Best ''Bullet Proof'' car you have owned

chillin117

I had a 1.6D Opel Kadett, I showered it with Neglect, 300k miles, changed the oil once in 6years, Floods, Frost it always started. Like an obiedient dog it was

PukkaStukka

I had a Corsa 1.5TD with the Isuzu engine. Did starship mileage in 5 years and the only failure was a battery!

Most jap cars from the 90's would last forever if looked after too.

Ciano35

Peugeot 205 1.8 diesel, nothing could stop it

fancy pigeon

Its a joint top between Peugeot D-Turbo's and a Mercedes C220 diesel

Pig ignorant mules of cars that just keep on going and going :cool:

chillin117

PukkaStukka wrote: »

I had a Corsa 1.5TD with the Isuzu engine. Did starship mileage in 5 years and the only failure was a battery!

Most jap cars from the 90's would last forever if looked after too.

I worked for Avis in the 90's. They had a few Carina diesels (Auto). The Maroon coloured one's Despite the general abuse they got, they never lay down. Some car !

Cee-Jay-Cee

I had a 1993 Civic saloon 1.6 ESi, I bought it in 2003 with 200k miles on the clock. I drive it for 5 years and put up another 120k miles on it. It never got new oil, it got the old oil from my DC2 Integras, which got oil changes every 3k miles. I just topped up the civic with the old oil when it needed topping up. The civic was battered and bruised but 100% reliable and never let me down. It never needed any work with exception to discs and pads. I actually sold it for more than it cost me.

I have my current Subaru Legacy 2.0i petrol for 4 years now. All I've ever had to do to it was an O2 sensor and a few drop links and ARB bushes and discs/pads. It's supremely reliable!

eeguy

1 litre opel corsa b.

Driven every day for 5 years up and down the country. Only issue was a rusty exhaust, though the guy I bought it from had thrown a new one into the boot.

Rarely serviced, rarely cleaned. Worked like a charm till I crashed it, then worked for another year with minor niggles.

chillin117

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I had a 1993 Civic saloon 1.6 ESi, I bought it in 2003 with 200k miles on the clock. I drive it for 5 years and put up another 120k miles on it. It never got new oil, it got the old oil from my DC2 Integras, which got oil changes every 3k miles. I just topped up the civic with the old oil when it needed topping up. The civic was battered and bruised but 100% reliable and never let me down. It never needed any work with exception to discs and pads. I actually sold it for more than it cost me.

I have my current Subaru Legacy 2.0i petrol for 4 years now. All I've ever had to do to it was an O2 sensor and a few drop links and ARB bushes and discs/pads. It's supremely reliable!

Topping up with used oil ? I love it !

Clareman

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I had a 1993 Civic saloon 1.6 ESi, I bought it in 2003 with 200k miles on the clock. I drive it for 5 years and put up another 120k miles on it. It never got new oil, it got the old oil from my DC2 Integras, which got oil changes every 3k miles. I just topped up the civic with the old oil when it needed topping up. The civic was battered and bruised but 100% reliable and never let me down. It never needed any work with exception to discs and pads. I actually sold it for more than it cost me.

I have my current Subaru Legacy 2.0i petrol for 4 years now. All I've ever had to do to it was an O2 sensor and a few drop links and ARB bushes and discs/pads. It's supremely reliable!

I had a 1992 version of it, battery went 1 morning and decided to off load it before more stuff went wrong with it, I still see it on the road every once in a while, I loved that car

Indricotherium

2000 Daewoo lanos.

Bought in 2006 sold in 2012.

Never serviced, got a bottle of oil when ever the light went on.

Drove it on three cylinders for a good 3 months before it gave up the ghost.

Almost every part of it was broken, door handles, windows, central locking, boot floor, heater, de mister , sprayer, radio, etc etc etc, but it never failed to switch on and get me where I was going.

BULLETPROOF!!

Think it was the previous astra underneath.

Stallingrad

Peugeot 205 1.1. Nothing never went wrong with it, ever.

tanko

99 Corolla petrol , does anything ever go wrong with the engine/gearbox/clutch?

JohnCleary

My current C-Class Avantgarde 'AMG Sport' - Had it 4 years (although not put up huge milage). Apart from new shocks when bought (warranty) it has required nothing apart from usual servicing (also had autobox oil changed) - fingers crossed she stays that.

A really fun, comfortable car to drive IMHO and although a few years old now, I still drool every time I wash her I had planned on changing cars every 5 years, but with this one, i'm "why bother?"

duffman3833

my 07 a4 was the best car Ive owned, kinda regret selling it, never missed a beat. The only car i ever owned that i didn't have to fix

Stinicker

Cadillac Deville, the front suspension was dodgy however.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl25S7hy8mo

Kimbot

01 VVTI corolla..... The thing has gone to hell and back and is still a daily driver. Only one thing ever failed on here, a lamba sensor but shes still going and I dont think it will ever stop.

Car99

1996 A4 1.9tdi 110 bhp afn engine, bought it for £1050 in 2008 with 150K on the clock no service history and I'd guess it had more than 150K on the clock , anyways put 100k on it , it changed its own oil at about the rate of 1 litre per month, sold it last November still going stong.

biko

An old Mazda 323, can't remember the year.
It was my first car and I didn't know much about servicing etc so didn't really do much at all for it. It lasted much longer than it should have

H3llR4iser

Jesus lads, some mechanical horror stories in this thread: cars not serviced for 6 years, topping up with used oil... then one wonders why the Irish second hand cars market is such a deathtrap

My case is slightly different - it's a car I had many many years ago, before I moved out of Italy. It was an Alfa 155 2.0 TS 16v Super; And I did service it regularly. However, I did use to drive it like a racecar - It's a very long story about avoiding traffic, alternate roads, long commutes, ****ty clock-watching bosses and being 20something years old, but for years I literally drove the car every morning and every night absolutely flat out. Chewed through front tires in less than 10.000km (that's what going through sweeping bends at above 200km/h will do). The poor 155 had every reason to bust a piston or two, but it never did - nor had any relevant issue.

Skatedude

I had my trusty 93 bmw 740 for 10 years and apart from me leaving the lights on by mistake, never broke down and was always reliable. I'd still be using it if It wasnt rear ended and destroyed while sitting in traffic.

Indricotherium

Indricotherium wrote: »

2000 Daewoo lanos.

Bought in 2006 sold in 2012.

Never serviced, got a bottle of oil when ever the light went on.

Drove it on three cylinders for a good 3 months before it gave up the ghost.

Almost every part of it was broken, door handles, windows, central locking, boot floor, heater, de mister , sprayer, radio, etc etc etc, but it never failed to switch on and get me where I was going.


.

not BULLETPROOF!!

hoodie6029

2000 1.0 Yaris. Had it 3 years.never missed a beat. Got flooded in 2011 Dublin floods. Footwells full of water.started the next day.dried it out. Changed the carpets and drove for another year. Kinda miss that car.

Special Circumstances

hoodie6029 wrote: »

2000 1.0 Yaris. Had it 3 years.never missed a beat. Got flooded in 2011 Dublin floods. Footwells full of water.started the next day.dried it out. Changed the carpets and drove for another year. Kinda miss that car.

Think it was Toyotafanboi put this link up here first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlH7YIk3nMA

mullingar

My 1998 LPG'd GS300. 3.0 Auto

The only thing to go wrong in 9 years of ownership was the solenoid on the starter, €30 fix.

Those yokes are cockroaches.

small_rancher

toyota land cruiser 3 litre automatic diesel

im not even a fan of toyota ( pretty dull ) but ive had this jeep more than eight years and its never gave a seconds trouble , nice to drive too

Cee-Jay-Cee

Clareman wrote: »

I had a 1992 version of it, battery went 1 morning and decided to off load it before more stuff went wrong with it, I still see it on the road every once in a while, I loved that car

Battery is a consumable part!! Do you sell your cars when brake pads wear too???

JohnBoy26

Mechanically there was no end to those old civics. Rust and examples falling into the wrong hands were their main downfalls.

Cee-Jay-Cee

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Jesus lads, some mechanical horror stories in this thread: cars not serviced for 6 years, topping up with used oil... then one wonders why the Irish second hand cars market is such a deathtrap

In my defence, I bought my civic in 2003 from a dealer who took is as a part exchange, it owed him €0.00 and he sold it to me for €150 'sold as seen for parts or repair' with absolutely no guarantee it would even make it out the gate. I drove it for the first 6 months expecting it to lie down and die at any stage and even if it had, I had my moneys worth out of it however the old dog simply never gave up and I continued to drive it for a further 4.5 years. I was reluctant to put new oil in it for fear the engine would reject the clean oil and fail. I sold it for €400 for parts yet driving and the lad that bought it drove it for at least 6 months after that and sold it on to someone else. I'm sure its dead at this stage but I wouldnt be entirely surprised if i was told it was still on the road.

Mantis Toboggan

Kia pro ceed

Have it almost 6 years and all I've changed was the break pads and tyres.

Jesus.

Mk1 Almera. Drove it for 7 years without so much as an oil change. Never skipped a beat.

pred racer

86 micra.

2 yrs of being driven flat out everywhere, never skipped a beat!

Stinicker

pred racer wrote: »

86 micra.

2 yrs of being driven flat out everywhere, never skipped a beat!

Infairness, at 55kmph it wasn't going to get much abuse was it.

pred racer

Stinicker wrote: »

Infairness, at 55kmph it wasn't going to get much abuse was it.

the terminal speed is not important, the fact that it was driven at 100% of its capabilities at all times is

BTW that car would do an indicated 160Kph

TheHillOfDoom

98 Starlet. Drove me to its graveyard with neither oil nor water in it apparently. Woops! I think it was 1.4. Moved to a Yaris. Sat for a year in lines of traffic unable to overtake anything bar stationery objects.

Clareman

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Battery is a consumable part!! Do you sell your cars when brake pads wear too???

I know, I know, I know. It was over 10 years old at the time and I needed a reliable car and I figured that stuff would start to go wrong with it so I'd be better to get rid of it before it started to give me problems.

boardsuser1

a 1999 Fiat Punto sx with the 1.2 litre 8v engine. bought the car for 200 euro,passed the nct first go,was fanatastic on petrol and I sold it off a year later as the clutch release bearing packed up,the only issue it ever gave. never had a car like it before or since, sorry to fcuk I never got the clutch done in it as it was only 250 to do.:(

ronnie3585

Mk1 Ford Focus, 1.6 Ghia.

Hands down the most reliable product let alone car I've ever owned. My father bought it nearly new in 1999. He drove it for ten years, I drove it for six. In sixteen years it never let us down.....not once.......ever! All it got was a service every year and consumables when required. Thereafter nothing broke or malfunctioned. It was nice to drive too, if a little fond of a drop of petrol. An utterly reliable machine. I was sad to see her go.

ShadowHearth

A few odd ones:

Pug 406 00' - owned for twp years and only service and breakpads. At that time my ex worked in ennis, so 5-6 days per week Cork - ennis trips for 4 months and nothing.
Sold it to a friend and after 2 years driving she noticed that nct expired 4 months ago. Booked nct amd passed without even mechanic check up. She drove it for another 2 years then sold it.

My subaru wrx 05' - owned car for 3 years and only service. The amount of bull**** I heard that engines are made out off pudding and I should go evo etc... Never missed a beat.

Ford mondeo 00' - bought for 500eu as banger. Owned it for 2 years. Only service. Never missed a beat. After I bought subaru it was sitting in the back for almost a year. I have it away buddy who flip cars. He put new front tyres did nct and sold to a couple who needed a cheap banger to transport dogs to Spain and throw away that car. They ended up loving the thing and drove it in Spain for a year and came back to Ireland with it. Scraped it, but not because it was wrecked, but because they just had no Need for it and selling it was just a hassle as it was already bangornomics car in the first place.

ShadowHearth

A few odd ones:

Pug 406 00' - owned for twp years and only service and breakpads. At that time my ex worked in ennis, so 5-6 days per week Cork - ennis trips for 4 months and nothing.
Sold it to a friend and after 2 years driving she noticed that nct expired 4 months ago. Booked nct amd passed without even mechanic check up. She drove it for another 2 years then sold it.

My subaru wrx 05' - owned car for 3 years and only service. The amount of bull**** I heard that engines are made out off pudding and I should go evo etc... Never missed a beat.

Ford mondeo 00' - bought for 500eu as banger. Owned it for 2 years. Only service. Never missed a beat. After I bought subaru it was sitting in the back for almost a year. I have it away buddy who flip cars. He put new front tyres did nct and sold to a couple who needed a cheap banger to transport dogs to Spain and throw away that car. They ended up loving the thing and drove it in Spain for a year and came back to Ireland with it. Scraped it, but not because it was wrecked, but because they just had no Need for it and selling it was just a hassle as it was already bangornomics car in the first place.

Bobjims

ronnie3585 wrote: »

Mk1 Ford Focus, 1.6 Ghia.

Hands down the most reliable product let alone car I've ever owned. My father bought it nearly new in 1999. He drove it for ten years, I drove it for six. In sixteen years it never let us down.....not once.......ever! All it got was a service every year and consumables when required. Thereafter nothing broke or malfunctioned. It was nice to drive too, if a little fond of a drop of petrol. An utterly reliable machine. I was sad to see her go.

I'm driving a 00 one of these at the moment. Best car I've ever owned!! Never let me down. All it ever needed was brake pads and general consumables. 150k miles on it now and still going strong.

I'd say it will be the difficulty in insuring such an old car that will see it off the road before mechanical failure!!

Truckermal

88-C-2385 Toyota Corolla I couldn't kill it no matter how hard I tried so I ended up selling it to a mate who drove the ring out of it and still couldn't kill it!!!

Greyfoot

ShadowHearth wrote: »

My subaru wrx 05' - owned car for 3 years and only service. The amount of bull**** I heard that engines are made out off pudding and I should go evo etc... Never missed a beat.

In all fairness the ej20 pistons are on the weak side but scoobies are reliable mechanically.

On topic mk1 almera here too, couldn`t destroy mine.

Nekarsulm

Best car was a 1995 Mercedes E300 diesel. Bought it with 230 thousand miles on the clock but it was an ex taxi so who knows what the real mileage was.
Put another 130 thousand miles on it with absolutely nothing going wrong. I did change the oil every 5000 miles though, as there is so much room under the bonnet you can reach down and open the sump plug without even kneeling down. It always got Tractor Super Universal oil. Chassis broke across above the rear axle in the end. It was a tank of a car.
I was motoring along about 55 one morning and was meeting a readymix truck. A big lump of a hound dog ran across in front of me to bark at the truck, just as the nose of the car was at a level with the trucks bumper. He disappeared under the nose of the car and there were a few bumps before he reappeared in the mirror. Checking later, there was a tiny mark on the bumper, absolutely no other damage. Tank.
95-D-7650

ronnie3585

Bobjims wrote: »

I'm driving a 00 one of these at the moment. Best car I've ever owned!! Never let me down. All it ever needed was brake pads and general consumables. 150k miles on it now and still going strong.

I'd say it will be the difficulty in insuring such an old car that will see it off the road before mechanical failure!!

That's the biggest issue - insurance. As they get older they get harder and more expensive to insure. The last premium I paid on it was nearly the price of the car

If yours is using oil try changing to 10W40. It appears to be an issue with that engine, when I made the change it didn't burn a drop.

ShaunieVW

My 2001 Audi A3, it had the VAG 1.8T which has to be the best VAG engine of that era. Never gave trouble, only had consumables and regular services. I had it for 3 years and nearly 40k miles. I miss it so much

JohnBoy26

ronnie3585 wrote: »

Mk1 Ford Focus, 1.6 Ghia.

Hands down the most reliable product let alone car I've ever owned. My father bought it nearly new in 1999. He drove it for ten years, I drove it for six. In sixteen years it never let us down.....not once.......ever! All it got was a service every year and consumables when required. Thereafter nothing broke or malfunctioned. It was nice to drive too, if a little fond of a drop of petrol. An utterly reliable machine. I was sad to see her go.

Never a fuel pump, water pump housing, coil packs or central locking issues? All common but mostly minor issues on the focus.

NIMAN

1991 Toyota MR2.
Bought it in 1998 and kept it until around 2012, was running sweet for a 21 year old car.

Never gave me any bother at all.
Only thing I had to do to it was servicing, a timing belt change and some shocks.

Great car. Sadly missed.

selectamatic

1998 1.3 e11 corolla was minded like a baby by its first owner then it met more careless owners and got some bad cosmetic damage thus bringing it down to beater status, that's where I stepped in, it was used for a number of years as a motorway trooper hung with the daysul boys at 140kph day in day out swallowing petrol but never an issue after this I gave it to younger members of the household who each have done their best to kill it. It's been crashed about 4 times and has had two "tips" also. Parts were either straightened with ignorance and brute force or replaced with the cheapest 2nd hand parts available. It's been driven like a rally car/work van for the best part of the last 3 years hauling vag tdi parts from post to pillar.
it's been serviced a few times alright but usually with the cheapest of all the consumables, oil,pads,filters etc.
it's currently parked up due to insurance costs and it also generously donated it's throttle body to another corolla that was in need. However it'll never leave our ownership I must get it back on the road again this summer for the sake of it. It's famous around the locality and many have questioned why it's not on the road at the moment with remarks such as "has she finally gave up the ghost" or "ye finally killed it lads" so I feel it deserves to go back on the road to continue its dogged fight through life and of course reclaim it's deserved bulletproof reputation.

Chippy01

1972 Opel Kadett, bought in 1977 with 20,000 miles on the clock for £750.
Fast forward 8+ years, I had added another 160,000+ trouble free miles to the clock, and sold it for £500.

Sometimes I miss that old stalwart.

Bobjims

ronnie3585 wrote: »

That's the biggest issue - insurance. As they get older they get harder and more expensive to insure. The last premium I paid on it was nearly the price of the car

If yours is using oil try changing to 10W40. It appears to be an issue with that engine, when I made the change it didn't burn a drop.

Yeah it uses a bit of oil alright. Doesn't really bother me as I keep an eye on it and add some when needed.

Superhorse

2000 Honda civic. Owned it 11 years and not a single problem.