappage scheme, a lovely golf vr6 and a lancia delta
I can tell you the worst car in the world cos I had it :(
BMW318iS
It cost me more time off work than all the other cars that i've owned in over 30 years, also, I probably spent four times on repairs than what I paid for the heap :lol:
John :)
Certainly NOT Peugeot. That's for sure.
I think they claim that 75% of all Land-Rovers ever made are still running...
That must be a record that would take some beating. Although they don't mention that it's no thanks to JLR that they are still running - they tend not to support cars over about 7 to 10 years old very well - and unless the part you want is still used in a current model, then you're out of luck. Fortunately the parts are all available thanks to the pattern part makers of the world who make better quality parts for a fraction of the cost!
Also worth mentioning that most Land-Rovers over 20 years old are like Trigger's broom.
This old goat I picked up for a tour of Western Australia in 2011 certainly ranks among the toughest machines of any type that I've encountered. An absolute tank of an ex-mining truck, with God-knows-how-many kms on the 5-digit odometer. The FJ-45 based Land Cruisers are just a completely different species.
Aussies absolutely adored the rusty old thing, much to the frustration of the Aston Martin driver who was flashing his keys like bait at the gastro-pub.
Bought by young men of a certain image with no, uh, visible means of employment, then lowered with cheap springs on the original, worn-out shocks, fitted with cheap 30+ kg alloys and no-brand tyres from the local Halfords and then ragged around town centres until they blow, then scrapped.
There aren't many 20+year old Audis around because they were very few in the first place; it wasn't until the mid-90s that Audi started making a serious impression. And front-end shimmy aside, 1980s and early 1990s (E34 5-series, E32 7-series) are amongst the best cars BMW ever built. As ever, it's not the quality of the car that's the problem, but the quality of the people who ended up driving them.
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
Harsh, but true. The MB W124 chassis, especially in its estate configuration, seems to have less appeal to that demographic. I reckon they're about as indestructible as it gets for a German road car, although the more primitive W123 does pip them in that regard.
Russians. When I was in military Finns defence forces used these...ZIL-131 things. It was not allowed to smoke 2m closer to car because of danger of explosion caused by gasoline fumes. :shock: There is also urban legend(?) that truck was designed so that you can make fire under engine to melt it during -40*C winter. 8)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIL_131
-OD
I would say my mercs have done pretty well, esp the w124's I have had. Still ticking along and easy to replace bits on them, still have parts support from MB. I would love G Wagon of that ilk.
IMHO:
If robust = reliable, then Honda all day long. I believe (this was a couple of years ago) that they'd never had a VTEC engine let go. Millions built.
If robust = reliable in an inhospitable environment, a Toyota Land Cruiser.
My little 11 year old Civic is fantastic apart from the bearings in the gearbox sund like they any shape but round
John :P
^
I suppose afeter 11 years of use its not surprising. Has swmbo driven it a lot??
With the T at the top of the W123 tree.
We never had another car as rugged as that. LandRovers included as ours were far from reliable. The TD5 was very impressive though and great fun to ´upgrade´.
As I was (am) not impressed by the W124 I went Volkswagen, Mercedes (190 mistake), Audi, Renault, Nissan.
I then opted for the SsangYong models that use the same techology with later generation engine and DANA axles added for 4WD.
It was even sold as a Merc in some parts of the world larger than the whole of Europe...
First one and to our :shock: a second
The Musso is uncanningly similar to a 4x4 version of our old Touring and falls hopelessly short when compared to anything late 20th century on any other front but rugged functionality in the campo.
I can imagine that the undercar electrics are not the ´most robust´ in the combination of moist UK with lots of winter road salt, but over here they are on par with the W123T and beating 4x4 Toys bar the old Hi-Lux.
Mine is over 10 years old now and almost as new.
In our village there are quite a lot running about daily into the olive groves and most of those are from the last century :mrgreen:
I would definitely not have even thoúght about these cars as being ´most robust´ but experience has put them on my list.
I suppose the Musso/Korando are the Molnija360x on wheels :albino:
Right down to the licence and production line to build the Musso and Korando being bought by the Russian. They are still made under the TAGAZ brand.
The Musso has made in Iran since 1995. Iran even contributed some to a UN action :mrgreen:
As proof of the pudding of robust goes, rather :bounce:
With the T at the top of the W123 tree.
We never had another car as rugged as that. LandRovers included as ours were far from reliable. The TD5 was very impressive though and great fun to ´upgrade´.
As I was (am) not impressed by the W124 I went Volkswagen, Mercedes (190 mistake), Audi, Renault, Nissan.
I then opted for the SsangYong models that use the same techology with later generation engine and DANA axles added for 4WD.
It was even sold as a Merc in some parts of the world larger than the whole of Europe...
First one and to our :shock: a second
The Musso is uncanningly similar to a 4x4 version of our old Touring and falls hopelessly short when compared to anything late 20th century on any other front but rugged functionality in the campo.
I can imagine that the undercar electrics are not the ´most robust´ in the combination of moist UK with lots of winter road salt, but over here they are on par with the W123T and beating 4x4 Toys bar the old Hi-Lux.
Mine is over 10 years old now and almost as new.
In our village there are quite a lot running about daily into the olive groves and most of those are from the last century :mrgreen:
I would definitely not have even thoúght about these cars as being ´most robust´ but experience has put them on my list.
I suppose the Musso/Korando are the Molnija360x on wheels :albino:
Right down to the licence and production line to build the Musso and Korando being bought by the Russian. They are still made under the TAGAZ brand.
The Musso has made in Iran since 1995. Iran even contributed some to a UN action :mrgreen:
As proof of the pudding of robust goes, rather :bounce:
Crazy to think that the older Merc stuff was better than the stuff that followed, when they went all US crap.
It's just a matter of time...
Definitelyweird when the stuff the made in the Korean factory was better...
´Better´ in this case stripped from the advances in roadholding, comfort, performance etc and reduced to robust practicality :wink:
Friends of mine in Oz still have one of these, just as ancient, and just as tough in the places you need it to be. Been going for years and still is!
This is my old one..
I'm in the process of looking for another decent MK2 Golf GTI, lots and lots of rusty ones out there. My choice, there are still loads going around mine's a 95 with over 300K miles on it and pretty much rust free, a better truck than a Toyota by a country mile (I've had three Hilux's). Go and have a look at a similar aged Jap/Euro pickup and they are plenty rusty.
Built Tough
I'm trying to imagine Eddie backing that down his driveway...should sort out the chimney issue pdq!I'm in the process of looking for another decent MK2 Golf GTI, lots and lots of rusty ones out there. My choice, there are still loads going around mine's a 95 with over 300K miles on it and pretty much rust free, a better truck than a Toyota by a country mile (I've had three Hilux's). Go and have a look at a similar aged Jap/Euro pickup and they are plenty rusty.
Built Tough
Swmbo spent considerable amounts of (my) cash for lessons, then test just to decide after three days that she didn't like driving :shock:
John :P
Bowler.
Either a Wildcat or the newer Nemesis. If you want it more "domestic", go for the ESX
If you pay heed to the JD Power surveys for the last 10+ years the answer is Lexus. I'd consider the best to be one of Lexus, Toyota or Honda
Ahh......... you've been [s:3pte2ex0]tangoed[/s:3pte2ex0] taken for a mug:lol: :lol:Swmbo spent considerable amounts of (my) cash for lessons, then test just to decide after three days that she didn't like driving :shock:
John :P
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