Consumer Reports: Best cars for making it to 200,000 miles - Top 10 all Toyota & Honda, Prius #1

We had a 1992 Mazda 626 purchased new in 1993. When it hit about 90k miles in 2008, it started needing lots of repairs: New distributor, many cooling system repairs, forgot all details but it added up to about $8k from 2008 to 2014 within 30k miles. Wasn't my car but I sold it private party for $1500 last August. Transmission shifted rough into 2nd gear.
I'll bet a 92 Accord or Camry would have had far fewer trips to the repair shop.

 

It includes check of brake pad thickness and disc runout. If they're old-school that'd mean a brake disassemble, and likely lubing the pins, cleaning everything up and relube of faying surfaces, while they're at it.

 

Since most prii weren't sold until at least 2004, that means most of those 200,000 mile prii did it in 11 years or less. In other words lots of miles per year. Take that CNW

Still I doubt that will help sell many prii versus camry's or fits, or civics, or focus, all of those cars are reliable. I don't think many people read consumer reports anymore.

That wasn't included in my 30,000 mile prius service at the dealer. They just said visually inspected the brakes. I'm sure the lubed whatever was required, oil change, replaced engine and cabin air filters, rotated tires. Pretty simple.

 

626 is a Ford product mfg by Ford in Michigan with many Ford parts; would not consider it to be true Mazda. And yeah those had alot of issues. Only meant 323/Protege/Mazda3 produced in Hiroshima. Their biggest issue were the exhaust longevity and EGR error issue due to MAP sensor/vacuum multifunction. Still I'd be happy if my Prii will go 430k w/o engine rebuild.

With respect to '92 Accord it depends if it were mfg in Japan or US. In terms of reliability Toyota's usually the best, but many years ago I had Toy pickup and that one had been back to dealer with warranty work. Assembled in WV(?) local part supplier and some plastic parts were falling apart. Windshield fluid pump cracked and leaked. Sold at 60K; last time saw it a few years back, had 300K+ on odometer.

 

The data is not normalized.

Do you ignore the Chevy commercial that sings 'like a rock?'
I do, because it is the same useless spin of quoting absolute numbers rather than ratios.

The Prius is indeed reliable but this thread based on the CR stat is useless.

 

but the chevy commercial is singing about boat anchors. i have headed their advice since 1989.

 

Maybe because Spinella and his ilk know that scientists are a teeny minority of car buyers - & there are a whole LOT of low-brow car buyers?
.

 

easy now, the poor guy just passed in february. but if you google him, it's easy to see why he didn't like hybrids.

 

Oh, I don't doubt the statistical accuracy. And I have no idea what fully scientific means. My point is that the information does not tell you anything useful about Prius reliability.

Perhaps an example would help:
10 of 1000 model X cars sold within the last 10 years reach 200k
5 of 100 model Y cars sold within the last 10 years reach 200k

Care to predict the more reliable model ?
I'll be happy to assist you and mention that model X has more 200k miles cars on the road than any other model.

i want to know who paid him.

 

The reality is most new cars built in the last 10 years will make it to 200,000 miles, if you follow the maintenance schedule. But the sad truth is most owners don't follow the maintenance schedule.

 

We can use the CRV as one example
From Wikipedia

Calendar year US sales
1997 66,752[47]
1998 100,582
1999 120,754[48]
2000 118,260
2001 118,313[49]
2002 146,266
2003 143,909[50]
2004 149,281
2005 150,219[51]
2006 170,028
2007 219,160[52]
2008 197,279
2009 191,214[53]
2010 203,714
2011 218,373[54]
2012 281,652
2013 303,904[55]
2014 335,019[56]


Prius sales
Annual Prius sales worldwide and by region
1997–2014 CYTD(1)
(in thousands)
Year World[84] Japan[84] U.S.[110] Europe[84] Canada[120] Other[84]
1997 0.3 0.3
1998 17.7 17.7
1999 15.2 15.2
2000 19.0 12.5 5.6 0.7 0.2 0.01
2001 29.5 11.0 15.6 2.3 0.4 0.2
2002 28.1 6.7 20.1 0.8 0.2 0.2
2003 43.2 17.0 24.6 0.9 0.3 0.4
2004 125.7 59.8 54.0 8.1 1.9 1.9
2005 175.2 43.7 107.9 18.8 2.0 2.9
2006 185.6 48.6 107.0 22.8 2.0 5.3
2007 281.3 58.3 181.2 32.2 2.6 7.0
2008 285.7 73.1 158.6 41.5 4.5 7.7
2009 404.2 208.9 139.7 42.6 4.6 8.4
2010 509.4 315.4 140.9[110] 42.0 3.0 8.1

 

Thanks for the heads up. You were right, Google answered a lot of questions about where his head and heart were.

Bob Wilson

 

Irrelevant for the most part. We are considering 200k cars.

So not only did CR forget to normalize sales, they ignore the rather obvious point that high mileage drivers during these years of high fuel prices will have a reason to choose Prius over e.g. a 20 mpg CRV.

I don't expect people to be statisticians but a little common sense would be appreciated.

 

Oh, most of us knew all the time where his head was. That became evident when he refused to divulge what values he assigned on his super secret spreadsheet formulas. Then again, if I were pulling random numbers out of my dirty dark side for calculating dust to dust values - I wouldn't reveal anything either.
.

 

Here is the goal: realize that quoting absolute numbers of the number of Prius on the roads with over 200k miles compared to other models as a reasonable marker of relative reliability is idiotic.

Spend as much time as you need, read as slow as you need, and read as many times as you need to get a clue.