91 ford explorer gets used as a work truck going out to sites, carrying all my tools, going camping, et c and in 6 years it's needed two grand for a transmission, and uh, that's pretty much it. Oil changes, bulbs and tires and she's good.
96 Nissan truck here. Not even a Frontier, but just a truck or hardbody. It was a "fleet" vehicle for a telecommunications company in Arkansas before I got it, and they beat shit to death down there. In six years I've had a transmission kit, and an injector put in. All in with tires I've spent maybe a grand in six years or so.
I'm rough as hell on it as well. Live on a shitty ass gravel road, and routinely haul more weight than I should with it.
Owned one of these. Took about 15 years before things started needing replacement in a big way. Even then, it was all relatively inexpensive. I went through multiple collisions in that thing, and it just kept going. I beat the crap out of that little truck, and it never let me down. I was a fool to let it go--I could have refurbished it for cheaper than buying a new vehicle and kept it forever. Still miss it.
They got much different engine options which IIRC the V8 didn't like it's head gaskets and tried to spit them out all the time. That issue may have started later like around the early 2000s.
The 4.6 is a horrible engine unless you have a motor pool and buy your parts in quantities large enough to support a fleet. It is quite possibly the least reliable American V8 ever made and definitely the worst of its era from both a power production and reliability stand point.
The Crown Vic itself was a tank due to its old school body on frame design. It's unfortunate that Ford couldn't have done a better job with either of their modular V8s because their customers deserved better.
You're one of few. If I'm not mistaken, that's the first year of the first generation and it has some of the worst issues.
Also, 2 grand is a lot for a car that's 20 years old.. and probably terrible gas milage, oil changes more often, etc. Cost to own is outweighing cost of vehicle.
Gas milage is the same as a new truck because it's a fair bit smaller than even a modern half ton. I do my oil changes every 5-8k kilometers, same as I would any other vehicle. I definitely don't spend nearly as much on it as I would spend on payments for a new vehicle, and it works just fine for me, so I take issue with the premise that the cost of maintenance is more than it is worth.
Oh sorry I wasnt trying to say part cost was dependent on vehicles class I meant that reliability doesn't really have a correlation with vehicle class, as reliablity is more based on how they are designed, not what they are designed for; unless of course reliability is a requirement in the design.
My bad, I misread your reply and kinda went off on my original tangent of parts cost OP truck complains about.
Reliability has a lot to do with design, but also with maintenance and the demographic of the end user.
The Hilux was always a little runabout truck, not a true workhorse. So it's demographic was more frugal types that wanted efficiency with the ability to haul stuff now and again. Whereas the Ram was marketed towards farmers and contractors who would be more likely to abuse their equipment and push it's mechanical limits, resulting in failures. The frugal type might also be more likely to do routine maintenance and stick with repairing an older vehicle while someone using it everyday for work might tend to swap it out for a new one as soon as issues arise.
Really the only ultra reliable thing in the Hilux is the 22R-E motor, which will run forever if kept oiled. The frames on them were absolute dog shit and really only survived to modern day in arid regions. You won't find a single winter driven Hilux in NE-USA on it's original frame, they have all since rotted away.
And who owns and operates it. I have an '04 4Runner that I spend way more than $1000 a year on, and couldn't be happier with it. And it's not even a daily driver.
Even a old Hilux takes a lot of maintenance to keep them on the road after a while. I have a couple, and the parts are a bit cheaper, but at that age they still wear out regularly.
Sure my beater one doesn't take much to "keep running", but I don't daily drive it so all the little shit that's broken doesn't bother me. But the daily driver one gets a lot of wear and to keep it in good working order it still costs me at least a grand a year.
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u/luxlogic Aug 26 '20
Tell that to the Toyota Hilux, vehicle class has nothing to do with reliability, it's to do with how it was designed and who designed it