I was looking at the new Toyota MR2 Spyders. I liked the design and was not too concerned about performance. I was thinking it might be a car that my wife would enjoy. So I read some reviews on the Spyder and decided to visit a couple of boards to see what glitches it had.

Boy was I shocked at what I was reading. Our Toyota had been nothing but trouble free since we owned it. So, it never occurred to me that Toyota could produce a car with so many problems. A quick list:


Engines go bad and needing replaced as early as 20k miles. One poster had two new short blocks installed by 90k miles. The second one only lasted 22k miles!
Cats fail
Faulty clutch and troublesome SMT
Faulty ECUs
Faulty oxygen sensors
Faulty MAF
Belt tensioners go bad and rattle
Brake problems

Most of these posters had these problems between 20-35k. So all were getting new engines, transmissions, catalytic converters, computers etc replaced under warranty. A few posters were just out of warranty and being told they needed entire long blocks replaced.

The funny thing about what I was reading is that nobody was too upset about all this, or so it seemed.

I really am shocked that Toyota could produce something with so many problems. It makes the harmonic balancer problem look like a walk in the park!

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Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

That suprises me too, especially considering the Prius is (and has been) virtually trouble free -- and that is a much newer and more complicated vehicle.

Hmmm...

Think for a moment on what the MR2 is. They are marketed as "low bux" sports cars, and are presumably being treated as such. Due to the price, I'm assuming that the majority of the drivers are going to be younger, and more abusive to their cars.

As for the Prius, Toyota is literally creating a new market segment, and presumably went over the designs with a fine toothed comb to insure that it wasn't going to be a market nightmare. As I've bought one myself, I'm banking on this as there isn't much of anything under that hood that I could possibly work on myself, either due to complexity, or plain old difficulty to access.

That stinks! The original MR-2 was a great little car. My brother owned one and still misses it. It was sold to an ex-girlfriend of his!

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Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

Yea I thought I remembered them being decent cars before.

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Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

They are around my school like flies... they just won't go away. Most of them sound like utter crap, but then again, when they get fired up and 20 seconds later do a massive clutch slipping burnout out of the parking lot, what do you expect.
~D.J.~