We’ve been slagging pretty hard on GM lately, so let’s try something a bit different today. Obviously, Japanese cars overall have a better than average rep for reliability (although I’m sure some would object). The object today is to identify the worst Japanese cars, primarily in terms of their reliability and/or durability, although styling, performance and other features are all part of the equation. Now I realize most of them were quite prone to rusting back in the 70s and 80s, so that’s probably a pretty universal quality. The goal is to create a “10 Worst Japanese Cars” list.
One important caveat: Please stick to the actual cars and their issues, keep it civil, and let’s not get into stereotyping their drivers or into related politics. The topic itself should have plenty of scope without diverging needlessly. Thanks.
Well, when a Cherry has a backfire, is it a popped cherry? 😛
Or a cherry bomb…
Second-generation Honda Insight: yes, let’s compete against the Prius by taking our outdated, fragile hybrid powertrain and just undercutting the Prius’s price! There was little reason to buy one over a Fit, and even less reason to buy one over a Prius c when that arrived.
Mazda CX-7: lousy engine.
Greatest missed opportunity – tooling up the demand-limiting two seater body for the CR-Z rather than offering a sporty secondgen Insight with a manual transmission that’s still a full five-seater 5-door hatchback.
OK, that’s the second greatest – the greatest missed opportunity was not offering the CR-Z as an ultralightweight non-hybrid true successor to the CRX.
Yes, the CR-Z was a huge flop as well. Talk about design-by-committee! I know about the newly released OEM supercharger kit, but isn’t it a little late?
What do you think of the Lysholm system used by MB on it’s 2003 to 2006 range of all alloy 5439cc AMG CL, E and SL Classes? 600 horsepower plus and over 800Nms of torque with a simple pulley change to the supercharger (ie: a simple change from the OEM 89mm dia upper drive pulley down to a $275 83mm dia aftermarket top drive pulley)
These were (are) quicker than the Ferrari Maranello. .with the 89mm OEM pulley still in place. .
Now these are cheap to buy secondhand ..most with low kms ..careful use. . what an ENGINE
Nothing wrong with superchargers! What I’m saying is that the CR-Z likely would have been more successful if this option had been offered at release, before the media and market deemed the CR-Z a slow compromise.
Don’t know what to say about this one. I actually liked those early Japanese cars. Here in AZ they didn’t rust. I loved the fact that they were bare bones and unrefined. They were usually a blast to drive. I loved the mid ’70s Honda Civic. I drove a ’77 Datsun pickup for awhile, back in the early ’80s, though it wasn’t mine. Manual shift. Didn’t even come with A/C. The doors were about 2″ thick, and the suspension? well there really wasn’t any. Hit a bump and you knew it. Wish they still made them. I also owned an ’88 Suzuki Samurai. It also had a lot of rough edges, much like the Datsun. I bought it well used and abused, gave it a lot of TLC, and put another 80,000 miles on it. Despite my somewhat aggressive driving style, I never rolled it over. I’m sure it could be done, I’m also sure I could roll pretty much anything if I tried hard enough. Higher profile vehicles are easier to roll than lower profile vehicles. Common sense should apply here. Mine came with warning stickers in it. But IMO, Consumer Reports grossly overstated it. Remember the Isuzu Trooper and Bronco II came under fire from them as well.
So to sum it up, I guess that to me, the only bad Japanese cars are the ones being built today. Even the Toyota Yaris is much to bland and boring to be any fun to me.
Did you ever see how CR tested the Samurai? No kidding it rolled, I think the testing was a little jaded myself.
Mitsubishi Mirage…Need I say more? It has no power
Agreed. Not up to the standard of some of its predecessors, let alone modern standards. What were they thinking?
i love the purple they have it in too. that green will fade,
For current models, the Mirage is absolutely awful. Actually, it’s worse than awful, it’s nothing… Its predecessor in the NZ market was the Colt, which although not fabulous looked so much better than the Mirage. Mirage? – I wish it was…
In terms of looks, I’d put my money on the Toyota Tundra, the current Infiniti line of cars and crossovers, the current line of Lexus cars. My personal least favourite Japanese car was the Toyota MR2. It wasn’t a bad looking car, but it was too small! It had plenty of leg room, but no head room whatsoever.
The first generation MR2 was completely blown away by the Pontiac Fiero. But where Pontiac dropped the Fiero in ’88 (in typical GM fashion), Toyota had the chutzpah to redesign the MR2 and keep it going several more years.
Aside from being drop dead boring, most of today’s Japanese cars seem to lack the quality they used to have.
I have been looking for a new car in the $20K range for the past couple of years, and just can’t seem to find anything that looks like it would be reliable enough to last 200,000 miles. Not long ago, that was pretty much a given for most new cars.
Somebody mentioned the Tundra. About 5 years ago, my ex brother in law bought a brand new Tundra. It was completely falling apart after less than 100,000 miles. And it was built in Texas.
Are you serious about Fiero blowing away the MR2?
Yeah, they were both overweight and underpowered. Too heavy to handle properly for a mid engine two seater. The Pontiac was a slightly worse because of its suspension and even heavier curb weight.
Perhaps he is referring to the smoke and flames for which the Fiero was famous.
Anything Isuzu!
Nope. Chevy LUV trucks were awesome.
I’ll say modern Toyota Corollas because they are such utterly mediocre cars from a company capable of doing so much better.
Also the second generation Scion Xb for betraying all that was good about the first generation.
Other than that I’d probably have to reach all the way back to Consumer Reports’ hatchet job on the Subaru 360.
Hatchet Job on the Subaru 360? I actually saw a few of those in my hometown in Pennsylvania when they were new to the American market. In fact, I remember the name of our local dealer – Miller’s Department Store. My family was still driving SAAB 96’s in those days so we understood about small slow cars, but the 360 was no car… It should have never been allowed on American roads. I also remember a TV news report in 1969 when some lady in an Impala crushed one, killing the driver. They only weighed 1,000 lbs according to Wiki, and took 37 seconds to reach 60 mph, their top speed. In contrast, research shows a 67 VW transporter took ‘only’ 25 seconds.
I lived in Japan for about a decade in the 80’s and owned an old Kei (A Honda Life) and saw a few Subaru 360’s on their own turf…. And they were small and slow even by Kei car standards. I’ll leave you to ponder that
+1 for the Corolla comment. If Toyota buyers looked elsewhere, they’d find better cars – like the Mazda 3.
74-? Datsun B210 & F10 Really get the “Beaten By The Ugly Stick” Award. ewee!
Bad: 58-59 Toyopet Crown (my mom said it was built out of scrap Lucky Lager beer cans), If it wasn’t for the Land Cruiser, Toyota in the U.S. would not exist.
The overwhelming majority of Japanese cars aren’t aimed at a dude like me, and really have nothing to offer. So I guess its a loaded question, coming my way. But what the hey…
One that really stands out to me is the 3rd gen Eclipse (2000-2000). The first and especially 2nd gen models…now those are a shining example of Japanese cars that really DO resonate with me, in that they look sharp and in higher models they are true performance cars with plenty of room to upgrade. The 3rd gen really missed the mark. Turbo 4cyl…gone. AWD….gone. Clean and sharp styling…gone. In its place an overweight, poorly styled, overstuffed luxo coupe designed not for Fast N Furious, more like Fat N 50. Like young Marlon Brando, suddenly it became old flabby Brando. A once hot and desireable halo car that was the darling of anyone who hot-rodded Asian iron neutered and softened into a ride fit for a middle aged empty nester who wanted to stroke their ego enough to ‘feel’ cool and young again yet without actually offering the substance of a true performance car. The 4th gen was a half hearted effort to try to capture the 2nd gen magic but you could just hear a balloon deflating in the background as it faded away. The slap in the face came in the form of a Ralliart concept using the 4th gen car stuffed with Evo drivetrain…the car it SHOULD have been from the start.
And I know how this is gonna go over, but Im going to cite the Toyota Camry as a mention for a very bad Japanese car. Sure, its well built, reliable and safe. Its also BOOOOR-IIIIIINGGGG. Sorry guys, but the lack of any aggravating flaws or any irritating habits does NOT make something great. You wont hear any death metal, gangsta rap, gutter punk, or ska music on Muzak. That’s why they play it in stores, it designed to be as inoffensive as possible. Who’s going out buying albums of Muzak? Plain white bread may not cause anyone to have acid reflux but who’s ordering it for the main course? See where Im going with this? The reason I would call the Camry a ‘bad car’ isn’t for the mechanical breakdowns, deathtrap safety issues or horrendous build quality of ‘deadly sin’ cars. Its the systematic lowering of the bar that has sent the entire auto industry scrambling to build the blandest, least invigorating thing they can in order to appeal to the most apathetic of customers. By simply pandering to the lowest common denominator, I know of no other car that has caused such mass contentment by offering so little positive traits. If the best thing your car can offer is “it doesn’t fall apart immediately”, then all you’ve really accomplished is the perfection of mediocrity. If the Camry and a couple other sedans were the only ones aiming for the bottom feeder buyers, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But like a virus, (meh Bola?) its infected like 90% of the industry to the point that most everything is a beige/grey blandmobile. Its causing younger generations to become less and less excited about cars and driving because the very impetus for being a gearhead has been stripped away.
I don’t know that the Camry is entirely to blame here for the trend towards the snoozemobile, so much as two other factors.
The first is the lack of opportunity to ‘drive’ instead of ‘commute’.
The second is a bit more complex, but someone did a study (I wish i could remember where I saw it) that most people prefer a known and consistent mediocrity to an unknown of higher objective quality. One can see this manifested in the McD’s, Waffle House, Taco Bell, etc, found at every freeway exit across the country.
I Don’t think the Camry is to blame for this either, not completely anyway. The first point I disagree with wholeheartedly though. The lack of opportunity to ‘drive’ instead of ‘commute’ shouldn’t favor the bland dull paper bag choice. If know you’re going to be stranded on a desert island all by your lonesome for several years without rescue you’re not going to bring a textbook about how grass grows to pass the time. If I’m in a car I enjoy simply being in, regardless of speed, it would make the stop and go that much more bearable. I might just pull off at an exit stretch out and wait out the traffic whilst sitting staring at my awesome car if it’s bad enough. In a Camcord I’m just frustrated, I want out of this dull appliance as soon as humanly possible.
The second point, I suppose. But is that really a desire for mediocrity or is it merely perception of what is now considered tried and true? Maybe people select bland and boring because it’s just manifested itself into the “common sense” choice? There is generally a perception today that interesting always has a downside, whether it’s true or not.
I’m not a Camry fan at all (well, except for the ’93-’96s, those were truly good cars), but I view it as more of a symptom rather than a cause. Too many people prefer the “safe” or “comfortable” choice with no risk involved. People today are so damned afraid of risk, even involving something so benign as buying a car. I just don’t get it…
Yup, the Camry is soooo loathed and hated. I mean, a 1965 BelAir with 409 and 4 on the floor was just soooo much better in the twisties. Almost all standard size Chevrolet cars came with the 409 and manual transmission, along with the firm, buttoned down suspension for which the awesome ’65 was known.
I do hear that GM built some of the cars, but only a tiny fraction, with Stovebolt Six or the 283 Small Block, mated to something called “Powerglide,” but 99.9% of all Chevies sold in 1965 had the 409 and REAL manual transmission, since all CC posters would never drive an automatic. The commute was awesome in those days, too, since the 409 could easy do 5 L/100 km. Try that in your under-powered, V-6 Camry, I mean, that’s like 215 cubic inches, hahaha! What’s more, a 1965 Chevrolet was known to be impervious to rust, and had brakes that would stop you from 100 km/h in 40 metres, and do it repeatedly.
The Camry sure sucks. I hear that V-6 is so slow that it can’t catch a golf cart.
Which Camry has the V6? is that the grey one or the silver one?
Ah yes, the classic straw argument, Canucknucklehead. Answer me this Batman… what will a current Camry be worth @ 50 years of age? Answer… nothing. Scrap value. Why? Because if they are even remembered they will be remembered as nothing but appliances. We get it here, you love Camrys. So what if it outcorners a ’62 Impala? People fondly remember those and will pay big bucks for them. An old Camry will never be worth a plugged nickel. And BTW, Camry 4cyl sales outnumber V6 sales by a very large margin. That tells me something about Camry owners right there. Gotta go with the “safe” choice, not the “fun” one.
About as much as a 50 year old Chevrolet I’d wager. But what does it matter, anyway? The Camry is a mass transit device, just like the vast majority of 1965 Chevrolet cars. There are almost no 238/Powerglides left, yet millions were sold. Only the rare ones retain any value.
And stop being silly. I’ve driven the four cylinder Camry at length, and the car does not need the V-6.
Not everyone is the same as me. I like a certain type of car, and other people like a certain type of car. That does not make that person “bad” or “stupid.” It means they have different choices/priorities than I do.
I think that applies to politicians too Andrew!
Totally agree. In fact very few newer cars of any brand, at least affordable ones, are built for someone like me. I want at least a little “fun” to go with my cars. Time to go back and take another look at the Miata.
I had a Sonic turbo rental recently. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly comfortable.
Love your “meh-Bola” comment. Toyota need to hear this!
Nissan Murano convertible. I mean, why? It is so awkward looking and expensive.
Another +1 for the Sammy. I don’t think the X90 has any friends though. I think it even tops the F10 for this list, at least for the U.S. market. The Murano convertible is a podium contender also.
The early 1960s Toyota Crown had a massive X frame chassis that was so heavy it slowed the car down considerably. It was also a failure in America due to the lack of performance.
Mitsubishi Precis, Mitsubishi Diamante (always made me think of some weird Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant).
I can think of some other Asian POSes but not Japanese, even though I’m not really a fan of Japanese ride, handling, or styling (just drove an ES350 and found the ceiling uncomfortably close), I have to concede their overall efficiency, reliability, and robustness.
To be fair the Precis was a Korean built car. Yes it was the Colt in an Italian suit but it was built in Korea by Hyundai.
They only called it Diamante in America. In Australia it was the Verada.
And in the U.K. I think it was still called Sigma, which was the model it replaced in the U.S.
It was Diamante in New Zealand too.
Diamante 3.5 is good 180kw power versus dollar value for money here, they are not slow, and ride and handle quite well but rear seat legroom is quite restricted in the wagon version (Magna), and the autobox needs an aftermarket oilcooler added to be reliable, reasonably easy on fuel, not a bad cruiser, has side airbags, front and rear window seals tend to leak, brakes are average, not perfect like a Toyopet but they are not exactly POS category in my view .. 🙂
Well, plenty of interesting nominations above! I’ll add my vote to the Datsun B210 / 120Y (why, why, why???). I like all Nissans other weirdo-styling cars from the 70s, but the 120Y…no, just no…
Why, why, why, 120 times why?
Pretty much anything made by Mitsubishi and Renault/Nissan. Subaru gets an not so honorable mention for its infamous head gaskets. Mazda for its excessive rust problems
’87 Honda Civic 4dr sedan. Horribly underpowered and made worse with an automatic transmission. Rock hard seats with the lumbar support in the wrong place that would have me crying in pain after 10 minutes of driving. Road noise of galactic porportions. Terrible ride quality. Poor aerodynamics that would cause nasty windburn with the front windows open and an awful thrumming when the rears were open. Truly a terrible automobile.
Second is any U.S. market naturally aspirated Toyota diesel pickup from the early 80’s. Dangerously underpowered, cheap plastic interior, failure prone 5speed transmissions and that stupid air vent that can not be closed off. Rust magnets to boot.
Third is the first gen US market Honda cvcc. These things rusted terribly even in southern CA. Dad bot a new orange one in ’75 and he kept it waxed like there was no tomorrow. This car cancered from the inside out despite never seeing snow. Cheap cheap cheap.
Styling-wise, I’ll nominate the ’84 Toyota Van (as known in the USA market) as a stinker. It’s successor, the Previa, is still (to my eye) one of the best styled minivans ever.
Mazda RX-8 for reliability and The current Lexus line for throwing away great designs and making their entire product range look like deep sea fish.
Yes! That’s it – “deep sea fish.” You are bang on. The new LEXUS models do look like aquatically inspired fish on wheels. That clears that up for me.
I have to go with the Mazda Roadpacer AP (that’s “anti-pollution”) Basically, stuff a weedy little rotary engine with a 3 speed automatic into a giant Holden. The result is a torqueless, go nowhere car that gets less than 10mpg in normal driving.
My experience is limited to anecdotal cases since I really don’t pay any attention to Japanese cars but I think Mitsubishi and Nissan probably hold the largest selection of misfits, my family had quite a few of the latter in the 90s/00s and I have a lot of friends who’ve had or still have various Mitsubishis – Eclipse, Lancers Diamantes, ect. These two companies really coast on the laurels of Toyota and Honda as far as Japanese quality and reliability is concerned IMO. I’d feel more comfortable owning a Roger Smith era GM over either of them frankly.
Other cars of note, Honda Oddest for it’s shit transmissions. My Aunt had one go at 70,000 miles and from what I hear she was hardly the only one. And My Dad’s Lexus GS300 – For all the praise the 2jz inline 6 gets it sure has been an oil consuming, leaky, sludgy mess for most of it’s life in that car, it also was in critical need of a suspension rebuild under 100k miles, not that I think that’s unheard of but I often hear that used as a criticism of certain American cars.
It’s Mitsubishi,
Had a 1981 Datsun 210 Hatchback i picked up for 200 dollars back in the day, great reliable car. Pop riveted sheet metal patches over the masses of rust on the body and sprayed it with Armor coat Red primer to clean it up. Great gas mileage with the dual spark plug per cylinder layout. Never really filled it up and one day I lent it to my neighbor and he filled it up. Went to work and my boss finds me and says “your gas tank fell out in the parking lot”. The rust worm attacked the frame. Was my 210 ugly….. why yes.
A friend had a 1981 Toyota Celica Sunchaser . He bought it new. It was kept in a garage. He was a Navy dentist and very responsible. At 44K miles in 1987 it burned oil with clouds of smoke. He never owned another Toyota.
Mid nineties Toyota Tercel. Cheap flimsy body, weak engine, poor handling, really uncomfortable.
Sure they are cheap to run and supposedly reliable, but who cares when you don’t want to drive it and are embarrassed to give any body a ride!
My brother had one and we took it on a road trip. 5000 km from Whitehorse Yukon to Victoria BC. The fastest we could get it going was 150k, downhill. At that point the front end started jumping left to right and you could feel the body twisting. One of the most frightening automotive experiences of my life!
When it died outside of Kamloops on the return trip we were both relieved! The exhaust manifold was cherry red and I was seriously worried it was going to burst into flames. We put a free car sign on it and hitched back to Kamloops, I bought a new car and never looked back.
When considering how “good” a car is everyone should keep in mind that the body is the most valuable part of any vehicle. Followed by the suspension and steering components. Just because a car has a tough drive train does not make it good. Especially when it is gutless and boring to drive.
That “Turd-sell” was the worst vehicle I has ever ridden in or drove. The ones from ten years before were considerably better built. You never see that generation any more. Good riddance!
I’d say the isuzu impulse, good looking car, but a piece of junk.
I actually liked the Datsun B210 “Honey Bee” Bare bones to the max, utterly forgettable other than the Honey Bee name and stripe. That made them sought after. They didn’t rust here, but they broke down, and repairs were so expensive they weren’t worth repairing, so they got scrapped.
I think Mazda and Suzuki made the best Japanese cars, and Suzuki is now gone. I don’t know about cars, but many Mitsubishi and Isuzu pickups lasted past 200,000 miles, and that was back in the ’80s.
The Chevy Sprint(suzuki) was an awesome car.
1) Datsun F-10, can you say break down often and expensive parts! rust rust rust
2) Mazda RX2/RX3 odd duck styling, oil leaks and consumption and poor mileage
3) Isuzu Impulse- just about everything that could go wrong did
4) Honda Odyssey minivan – timing belts, shuddering cylinder deactivation, exploding 5 speed transaxles, electrical gremlins including the powered doors, wheel bearings and lame cheap looking interiors dogged these up until current body style
5) Early to mid eighties Honda Civic- specifically with automatic transaxles- can you say underpowered, horrid shift quality, nightmare carburetor and rust, noise noise noise and nearly impossible to swap that transaxle out when they go south. Believe me we did 3 swap outs and turned any others away due to the sheer time it took to do those transaxles. Honorable mention going to the early CVCC from 1975 with all of the above qualities with head gasket and overheating issues and lousy motor mounts added to the fun!
6) Toyota Corolla- early years for seriously underpowered engines, cramped uncomfortable interiors that were also cheap. My friend owned a 1981 automatic and it did all it could to maintain 75 MPH. Passing power- nope. Timing belts, head jobs, oil burning- yup
7) Mitsubishi Mirage- I know it’s cheap but it has to qualify as one of the worst new gas powered cars today
8) Mitsubishi I-MIEV- eeeewwww
9) Scion IQ- the most useless, silly, unsubstantial, underpowered car Toyota has ever made circa 2000. I would hate to be the poor soul in one of these in an accident against a sport utility. The word pancake comes to mind
10) 1997-2001 Toyota Camry- I’m probably going to take heat for this one but IMO Toyota cheapened this car to the extreme, introduced the boring beige and gray old fart interiors that everybody else copied, gave new meaning to the term soggy handling and Novocain steering, had styling that made a Cutlass Ciera look a bit interesting, and suffered from the famous engine sludging issues that Toyota so graciously blamed on the customer. Wheel bearings, suspension clunks, el-cheapo interiors add to the fun. The fact that the 1992-1996 models were such decent well built vehicles made these cheapened versions stand out even more.
I always wondered how Toyota could follow such a winner with the ’93-’96 Camry with such a lame-ass pile. Around here (n.e. Ohio) I see more of the ’93-’96s on the road than I do the ’97-’00s.
I’d probably go for the subaru XT of the 80s, just because it so completely missed their market.
Seems to me that after all this, there is still no bad Japanese cars. Apart from rust issues, they seem to all have been reliable, save for individual experiences.
That made me think about seeing the question from the parameters of a GM Deadly Sin. They are mostly deadly because of their unreliability, but also because they were what made GM collapse.
So I thought about Nissan. They were huge in the US and many other countries. If I recall correctly, they were in many places the no. 1 Japanese company, above Toyota.
But what made Nissan fall? Why did it loose its domination to Toyota, and go so low that it even had to be rescued by Renault? Maybe there is some good candidate there.
I have some ideas: the name change from Datsun hurt them. Also, they went full on the squarest styling when the trend was Aero. And Infiniti was never Lexus.
Was there also a particular bad car from Nissan back then?
There is no “except for the rust issue”… that is a MAJOR issue! And they haven’t “all been reliable” either! Read up on Toyota sludge, Honda Odyssey transmissions, Mazda RX8 oil burning, Get your head out of the sand.
Roger,
Don’t forget the sticking gas pedals and questionable throttles on mid-late ’00s Toyota and Lexus products. That’s a major black eye on the company, IMO.
My family owned Toyotas for a number of years but once we discovered Volvos we haven’t owned anything else. Any Volvo of the last 25 years is safer, more durable and more fun to drive than most Toyota products of that time period.
Any Volvo of the past 25 years…more durable? Bwahahaha! A friend of mine has a nice ’03 XC90 T6 he’d love to sell you. Sure, it shifts a bit funny at times…
Blame the jap Yamaha engine ..too much power for the box to handle basically
The T6 engine was all Volvo (paired with a GM transmission). You’re thinking of the V8, which may have had some transmission failures, but nothing like the T6.
Unfortunately, every single rating agency does not support your claim.
It must be a conspiracy.
Mid 1960’s Toyotas ~ they had a fragile like glass engine , the cars were cute and remarkably roomy in spite of being tiny but I remember constantly having to work on the 5 year old ones my young friends bought .
My foggy memory says this was the 3RB engine (?) .
Also the two speed ‘ Toyoglide ‘ slushbox tranny , it was just GM Power Glide built under license but it was also delicate ~ shifting into reverse as the car was still rollng forward , *instantly* broke the reverse band…
-Nate
I had a 68 Corona in the mid-80s. It was small enough that pushing it backwards wasn’t bad. I paid $200 for it at the time so some of it’s character may have come from that. It didn’t have reverse, carb was terrible, it ate valves, and the exhaust never stopped rusting (and this was in southern California). Had a heck of a time getting it smogged. This could be a contender I suppose. It wasn’t a bad looking car and the interior held up well. Mechanically it wasn’t stellar. Backwards hinged hood was a plus, made it hard to work on but oh so BMW like!
The worst Japanese car isn’t a car. Its the dealer.
Japanese marque dealers really lived up to the term “stealership”. They had a product with an overblown (yeah, Japanese cars were mechanically more reliable, but they weren’t God’s Own Car) reputation for reliability, and they milked it for all it was worth.
I remember more intelligent members of the Beltway crowd coming up to Johnstown, PA to buy a Toyota in the 80’s because the local dealer only charged $400 “additional dealer margin” rather than the $1200 being charged in the Baltimore/DC area. And once you started with $1200 over sticker, there was no negotiation, and your trade-in offer would be the lowest possible. And I knew of a few instances where the dealership wouldn’t even bother quoting on a trade-in, they didn’t want to be bothered with taking yet another 70’s American marque. A nice technique for driving home what a POS you were driving and you should be grateful that the dealership was willing to sell you a perfect Japanese car.
And people were stupid enough to line up for this treatment. Even better, once the competition caught up and the Japanese cheapened their cars down to (admittedly raised) American levels, they still credited Japanese cars with being God’s Own Car.
I remember Consumer’s Reports screaming about the stupidity of their readership willing to be raped $1200+ on a Toyota Corolla while unwilling to look at a Chevrolet Nova, even though they were the same car!
Looking back over 45+ years of car ownership. I never considered a Japanese car back then because there’s no car in the world worth negotiating from above sticker. And I’ve only owned three Japanese cars in my lifetime: My current xB, and an ’04 Mazda3 which was new, hadn’t caught on yet, and the dealer was willing to do American style dealing, and the ’96 Geo Metro I bought for my live-in girlfriend. And the Chevy dealer lived up to his name and dealt.
EXACTLY RIGHT!
This is the point I was trying to make when comparing the Toyota Celica Supra to Mustangs, Camaros, and Nissan Zs. ONE TIME, many years ago I walked onto a Toyota lot and after 10 minutes talking to the salesman I decided he was a complete asshole and anyone who buys a Toyota from a Toyota dealership is a complete idiot. I don’t care how good the car is. You do not do business with people like that and you do not pay prices like that.
Toyotas were obviously good cars but they were also obviously way over hyped.
Here in Australia cars (and many other consumer goods) carry a recommended retail price, The dealer is allowed to charge up to, but NOT more than that price. The RRP is freely available to consumers, is published in car magazines, listed on each company’s website. Dealers make a big thing of how good they are by quoting so much under RRP. Oh they still make a profit from options, inflated service costs, added on-road costs, etc. – but there’s none of this “additional dealer margin” nonsense.
Hmm, I’m conflicted on that. As much as I detest dealerships charging extra, I think I would detest a law against it even more. Free markets aren’t free if you tell people what they can charge.
I think Hondas of the mid ’80s equipped with automatics and feedback carburetors deserve mention here. Honda avoided fuel injection on its mainstream models for way too long, and aside from those used on the Prelude, many ran quite poorly, idling too quickly. Jerky, Mediocre acceleration when paired with an automatic is excusable in the presence of good refinement but only the injected engines offered this. Conversely, uneven running when paired with a carb is okay in the presence of lively acceleration when paired with excellent manual transmissions, but the majority of mainstream models had a high automatic take rate and carb engines. Surely Honda could’ve cobbled together a throttle body system for its cheaper models; they were finally compelled to offer NOrth American buyers a dual point injection system for the low level ’88 Civics but the Accord carried on with a two barrel until 1989. Nissan, Toyota and Mazda equipped their mainstream compacts with multipoint injection as standard much earlier. Meanwhile, VW gave
Americans fuel injection since the late ’70s, something I feel they don’t get enough credit
for doing.
Having just typed this, however, I realize this sort of statement needs to be tempered, as these cars still offered dynamics, design and quality that were at least above average. There’s nothing “worst” about these cars, but given the context of the day, holding out on fuel injection is a significant criticism. I’d still love an 88 or 89 Accord LX-i sedan to use as a daily classic, on the other hand.
Perry,
Don’t forget Volvo – they also gave Americans fuel injection, starting in 1970 with the P1800 series and extending to their other models the following year. They too don’t get enough credit for that innovation.
Well ;
That was the BOSCH D-Jetronic , M.A.P. controlled F.I. system ,it was crude at best and many found it troublesome .
Only was adapted to make old tech dirty engines pass the U.S. SMOG requirements
I rather liked it as both power and fuel economy bumped up noticeably .
As far as I could tell , if you LEFT IT ALONE and kept after the fuel filter and valve gaps , it was pretty trouble free ~ I’ve had quite a few D-Jet equipped cars and once I took the DPO / DPM bodges out , ALL were 100 % reliable and trouble free .
-Nate
Honda had my number there, for I baulked at fuel injection because I’m a debt-free cheapskate; I remember +$2 or $3K for the LX-i over the DX hatchback, & never regretted the latter. You wouldn’t be surprised that it was a 5-spd. No carburetor or driveline trouble for 16 yrs/150Kmi, only downside was slight hesitation when cold.
Best car I ever owned, with its balance of performance, economy, agility, & roadholding, a very pleasant daily driver. Carburetors may be kludgey, but no regrets here.
Right; having a 5-spd made all the difference. It’s the carb + auto combo which was the issue and, given all the praise heaped upon the Hondas of that era, overlooked surprisingly often, even in contemporary reviews. But like I said, certainly not the makings of a “worst Japanese car.”
Then again, it’s easier to come up with a list of overrated Japanese cars than to come up with a full list of ten execrable efforts.
In retrospect, I think it’s regrettable that Honda was unwilling to just license Bosch L- or LH-Jetronic and a better, non-proprietary four-speed automatic. (And probably ATE or Bosch ABS, but that’s another matter.)
The ex-husband of one of my wife’s cousins had a couple early-80’s Subarus that caught fire, that was back when the spare tire was mounted under the hood over the engine.
25 years later, we became Subaru fans thanks to a ’92 Legacy wagon that was a hoot to drive and delivered 28 MPG consistently. It was a graduation gift to our son from from my mom in Vermont, where Subaru, it seems, is the official car. She’d driven and cared for it for years and was a welcome hand-me-down.
A year later we were searching for a car and given how much my wife enjoyed the ’92 Legacy, we bought a 9-year old Legacy Outback which was tight, engaging but also had that 2.5 engine that eats head gaskets. Fortunately this one was covered under the extended warranty we bought with the car…but the 2005 Outback we traded it on, a year and a half later, wasn’t.
It was on its way to a SECOND head gasket repair at 178,000 miles when my wife visited a Chevrolet dealer near her job and drove away in a 2011 Equinox LTZ.
Many GM’s are reviled for intake gasket issues but in my experience you can fix those with a superior aftermarket product and be good. That’s certainly been the experience with my ’97 Blazer.
But I began to get the feeling from the dealer that well, that’s just what 2.5 Subies do. And if you know the maintenance schedule…there’s a 110,000 mile timing belt replacement…that by the time you add in the water pump that you should change while you’re in there AND do head gaskets…$1500-$2000 isn’t unrealistic.
Plus a tune-up.
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I believe an engine shouldn’t require $2000 worth of maintenance to go with my tune-up every 110,000 miles. Especially in what’s supposed to be perceived as a somewhat-premium car.
True, it’s hard to think of a single Japanese car like the Chevy Vega or Plymouth Volare. Is the Subaru 360 a fair target? No one else was exporting kei cars to the US and you can’t even blame Subaru…that was Malcolm Bricklin.
I’ll bet most of the import disasters on our shores stemmed from sending vehicles that were stars in their homeland but not properly engineered for US driving conditions or regulations. That’s different from designing something specifically for the US market and cutting corners.
But today you can see foreign manufacturers – not just Japanese – displaying an arrogance similar to what GM displayed in the 70s, 80s and 90s. While at the same time at least two if not all three US domestic manufacturers are building the finest vehicles in their history.
I see the day coming when the perception of Japan’s superior quality will be as outdated as a leisure suit. As far as I’m concerned, it’s already here.
“I see the day coming when the perception of Japan’s superior quality will be as outdated as a leisure suit.” Amen to that. Korea is slowly but surely eating Japan,Inc for lunch.
Yup, Japanese cars are just a flash in the pan. They’ll never stand our conditions.
Yes, Toyota is NUMBER ONE now, that that’s because everybody who buys a Toyota is not as smart as me. I have never driven one, but I know a guy who has a cousin who has a friend who has a sister who had one, and it was real bad.
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eimi45eilh/no-1-toyota-motor/
The Japanese car makers forced flouride into our water system, which made too many people go out and buy Japanese cars. Here on the farm in Kansas, we have well water and Chevy trucks, and since Kansas is the centre of the world, everyone who does something different than me is misguided or totally stupid.
So THAT’S whats the matter with Kansas.
Yup. They seem to have the flat-earth virus. Makes Ebola seem safe.
A Canadian with a superiority complex. That’s precious.
Japan’s success in the US car market is all the more remarkable considering how ugly & cramped their early offerings were.
I’ll never forgive Detroit’s lobbying for 1981 Voluntary Export Restraints. That was a sure sign that they were a bunch of lazy, sore losers without shame. One thing I’ve learned: Free markets are only supported by big biz when it suits them. Nothing punishes brain-damaged management like open competition; to prop them up is a crime against the public.
Canuck, I think you’re missing Roger’s point. He’s saying that Japan Inc. will not rule forever and the Koreans are catching up. I agree with Roger. When it comes to electronics the Koreans have already caught up and surpassed the Japanese. Samsung phones are more popular and more advanced than their competition from Sony and other Japanese phone makers that are just barely hanging on. Both LG and Samsung have taken over the LCD TV market. Most Japanese branded TVs have panels in them made by the Koreans or Chinese. It’s only a matter of time before the same happens to the automotive market. Honda is already importing Honda Fits from China for the Canadian market.
I know Korea well, I lived there for almost a decade and yes, their car companies are doing well. Hyundai is now #8, but if you look at market share, the American based companies have taken a you know what kicking. Toyota is the largest car maker in the world now, VW the second and Daimler third, Ford number fourth and GM sixth. This means that US volume of auto sales is at all time lows. Even in the North American market, the Japanese rule the family sedan segment. In Canada, anyway, the Korean stuff has taken place of the low end stuff, the Plymouth Caravelle buyer, who wants cheap. At one time, they bought Japanese cars, but that was a long, long time ago. Here anyway, the Japanese are still number one by a fair margin, except they now mainly compete against Hyundai and Kia instead of Ford a GM.
The 2015 Fit is made in Mexico. We got Chinese made cars for 2013 and 2014 I believe.
Knock Japanese cars all you like but they never made duds like the Allegro,Marina,Vega etc.If a lemon did get made it was quietly killed off or straightened up unlike BL who carried on selling them hoping no one would notice
BS. There are many examples listed here.
No Japanese car I have ever been in, including my horrible 550 cc Alto Kei I drove in Fukuoka, was as bad as a Marina or a Vega.
So you are claiming that you have been in all the ones mentioned here?
Yup. When your family owns a garage in Victoria, British Columbia, you’ll see plenty of British cars. All of them horrid in their peculiar English way. I have a friend in Scotland who had an Allegro. Total POS.
Yeah well they never made anything as innovative and groundbreaking as the Mini or 1100 either. Easy to get a quality rep when all you have to do is improve on what’s already been done.
They have made some pretty amazing profits, however. I have done very, VERY well with Toyota stock.
How has the dividend of GM stock been over the last, say, ten years?
Again, easy to do when all the innovation has already been pioneered by the less profitable companies.
As for your question, don’t know, don’t care. I have no interest in automobiles past their physical merits, spreadsheets and quarterly earnings are about as interesting to me as a grey Camry, which lucky for you has favorable spreadsheets and quarterly earnings I’ve been told.
Yup, making money is what car companies do, actually. Making the dull as dishwater Camry is what allows the LFA to exist, which is a pretty cool car.
No, making cars is what car companies do. There’s a difference between making money and earning money.
And unless I’m mistaken the LFA should be mentioned in past tense. The Toyota priced higher than a much cooler Lamborghini stopped production in 2012 at under 500 units.
When a car company gets to the (classic GM) attitude of, “we’re not here to make cars, we’re here to make a profit”, that’s when the trouble starts. Return on investment becomes more important than quality of the product. GM did it, and it killed them. Toyota is currently doing it, and its going to be interesting to see if it has the same effect. The attitude has certainly taken the polish off their reputation among the car enthusiasts. Now we wait to see how long it takes to filter down to the ‘appliance buyers’ who couldn’t care less about cars except for their function.
And, as GM learned, once the reputation is lost, its virtually impossible to get back again.
Syke, I have never met a true car enthusiast who loves a Camry or Corolla. They have almost always appealed to those who couldn’t care less about cars and just want an appliance that gets them from point a to b.
Agreed. That’s why we have the FR-S and Corvette to go with the Corolla and the Cruze.
What, drift fans aren’t “true car enthusiasts”? (See also Corolla Levin AE86.)
Ugly award goes to the Datsun F10 with the B210 not far behind. I owned a Datsun 310 for (4) years in the mid 80’s. Compared to my previous VW’s this thing was a dream. Heat, quiet, plush interior,dependable but gutless. I’d be driving on I95 with my foot to the floor trying to manage 65 mph. Several times the pedal stuck and I had to pull over and shut off to unstick it. One of my brothers friends called it the “The Electric 310” because he thought it had an electric motor.
IMHO, worst Japanese cars:
1. mid-late 70s Datsun 200SX–certainly the ugliest car ever sold in this country
2. mid-late 70s Datsun F10 Hatchback — 2nd ugliest
3. Datsun B-210 with 2 doors
Coming in the wake of the Datsun 510, and even the Datsun 1200 of the early 70s, not to mention the Z-car (which became uglier, but was never ugly), it is amazing how they managed to produce such hideous cars.
But other than early 70s Mazda rotaries (maybe), I must confess, I cannot think of a Japanese “lemon” — at least not when compared to other offerings of similar vintage.
Remember taking in many 80s Subarus that needed exhaust systems……disposable cars with what seemed like 10 different $$$$$$ catalytic converters….junk.
I have come to the conclusion that there simply aren’t any “good” cars anymore. And I’m not just talking about the absence of cars I like. It seems that nobody builds a quality car anymore, no matter how much you pay for it. Expensive European cars have the worst reliability records and highest depreciation of all cars. Neither U.S or Asian manufacturers seem to care about quality anymore. It’s become all about how to make a quick buck. A Toyota Camry or Chevy Impala are some of the blandest cars around. But they should at least be dependable, reliable, and last a long time. They did used to be that way, but now they are cheap, flimsy cars, Slam the door on either one and it sounds like dropping a beer can on the ground. The GM intake manifold gasket problem affected every V6 they made, But it’s not clear whether the problem was mostly caused by the gaskets themselves, or the use of Dexcool.
I have done a lot of research, and decided that my next car will probably be a slightly used Mazda 3 or 6. As nice as a Miata would be, it is not practical transportation. And Mazda seems to be the only Japanese company that still cares a little bit about quality. Maybe it’s because they are the smallest major manufacturer. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have indeed become arrogant.
I know this was probably meant to be about older Japanese cars, but IMO, the older ones were better than the newer ones. My sister put close to 250,000 miles on a 1980 Toyota Celica liftback with the 20R engine. You could just feel the quality while working on it or driving it. Back then Japanese engines had cast aluminum valve covers while American cars used stamped steel.
And I have come to the conclusion that there simply aren’t any “bad” cars anymore. Even the cheapest Mitsubishi Mirage or Dodge Dart will start every day for the next ten years.
Flimsy doors? Call it that, but that Mirage or Dart has “good” side-impact ratings. The Saab 9-5, among the safest cars 15 years ago, only received an “acceptable”.
Oh yes, and no cars – not even Japanese – were perfect in terms of reliability in the ’80s. Google “Supra head gasket”.
Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
JunkyardDog,
Is cast aluminum considered to be stronger than stamped steel?
I certainly know what you mean concerning good, well-made “quality” cars today. No new vehicle appeals to me at all, except for certain Volvos because I’m a Volvo enthusiast.
And the old RWD Volvos are way better than the brand-new ones in terms of reliability and durability. Just like your sister, I am currently driving older RWD models – I have two 740s, a 1986 and a 1991. The ’86 has 225k miles on it and the ’91 has about 189k. I drive both regularly and I know they will probably last into the next decade.
I can’t exactly say whether cast aluminum actually has any functional superiority when used in that way. But it is a nice detail. Japanese cars used to have a thing for detail. On the mid ’70s Civic that everybody puts down, there was a lot of detail. It was not put together with drill point screws, but machine screws, nuts and washers. I specifically remember the DOT side marker lights. While today’s cars have a cheap piece of plastic that snaps into a hole in the body, and breaks easily, that Civic had chrome metal housings, heavy curved plastic lenses, and a rubber seal between the light and body, with 2 exposed screws holding it in place. Even on that little tiny car, the doors had a nice solid sound. I looked at a Fiat 500 (base model) because it reminded me of that Honda. The body panels actually lined up better, but the material was cheap and flimsy. One day at work, I made a big dent in the door of an ’02 Ford F250 by just leaning against it, And on the same truck, I took it to a coin operated car wash to rinse it off, and the paint literally washed right off the bumper. And yet again, on the same truck (it was assigned to me) one of the glued on emblems literally fell off the front fender. I found it while it was just about to come off. This just doesn’t seem like quality to me.
But really, is there a car made today, by anyone, that you can expect 200,000 nearly trouble free miles out of? There was 15 years ago.
cast aluminum is nowhere near as strong as stamped steel. But there are other considerations besides strength. Heat dissipation, gasket surface irregularities, and thermal expansion.
I have to side with MT on this, there were still bad cars 15 years ago, pretty much every Korean car for instance, several GMs a few Fords, most Mopars, ect. Today I seriously have to wonder if any current car could possibly not go to 300k with basic maintenance. Mileage just isn’t the test anymore, I think if there’s going to be anything that kills current cars it’s going to be actual age, whether it’s the growing numbers of plastic/rubber pieces to degrade, or planned obsolescence with infotainment systems.
I think packaging efficiency was FAR superior in most cars 15 years ago however, and I seriously doubt they’re any less safe than todays cars. Power was just enough, styling hadn’t yet gone totally bangled(although it was bland by then) and pedestrian safety was still simply “stop look and listen”(what an archane concept!).
I don’t know about no “good” cars anymore. Or “bad” ones, at least not on the level of a Datsun B-210/120 Y/Sunny or Yugo. I think the one benefit (if you want to call it that) of the globalization of the automotive industry is that the vast majority of cars are all competitive with one another, in terms of the larger goals. They all have decent drivetrains, assembly quality is light-years ahead of what it was 10-15-20 years ago, emissions and fuel economy are absolutely fantastic at almost all levels.
That said, they (as a whole) have only a few technological toys to distinguish themselves from one another, and of course, reputation/heritage. Many pixels are spent describing the horror that is the Mercedes CLA, but it only follows the common FWD sedan formula. It meets all the other targets that any Malibu, Camry or Passat meets, but since it wears Gottlieb Daimler’s three pointed star, it gets judged to a higher standard.
Time was, with exchange rates and other environmental differences, you got a really foreign car when you bought a foreign car. GM and the others could only compete on price and loyalty. Loyalty changed pretty rapidly, much to Detroit’s horror. However, once foreign makes started manufacturing in earnest in North America, they too started to decontent and compete on price alone.
We’ve noted here and other places about the formerly “fat” engineered Toyotas of the late 80’s and early 90’s, but the D3’s strategy of decontenting to maintain price and profits (barely) forced all the players to decontent. We’ve now gotten to the point where car makers are adding content back into their products to find some sort of differentiation, at least in the popular makes.
All this noted, I’ve largely stayed out of this discussion. I’m sure I’m known as a US Domestic cheerleader, and many of the previous posters have skewered the same targets I would have nominated. My personal experiences have lead me to the opinion that many of the Japanese cars don’t live up to the hype surrounding them. OTOH, I can say the same about Euro and USDM cars, too.
If our goal here is to make a list, and if many of us are saying that it’s hard to choose a Japanese car that’s as atrocious as, say, a Vega or whatnot, perhaps it’s worth defining what makes a car “worst.”
Would we be talking about a car with one major flaw? A car defined by mediocrity? A car which lost its predecessors’ good reputation? A car with atrocious quality all around?
A lot of Mitsubishis have been thoroughly average, for instance (Colts come to mind) but it’s hard to call them bad outright.
Or there are cars like the Suzuki Swift which many here would deride for being flimsy or slow, but those qualities are a trade off for their purpose as bottom end, efficient transport and can’t easily be called bad.
Then there are cars like the ’87 Stanza and Sentra which, like many cars from the late Datsun and early Nissan renaming era, were of high quality but dynamically average and indifferently styled, losing their competitive edge.
Putting together a list of ten worst Japanese cars across all brands and market segments (filters which might make the task easier) will require thoughtful explanation of most entries. As it is, I see a lot of deservedly loved cars listed (Samurai, MR2) which are hard to justify.
Seconded.
“Worst” is a pretty dimensionless term. Does it mean “the car with which you personally had the worst experience?” (Which is certainly fair — I doubt there’s any mass-produced product where someone hasn’t come away muttering, “Everyone loves these things, but it’s nothing but a nightmare for me.”) Does it mean “was a commercial flop through some failure of marketing or timing” regardless of whether the product was any good? Does it mean “the most ill-conceived”? Does it mean a Deadly Sin in Paul’s definition (i.e., a car that, whatever its virtues, remains a revealing symptom — if not the epitome — of some serious conceptual or organizational unwellness)? Does it mean “the car I think is ugliest”? (Which is also an entirely subjective consideration — in my eyes, some of y’all like some weird shit and I’m sure you would say the reverse is also true.) Or does it mean “a car that is so radically at odds with my personal tastes that I’m offended by its mere existence,” something we’re getting a lot of here?
There’s some overlap (especially between the last two), but these are obviously very different questions.
2nd worst car I owned: 1985 Civic S 5-speed, bought new, last year of carburetion. That POS would stall oh whenever it felt like it, usually at the worst possible moment. It took Honda over a year to fix it and then only when I was about to have it towed to the dealer and set on fire. They basically replaced everything under the hood save the long block & transaxle. I sold it not long after.
That was my last Honda. The two I had before it each had their own flaws, but none were life-threatening.
1st worst car was 1987 Audi 100/5000. Obviously.
My nominees are AU market cars, which are often different to the rest of the world.
Automatic Mitsubishi Magna, particulary the first generation. They tried three different automatics and none seemed to last.
Datsun 200B, poorly assembled, prone to all the quality/drivability woes of late 1970s emmision controlled cars, with a decided tendency to warp or crack the head.
I think these days most cars have caught up with Japanese quality, or are close.
The Datsun 200B replaced the popular 180B in Australia
the joke back in the 70s was that it had 20 more mistakes !!!
Man, this has got to be the longest thread ever!
I’ll credit this to: Having been told over and over and over and over that, back in the 70’s and 80’s, American cars were such pieces of crap that the companies should have just gone out of business as a favor to the country . . . . . coupled with a lot of the membership here who got really good service out of those self same pieces of “junk” . . . . . . toss in the other side of the myth, that Japanese cars were absolute perfection and only an idiot wouldn’t have bought one back then at no matter what the price . . . . . plus the too often unspoken reality that certain models (or at least individual cars) weren’t any better than the American competition . . . . . .
. . . . . . . and then we’re finally invited to trash all those supposed pieces of mechanical and marketing perfection . . . . .
Japanese car makers started off by being great imitators,a few decades later some became innovators.Yet all can see the significant reduction in style,quality and performance,par example Datsun 1600 to Datsun 180B.My first 1970 Peugeot 404 ute had done 500,000 miles when I bought it and was still on its original timing chain.I hate to think of the problems of future classics and their electronic armed systems.I often think that if you need a reversing camera then you have purchased a poorly designed product or you should not be driving.Cars just like other products are subject to the ever diminishing product life cycle.
On my way to an appointment this morning, on the freeway, 5 mph, stop and go, bumper to bumper, and what pulls up next to me but a mid ’70s Datsun pickup. Standard cab, short bed, cargo hooks welded to the side of the bed. It looked good. No rust, no body damage, the yellow paint was a bit faded. This truck had been on the road for 40 years. Talk about reliability. No, I don’t know what kind of repairs had been done to it, but someone obviously thought it was worth keeping on the road. And compared to a modern Nissan Frontier, that is twice as big, and doesn’t even come with a standard cab, it was a real beauty.
While it does not apply to all old cars and trucks, I have a feeling many of them that wound up getting scrapped could have been kept on the road for half a century or more had the owner actually wanted to, and for a lot less money than buying several newer cars/trucks during that time. After all, my ’72 Pinto is still going, and runs just fine. It is simple and easy to work on, and all mechanical parts are still available. And contrary to what everybody thinks, the body is still rock solid. I did have to replace the door hinges, but that is common on 2 door cars with long heavy doors. Everybody complaining about rust must be from the salt belt. Everything rusts to pieces in those areas. I don’t remember my sisters ’80 Celica having any rust or body problems, the engine finally wore out, but it could have been replaced. That car could have still be on the road.
I really can’t think of ANY Japanese car that was mechanically lousy . . . . in terms of STYLING, the biggest abortion to hit our (American) shores would’ve been the late 70’s Datsun F-10 (Cherry) . . . . .
I remember that up through the mid 1980s, any Japanese car, if you didn’t Ziebart/Quaker State rustproof it; undercoat it, wash and wax it religiously, it would rust from the top down and the bottom up (in Hawaii and Guam) . . . .
Yep, the F-10 was awful. So was the mid ’80s Nissan Pulsar. But as far as ugly goes, I think the Nissan Juke and Cube are the worst yet. The Cube looks like a washer and dryer, the Juke is just plain bizarre. It makes the Pontiac Aztek look like a real beauty. But really, they just didn’t rust here in Phoenix, AZ. They got scrapped because the cost of repairing them exceeded the value of the vehicle.
My worst memories of Japanese cars were:
Mazda RX4 – My wife and I needed a second car and saw an ad in the newspaper for heavily discounted RX4s. This was 1976 and I think the RX4 had been discontinued. The dealer asked us to meet him at the Port of Houston where they had a big fleet of new Mazdas sitting there. It seem like a very nice car with luxury touches but then I noticed that the cars had already started rusting in the Texas sunshine several miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
Mazda RX7 – 2nd gen – This was my teenage daughter’s car. She had purchased the car from my SIL, who was the original owner. One day while she was at work there was a great commotion out in the parking lot. There was a fire truck and a crowd had gathered around a burning car, her RX7.
My first Japanese car was 1979 Toyota Corona station wagon. Great car served us for about 10 years with no major problems. I do remember that the roof had rusting through where the roof rack was attached to the roof. I also remember the tailgate struts failing and calling dealer for a quote on new struts. $190. each. Later the a/c controls broke. I managed to get a replacement fan control from a junkyard and the off and on switch I replaced with a similar one from Radio Shack.
Since 2001 I have owned a 1994 Suzuki Swift GTi . No major problems at all mainly broken plastic interior bits.
Lots of intelligent, passionate, articulate discourse here. I don’t agree with half of it, but that’s OK. Thanks Paul, for stirring up the CC faithful. Is tomorrow’s topic the Worst European Cars? Unfortunately, that list based on my ownership experience would be longer than the Japanese list.
” you’ll see plenty of British cars. All of them horrid in their peculiar English way.”
That’s not true ! they ~ (stops , looks out window at 56 year old British Auld Crate)
Oh yeah ~ nevermind =8-) .
-Nate