Thread: Whats the most reliable car you've owned?

29 year old hilux. no idea of mileage cos it hasn't turned since we bought it but it had 290,000 on the clock 10 years ago. Absolutely reliable. Seems to be indestructible.
We got it resprayed a year or 2 back. Triple coat, new tail gate = 8,000 THB.
Splendid bit of kit.

Honda CRV. Two of them. One 2000, the other 2005.

Volvo 850glt 1996, 21mpg in town 28mpg motorway, it never breaks down and never sees a garage apart from mot and service once a year.

I bought a Morris Ital when I was 15 to drive around my parents property. Bought it for 100 quid, no MOT / tax, and drove it around through the woods, dirt tracks, fields, and all sorts for 3 years and it never missed a beat. I thought it would only last the summer, but no! It went on and on and some idiot bought it off me for 200 quid when I was 18, MOT'd it and was happy as larry.



Lexus in the UK - no problems, but then again, there wouldn't be. VW Golf, same. But for age, condition, ill usage, and the expectation that it would fail, the Ital beats them all hands down.

1986 Volvo 240 auto Estate. Bought new and despite the abuse, never missed a beat.

1972 VW Super beetle, bought in 1982, sold in 1987.

It was cheap, and utterly reliable. One night me the girlfriend hopped in after a movie, I started it up and heard a "POOM". One of the spark plugs had blown clean out of the head.

I pulled the plug wire with the plug still in it from the distributor and got home on three cylinders, then got it to shop the next day where they put in a bushing so the plug could go back in the head and I think it cost me at the time something like $20.

I had a Beetle ,had it for years and it never tell me down.........then the Ex learnt to dive , hit a bus and made it a Write-off

Anything Toyota.

^Agreed. Had 2 Fortunas that never needed anything but diesel and water in the windscreen washer tank. Both serviced on schedule and lightly used however.

Also had a Nissan Micra in the 1990's....never let me down in 6 years and 35-40 MPG

Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon

29 year old hilux. no idea of mileage cos it hasn't turned since we bought it but it had 290,000 on the clock 10 years ago. Absolutely reliable. Seems to be indestructible.
We got it resprayed a year or 2 back. Triple coat, new tail gate = 8,000 THB.
Splendid bit of kit.

That'd probably have the 18R engine. Indestructible.

I stripped one down once because the engine hadn't had the oil changed for years. The bearings were shot, but I was amazed at how very little wear there was on the pistons and in the bore.

Also, the valve guides had so little wear they were almost like new ! And it had obviously not had the head done for some time.
Cast iron head, so I ran an orbital sander across the surface and bolted it on, without doing anything but replace the valve stem seals.

Honda City - Thailand 2010-2015; very cheap and zero problems; good city car, good on the motorway, easy to drive for the missus, comfortablish, converted to LPG to make it even cheaper and no problems with that either...

Anything Honda, 150,000,000 engines built and not 1 warranty claim.
:Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear.

1971/72 Fiat 127 and other like-models [including a Spider]
Had a thing for Fiats back in the day.
Fix It Again Tony.

Of the five cars I've owned, in order of most to least reliable: Toyota, Honda, BMW, Opel, Ford.

The Toyota Conquest 16V RSi was a real boy racer, still out there somewhere - collector's items they are.

1998 VW Golf, no issues so far.

Toyota Hilux for me too for reliability but it was also boring as hell to drive. Ex is still driving it after 10 years and apart from a puncture it only needed topping up with diesel and windscreen washer between services.

However, for reliable fun the Alfa GT 3.2 was for sure the best I ever had. Reliable engine and suspension and who gives a flying fcuk about the electrics when you can do a 800Km trip in a little over 5 hours (with one petrol stop). Drivers window was a bummer for opening when you turned the ignition off though.

Most unreliable was a Mazda 323 but that was probably my driving style....Came straight from a GPZ750 and had a few issues with tyres deflating (mmmm you can guess why) and blew a piston a couple of times (again you can guess why).

Originally Posted by thaimeme

1971/72 Fiat 127 and other like-models [including a Spider]
Had a thing for Fiats back in the day.
Fix It Again Tony.

I don't think he meant what cars have you owned, the operative term was 'reliable' cars. Since when have fiats been reliable.

2000 Honda CRV - currently at 212,000 miles and still running strong. A/C went out a week ago though.

Seriously, besides ultra-cheap cars from dodgy manufacturers I don't think you can go too wrong with pretty much any new cars these days when it comes to reliability.

It's not hard to get the impression that the majority of people on this forum are 40+ years old, so for sure most people can remember when they were younger and seeing cars on the side of the road daily with the bonnet/hood up and bewildered owners staring at a steam volcano or otherwise dead engine. You just don't see that these days with late model cars, or hear about friends cars being broken down with a stuffed clutch or blown diff sort of thing like we did in days gone by.