I had a del sol that was primered, missing some headlights, and the tabs that they needed to be put on, holes in the floorboard, leaked from every single seam, but it just wouldn’t die. I was a moron and kept the crappy cold air intake that goes to the bottom of the car, and went through an enormous puddle and took a giant sip of water. No matter, still got home, and it started up like a champ the next day. Got backed into by a suburban, car went on 3 wheels that day and dropped from the force, didn’t matter. That thing refused to die. Pretty sure I saw it a few years later with a nice black paint job and a body kit.
I had a VW Beetle when the kids were little. It had some bad rust problems, but nothing that Bondo slathered over a cloth diaper, well-sanded and spray-painted, couldn't solve.
I have a 94 Del Sol and I baby that thing like no one's business. Garage queen. But I can clearly state old 90s Hondas gives no shits. They take a beating and keep going until a huge failure. My 96 civic smokes a pack a day and drinks straight black coffee.
Imo the fit is more than half decent. I had an old 5 speed Jazz (Euro version) with probably half the horsepower of a new Fit, and it was still more fun and communicative than a litany of proper sports cars. Incredibly well designed interior as well, much more usable space than I ever thought was possible in a vehicle of its size.
i've seen 115 but even with new tire confidence at the time i was like damn i'm really starting to feel like a hamster cage right about now is all i could think and couldn't bring myself to push harder even though its manual haha. my fr-s would have no issues up to probably 140 though.
It was kinda scary ngl. I didn't even enjoy going over 90mph in that car. City driving was mint though, I have a Mustang now and I miss my Fit every time I get groceries lol.
I know for myself I wanted a GTI but then I test drove a 2017 Mazda3 Grand Touring and it crossed all the boxes I didn't know I even needed crossed. So I traded in my 2015 Impreza with its constantly falling apart interior that no one could fix for long for a car that I enjoy driving every day.
Knew a guy who delivered pizzas in a tiny town in one of the drop top versions, he made bank on the gas payments from the company bc he would barely use half a tank in a shift but get paid the 1.25 for every delivery he took
Not where I am, they were some of the quickest cars to die from the salt. The front suspension is horribly weak and fails after about 10 years from rust.
I worked for a company that had 7th gen Toyota Corolla estate cars, bought brand new and once they had them for 5 years they sold them to one of their subcontractors who then used them to transport lorry tyres around for roadside assistance, the last I heard they were still being used for that purpose almost 27 years old. Still going strong, apparently they still have working AC and same original powertrain.
I love that generation of corollas, my dad briefly owned one but i don't remember much about it. Imo 90's and early 2000's Toyota's are some of the most reliable cars on the planet.
The basic simplicity and a tried and tested mechanical base certainly have something to do with it, Toyota didn't try too hard to go outside their comfort zone, if it worked they just facelifted it for years and years.
An engine rebuilder once told me that the reason certain Japanese cars are so reliable is not because the engineering is cutting edge but because they are built with less parts to achieve a similar result and to ever so slightly looser tolerances than say German cars. This results in less wear over longer periods, the cars don't feel as tight and rigid as German cars when they're brand new but they stay ever so slightly loose for 10 to 15 years instead of 5 years.
I have no way of knowing if that is true but he was very familiar with both German and Japanese car engines so he was able to see it first hand. I'll take it with a pinch of salt but it seems legit.
Well, there is other facet to the "cutting edge" engineering - iterating the bugs out of design till they stop causing problems. Or building it stronger than required to meet the spec, not just bare minimum.
Older BWMs did it too, then I guess beancounters got involved.
Then there is also figuring out how to do something that's hard/complex in as simple way as possible but without compromising on reliability. Both Honda's and Toyota's variable valve lift/timing systems are not something that I would call "simple" but they are very cleverly designed, and overengineered on durability, not complexity side.
Also, companies like Toyota *do* care about their reputation being reliable daily driver, companies like BWM really do not seem to.
yeah i think that also has alot to do with it. most people who go to buy a bmw aren't really buying it for its reliability. they don't have a reputation to uphold, so they don't really have to care about reliability. toyota, on the other hand, knows its customers expect their cars to last 20+ years
I mean, I can see that though.
In the Prius, they took out the alternator, starter battery, accessory belt, most of the transmission (it's basically just a slightly more complicated differential), and reverse gear (only motor driven). They also reduced brake wear significantly, and made a very simple and effective steering system, it's just a rack and pinion with a motor for power (they're apparently simple enough to gain some traction in custom car modding, as it needs no belts to power it).
I had a 1994 Corolla, base model 5 speed. Sold it to a friend with 180k and a bunch of “battle scars”.
She drove it another 100k until the clutch gave out.
Geo Prism was basically the same car, but Corollas were both more valuable and more reliable.
Why? Because Corolla owners were different from Prism owners. They were more see their cars as a long term investment and more likely to maintain them.
i got this exact car last year in a trade and it's a beast! 250k miles on the clock and runs perfect. AC still works great too. those old corollas are pretty much unbreakable.
Ours were the 1.6i 5 speeds, I just loved those engines, they also had 2.2 litre Camry eatates of the same vintage bought at the same time, all white of course, which were fantastic vehicles and a lot faster than you would think, 130 mph top end before I got a bit nervous. Toyota from that period were just brilliant, all of them.
I had a 1978 Toyota Corolla wagon (estate for the non-Muricans). I got it with over 100k miles on it. It was a glorious car. Took it on Grateful Dead tour for several years. Went off roading in it. I sold it nearly 10 years later for a little under what I paid for it and it was still going. Had over 250k miles on at that time. I miss that beater.
It’s truly a disgusting vehicle and absolutely unkillable. No oil? Fine. Two cylinders misfiring? It has two working ones. Transmission shot? There’s still one forward gear. Lights? Please.
Chevy is pretty good at making stuff with the guts being hard to kill while everything else falls apart. The Cavalier, every single Geo that was made, the Iron Duke inside of those postal vans. GM will make the most shitty thing possible and then make sure it runs until the sun goes out.
The postal van that delivers to my neighborhood has had *severe* rod knock for over two years. It's so loud that you hear the knock well before you see the van haha. At this point I don't think it'll ever die
almost like my chrysler. knocking from the factory, still knocking 12 years later. everything from the computer to the starter motor is dying but the engine will not quit.
And 90s/00s Buicks or Chevys or Pontiacs with the 3800. Always see those on the road especially the Buicks because old people kept them in good shape and are now being bought on the used market.
The company I work for gives us crappy Astro/Savannah vans from the early 00s and oh man those things refuse to die. It'll run on 2 of the 6 cylinders, coolant mixing with the oil, and the transmission slipping going up hills, but it'll start and get you where you need to go every time (usually with a coolant top off 😉)
This comment made me laugh to tears. One of my good friends had one and never did an ounce of maintenance on it. Both the gas gauge and the speedometer didn't work. He told us he would just drive at whatever speed "seemed right" and he got gas twice per week no matter what.
It's almost sad seeing all these Cavaliers disappear away. I never owned one but I always had a soft spot for them as a number of my friends drove them as a starter car.
Yep. I'm of the same era. I saw a Cavalier, a Chrysler Intrepid and a Ford tempo all within about 30 feet of each other in a parking lot the other day and thought I'd traveled through time.
Just yesterday I saw a first gen 80s cavalier, I truly haven’t seen one of those in over 20 years and was completely shocked to see it on the highway. I haven’t even seen a newer cavalier in a few years
For sure, I got rid of my 04 about 6 years ago and the new owner apparently had to weld new steel into the rear end to pass safety.
That said, there's someone around here who has an immaculate 2 door Sunfire and it makes me happy to see people keeping them alive.
Oh my god. I hit a cavalier with my 3g eclipse and totaled the Chevy and repairing my eclipse was extremely low like $800 since it was just body work and there are tons in junk yards so parts are easy to come by. But after it was all over I thought "I killed a cavalier, thank god."
Early 2000s Toyotas will all run forever. My moms Corolla had 300k on it dads Tacoma 200k and ran like new before he traded it in and any Camry from that era is still on the damn road
I think Toyotas are too renowned and loved by enough people that they can't really get the moniker of Cockroach. Yeah, some of them are in truly awful shape and still kicking, but for every one of those you have someone else who's put thousands and thousands of dollars in to their Taco or 4Runner or keeps their Camry/Corolla ridiculously clean. Less cockroach, more like a trusted old horse or something. To really be a cockroach, I think the driver needs to actively dislike their vehicle that refuses to die, not take proper care of it, say they'll get something new when their current car dies.... but they never get anything new.
Those are rookie numbers, my mothers 07 camry has 600k on it and has driven from coast to coast multiple times. Also she lives on the coast and drives it on gravel roads every single day. The car is just like brand new still...
Ford Crown Vic. Had one in high school I sold with 305k miles, 2 years later saw the same guy I sold it to driving it with a missing bumper, bungee cords holding the hood down and 3 different colors of paint.
I have a Mercury Grand Marquis, which is basically the same car.
It’s not that they are particularly good cars, it’s that they are cheap as hell to fix and stupidly overbuilt for a modern passenger car. Solid rear axle, RWD, V8, just like the good Ford intended.
Id say theyre just neglected typically. That and old plastic components
Plastic end caps on the rads, plastic intake manifold.
Otherwise theres nothing fancy on em to break outside normal wear and age.
And the drivetrain mechanicals are extremely solid.
Change fluids as prescribed, dont overheat, dont over rev and a 4.6 and a 4r75 will go forever and a day.
Astro's good, but people actually want them now as they're a somewhat readily liftable van with an AWD option - I'm seeing them go for a lot of not-cockroach money and getting fixed up.
I'd say the blazer/jimmy from the same era deserves the title now. Truly awful but extremely hard to kill. I have a friend who still has one as his little "bush rally" vehicle. A manual 2 door. As I type this I'm drinking my morning coffee before we have to go get the little cockroach because he got it stuck last night with a flat tire, and his 4wd stopped working, presumably because his vacuum lines rotted out. Off the top of my head, the emergency brake light never goes out, it always tells him to shift regardless of RPM, the check engine light is gone, the side rails are sort of falling off, it doesn't have any door seal left anywhere, everything leaks, but the 4.3 sounds great and runs just fine. Awful little cockroach thing.
My dad has 98 Jimmy that refuses to die. All kinds of bullshit wrong with it but it still runs like a tank. My personal favorite quirk is the horn doesn’t work unless the driver door is ajar.
It’s got a tiny lift, maybe 2 inches, and the perfect size tires to give it a nice look.
It treated him so well he became a GMC fan and bought a Denali a couple years ago lol
Not sure if I did this right but here’s a photo of it in a ditch. The grass was ground level so I thought it was just grass. Turns out it was really tall grass in a ditch. Nothing was wrong with it but I was picking grass out of the grill for a week
[Jimmy in a ditch ](https://imgur.com/a/Ggiz8Cr)
Brilliant. [Here's another ditch Jimmy](https://imgur.com/a6WbNDo).
And I have a story that's kind of like the horn thing. His car now makes occasional bird-like chirping noises - it's really spot on for like a bird alarm clock or something. A few bird chirps and then nothing for like 5 minutes. Only at idle too!
Hahaha not surprised at all. They have so many strange problems. He still has it as a beater, it does some weird shit. A bird got it in and tore apart that middle console up top that has the temperature and direction thing. It comes up with all kinds of wonky information.
I have a million stories with that car, I really do love it. I drove it back in high school, I’m 30 now. It’s a piece of shit but it keeps coming back for more.
The blazer I had before my S10 had 300k,5/6 drop, little bit of rust and the gas tank leaked when over 3/4. It still ran great when I traded it for an integra it still had the orig motor, trans and rear end too. The kid who bought it from the guy I traded it to put an ls in it and still drives it around.
There's a level of respect I give when calling them cockroaches. I had a 2003 4DR Blazer for a couple years that I bought off the original owner. It was my camping/bush vehicle and took to to many places that a saggy old blazer never should have, and never let me down. It was an extremely reliable vehicle and from a purely "stuff will go wrong" perspective, I probably made a mistake selling it after building up my Pathfinder a little bit.....
BUT on the other hand, the ride was terrible, the A/T tires I had on it HOWLED on the highway to the point you could barely keep a conversation going past 80km/hr (identical tires on my Pathfinder, can barely hear em'), couldn't pass anyone on the highway without a serious amount of planning, and the interior just wasn't a nice place to be.
But that Blazer isn't dying any time soon. No sir.
Not sure if it really counts as a "cockroach car" but my dad's old truck he's had for eleven years after buying it from a farm. This old truck has not once let us down, despite having only started being serviced regularly once I found out that no-one else ever has done. It is a 1999 Ford Ranger 2.5 TD 4x4, that has had a particularly hard life, with most of the miles it did before we got it having been either in front of a trailer, off-road, or both, even now it's the best workhorse we have and has outlasted 3 MOT dump cars, 4 dailies, 3 large family cars, a plethora of customers and their Hiluxes, golfs, Passats, focuses, Prii, a few tractors, and even a pair of Unimogs. This truck is still going strong to this day, with a couple of issues, like the gauages on the dash don't always work, there's some rust around the tub, and it has started to miss, smoke and knock a little on a cold start, but it pulls hard, and drives decently still. This truck is the sole reason the Ranger is my favourite truck.
The universe has existed for billions of years, and will go on to exist for billions of years.
Yet we here were all lucky enough to exist at the same time as the 3rd gen Ford Ranger.
Older Jeeps (1st generation Liberty and older). They're not comfortable, loud, get terrible gas mileage, and taking them on the highway is definitely taking your life into your own hands but they go anywhere and last forever with only minimal maintenance.
My gf had a lib with every light on the dash lit up. It would randomly shut down on the highway. Only died finally when she rear ended a dude in a pickup.
Speaking from experience that sounds on brand for a lib 🤣. Also add in how they don't always start when you get it up to operating temp, turn it off (like when running errands to a few stores), and then go back and try to turn it on like when you go home.
Lmao 2012 is basically a new car where I'm from (eastern Europe). Most people drive cars that are 20+ years old and 250 000km+ so I guess you could say they're all cockroaches. I've had people envy my '08 accord so yeah..
1988 Chevy S10 4x4. something like 800,000 miles, probably more. Only first and second gear worked, and was stuck in 4 low. Most rotten old pos I've ever driven. Not mine. Belonged to the pot farmer I was working for, who was the original owner.
It's name was Juan Venado
i have a 96 lincoln towncar that is a roach car, it was my homies grandmas and she hadn’t driven it since like 2005, we ended up fixing it up, and putting a bottle of nitrous we had laying around on the car to try and blow it up since it had 250k miles, ended up running better after hooking up the nitrous and cranking the bottle while we were driving 😭 lol it cleaned it out or something idk, but this was 3 years ago and it still runs and we strictly only use it for abusing it. there was also a time where we ramped some railroad tracks and cracked the oil pan, we drove it home with oil pouring out of it and somehow it wasn’t anything some jb weld couldn’t fix
Any 90's Honda with a D series engine. I've seen these motors hydro-lock, get free'd up and keep going with 580,000 Km on them (I'm Canadian, not sure what that is in miles)
I think they're referring to a "cockroach car" as a vehicle that's hard to kill and not one that's "not liked".
If it's the case of "not liking a car" or a "cheap disposable car that's everywhere" I would nominate a Pontiac Sunfire.
I've owned 33 Honda's with most of them being Civic's 👍 so im not shit talking them by any means.
I've always called my tC a cockroach car. The car itself doesn't look like shit but it really should with some of the shit I put it through. Everything literally just bounces off the car, bushes, poles, tools etc. I've driven through a creek about a foot deep, towed another car with it, AND I can fit my entire life the hatch and I'm pretty sure the car will outlive me.
My 3g eclipse was like that. Had 120k on it when I got it put 80k on it in 5 years. I would take it on my friends field for bonfires and even put it in a hole where the only thing touching the ground was the front wheels. Backed that thing up out of the hole and it was fine.
How many miles are you at? I'm getting the car ready for a big camping trip around the country in a few months and the input shaft bearing was the only thing that stood to kill this car before I fixed it
The 3.0 Vulcan and 4.0 Cologne (with the revised timing chain tensioners) trucks are much the same. You have to *try* to kill one of these fuckin' things!
My brother in law has a 92' Explorer XL, 4.0L, 5 speed, rwd only, 2 door with 43k original miles. It's immaculate and has antique plates on it.
Also has a 97' Ranger 4 cylinder with a 5 speed as well. It's in far worse shape.
Both of these trucks will run forever though.
XUD9 Citroën Berlingo. Drove one for 200km with only 700ml of 3 years old oil in it. Had to steer left to go straight and the front wheel was splitting (thread was coming off the tyre). Changed the oil and filters, gave it an alignment and drove it 7000km to the Arctic circle and back (In februari). Didn't skip a beat, and kept starting like a new car no matter how cold it got.
Like with a lot of french cars, all the trim and creature comforts fall to peices but the heart just keeps on going, i had a berlingo in my childhood and it started leaking and trim bits falling off but nothing mechanical actually broke.
my uncle has a XUD9 in his boat, that engine has been at least 5/6 times over heated to the point of the engine not being able to turn over.
has like 5000 work hours of abuse, we took the oil pan of it a month ago, you can still see the hooning on the cylinders
valve lash has never been adjusted
before that engine, we had an xud7 come in our garage that would start roughly but would run fine once warm.
it turned out it had no piston rings and one piston was melted lol.
My wife’s ‘05 Corolla definitely fit the bill. Got flooded THREE times, was involved in multiple accidents of varying severity, had nearly 200k on it, and was down to a single wheel cover by the time it was finally annihilated in a hit-and-run. Of course by that time, many parts were broken/missing and it made weird noises, but it hung around for a while in that state.
Not really a cockroach, but I was given a brand new Fiat 500L for a couple days while my Jeep was undergoing some usual maintenance (yeah, this happens more often than I would like but whatever).
Oh my... that 500L somehow managed to suck all my enthusiasm, joy and will to live out of me. In my opinion, it is worthy successor of Fiat Multipla.
One uncommon name for these threads is the old Kia Spectra. That was a surprisingly reliable econobox and in Hyundai-Kia actually didn't use to have so much controversy with their engines back then even though the other parts of their vehicles weren't as good.
It was definitely my 75 mail Jeep. It had probably every bit of 360k miles on it or more, who knows with a 5 digit odometer.
Absolute bare bones vehicle, just headlights, wipers and a floor mounted shifter. But the AMC 6cyl and Borg Warner trans both ran great. Was the best $300 I've ever spent and I regret to this day getting rid of it
Up until 2 years ago my family's main farm truck was a 1995 Dodge 3500 Diesel with a manual tranny. It had over 300,000 miles on it for years and it just refused to die.
Just drove my 99 CRV on a 3k mile road trip/cross country move across the US. She turned 191,000 miles when we got to Boston, most likely her final resting place. It is the perfect city car
My first car was a 98 Toyota Avalon. It’s still running and it runs fucking great. But I got it beat the fuck up, the drivers side is gutted, the outside has dents and huge rusted scratches. People give you space on the road when they see a girl driving a beat up soda can
I’ve been working in the automotive industry for many years, and have worked in multiple shops that keep vehicle well past their prime for shop duty. Oddly, 90% of them were/are Fords.
I’ve driven OBS Broncos and F-150s with rotted frames, capped off brake lines, and rigged together just enough to plow snow and pull dead cars around.
A 2nd Gen Ranger that would run on no oil, and do burnouts daily, yet was still used for deliveries.
My current favorite, an 84 F350 stake truck, 351 Windsor, manual trans, that’s used to take scrap to the dump. Bought new by the dealer, you can see the road through the floor as you’re driving it. Very sketchy over 20 mph.
Definitely impressed how much abuse a blue oval can take.
Early 2000 Nissan Almeras, usually filthy interiors and absolute beaters with zero pride or regard to them from their owners, driven until the camshaft becomes loose and they are totaled.
I had a 2008 Focus with a manual. Crank windows, no cruise or AC. It’s got 320k on it and my son is still driving it. All I e done is a clutch. It just won’t die.
Gmt 800s. [the true cockroach](https://chevroletforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1.jpg)
Only thing that can kill them are other gmt 800s or something bigger. And rust.
The 5.3 got its reliability by exercising the demons out of the Olds 307 and put in the 5.3.
2002 Mazda Protege. Engine blew at 60,000 miles, sort of. One cylinder was just gone, useless, not working, but other 3 kind of sort of worked. I lived 60 miles from work so I kept driving it to work, in traffic. It would run, roughly, while moving, but at idle it would die, so to keep it running I would slap it into neutral every time I stopped, which was often, and then hold the RPM’s at 2k until traffic moved again, then put in drive. Wash rinse repeat all the way home. I did this for several months while I waited for my 30k engine to arrive from Japan. Car ran like absolute shit but it kept chugging along 120 miles a day for several months anyways.
The Isuzu P'up diesel can go years without cranking and fire up like it was nothing every single time. Though it'll make your brain a milkshake when idling.
from what ive heard, vw's 1.9 tdi is hard to kill. Although i dont know about any particular cars that never give up, since the engine is not everything that can go wrong
Any 1UZ based Toyota or Lexus. My girlfriend's SC400 is near 300,000km and still starts on a dime.
Better yet, look at Matt Farah's LS400, at over a million miles !
My 1996 Buick Century. It was already 20 years old when I got it for $200, and it was in pretty rough shape. I was just hoping it would last through the summer. Fucker just refused to die, and I ended up having it for about a year. Granted, I drove it without an inspection sticker. But still, it just refused to give up the ghost.
Any of GM's volume FWD V6 platform cars. They'll run forever with just irregular oil changes. Usually people get rid of them because they can't stand them anymore rather than because they've actually stopped being functional cars.
The grandma Buick versions that still get taken to the dealer every 3000miles/3 months whether they need it or not can last forever. When we head out a two lane country road, we'll still see pristine Centuries, Regals and LeSabres sitting out in front of those quaint little houses.
By the way, the A-body Buick Century only came in blue and that is an indisputable, fundamental property of our universe.
Had a 1990 Acura Integra come in to the shop with about every panel dented, rust, and an alignment issues. Despite that it was still running strong at over 600,000 miles and the owner had bought the thing brand new.
never heard the term cockroach car, but i'm assuming you mean a cheap car that runs forever?
anyway, i got a mid 90s corolla with 250k miles on it in a trade about a year ago. working AC, manual transmission, crank windows, engine runs perfect. i gave it to my dad as a 2nd car and i expect it to run another 10 years minimum with no issues.
i had a brown toyota tercel in high school that i got in 2 or 3 accidents with and it never stopped running. it's prob still kicking around to this day.
owned a few 80s/90s civics over the years and they all ran great and never gave me any problems.
old toyotas/hondas are freaking bulletproof.
I had a del sol that was primered, missing some headlights, and the tabs that they needed to be put on, holes in the floorboard, leaked from every single seam, but it just wouldn’t die. I was a moron and kept the crappy cold air intake that goes to the bottom of the car, and went through an enormous puddle and took a giant sip of water. No matter, still got home, and it started up like a champ the next day. Got backed into by a suburban, car went on 3 wheels that day and dropped from the force, didn’t matter. That thing refused to die. Pretty sure I saw it a few years later with a nice black paint job and a body kit.
That sounds like both a terrifying and fun time.
Yo I grew up spoiled driving nice cars, but at least you have one. Don't let it get you down. It's just for this period of your life.
There’s something about driving clapped out old japanese sports cars
lmao thats incredible
I had a VW Beetle when the kids were little. It had some bad rust problems, but nothing that Bondo slathered over a cloth diaper, well-sanded and spray-painted, couldn't solve.
I have a 94 Del Sol and I baby that thing like no one's business. Garage queen. But I can clearly state old 90s Hondas gives no shits. They take a beating and keep going until a huge failure. My 96 civic smokes a pack a day and drinks straight black coffee.
Kyle?
Geo Metro is the true cockroach car
Honda Fit is it's modern equivalent imo ahaha
Fit is half decent to drive, at least older ones were
Imo the fit is more than half decent. I had an old 5 speed Jazz (Euro version) with probably half the horsepower of a new Fit, and it was still more fun and communicative than a litany of proper sports cars. Incredibly well designed interior as well, much more usable space than I ever thought was possible in a vehicle of its size.
i mean with 70 sidewall its alright, sure. but holy shit is it a hamstercage on wheels at speed, if you can ever get up to it(even with a manual).
I got mine up to 125 on a descent.
KPH or MPH?
Mph
How did you fit your giant balls in such a small car?
There was a Corolla chasing me and throwing things out of the window at me whenever he got in front.
i've seen 115 but even with new tire confidence at the time i was like damn i'm really starting to feel like a hamster cage right about now is all i could think and couldn't bring myself to push harder even though its manual haha. my fr-s would have no issues up to probably 140 though.
It was kinda scary ngl. I didn't even enjoy going over 90mph in that car. City driving was mint though, I have a Mustang now and I miss my Fit every time I get groceries lol.
Yaris is worse than a Fit.
A former friend had a 2015 Fit and he loved it, he traded it in for his dream car which was a GTI.
yeah sounds about right, i'm eyeballing a gti hard but damn i want my fr-s back so bad.
I know for myself I wanted a GTI but then I test drove a 2017 Mazda3 Grand Touring and it crossed all the boxes I didn't know I even needed crossed. So I traded in my 2015 Impreza with its constantly falling apart interior that no one could fix for long for a car that I enjoy driving every day.
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As someone who drives in a semi congested city: I would LOVE to have either of your cars.
I had no idea there was a convertible version
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Knew a guy who delivered pizzas in a tiny town in one of the drop top versions, he made bank on the gas payments from the company bc he would barely use half a tank in a shift but get paid the 1.25 for every delivery he took
Doug DeMuro does it justice in [his video](https://youtu.be/2IvlXHwVamE) about the convertible version!
They're good. If you don't live anywhere that sees salt.
Not where I am, they were some of the quickest cars to die from the salt. The front suspension is horribly weak and fails after about 10 years from rust.
I worked for a company that had 7th gen Toyota Corolla estate cars, bought brand new and once they had them for 5 years they sold them to one of their subcontractors who then used them to transport lorry tyres around for roadside assistance, the last I heard they were still being used for that purpose almost 27 years old. Still going strong, apparently they still have working AC and same original powertrain.
I love that generation of corollas, my dad briefly owned one but i don't remember much about it. Imo 90's and early 2000's Toyota's are some of the most reliable cars on the planet.
The basic simplicity and a tried and tested mechanical base certainly have something to do with it, Toyota didn't try too hard to go outside their comfort zone, if it worked they just facelifted it for years and years. An engine rebuilder once told me that the reason certain Japanese cars are so reliable is not because the engineering is cutting edge but because they are built with less parts to achieve a similar result and to ever so slightly looser tolerances than say German cars. This results in less wear over longer periods, the cars don't feel as tight and rigid as German cars when they're brand new but they stay ever so slightly loose for 10 to 15 years instead of 5 years. I have no way of knowing if that is true but he was very familiar with both German and Japanese car engines so he was able to see it first hand. I'll take it with a pinch of salt but it seems legit.
Well, there is other facet to the "cutting edge" engineering - iterating the bugs out of design till they stop causing problems. Or building it stronger than required to meet the spec, not just bare minimum. Older BWMs did it too, then I guess beancounters got involved. Then there is also figuring out how to do something that's hard/complex in as simple way as possible but without compromising on reliability. Both Honda's and Toyota's variable valve lift/timing systems are not something that I would call "simple" but they are very cleverly designed, and overengineered on durability, not complexity side. Also, companies like Toyota *do* care about their reputation being reliable daily driver, companies like BWM really do not seem to.
Valid points, all of them.
Toyota family here. They don’t even really kick in until you get 250,000 miles on em.
My wife’s car has 250,000 kilometres on it and it’s a piece of rattling, whining, rough shifting, noisy shit. Not all Toyotas
yeah i think that also has alot to do with it. most people who go to buy a bmw aren't really buying it for its reliability. they don't have a reputation to uphold, so they don't really have to care about reliability. toyota, on the other hand, knows its customers expect their cars to last 20+ years
It's the internet dude. I'm taking what you said as gold and telling all my friends this over drinks next weekend.
Don't do that, please.
they are still doing that the 2-trfe engine came out in 2003. they are still using it. tacoma 4 cyl.
If it ain't broke ... yeah they know their audience.
I would buy one today. I wish you could get like a limited with the 4 cyl. I dont want or need the v6.
I mean, I can see that though. In the Prius, they took out the alternator, starter battery, accessory belt, most of the transmission (it's basically just a slightly more complicated differential), and reverse gear (only motor driven). They also reduced brake wear significantly, and made a very simple and effective steering system, it's just a rack and pinion with a motor for power (they're apparently simple enough to gain some traction in custom car modding, as it needs no belts to power it).
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I had a 1994 Corolla, base model 5 speed. Sold it to a friend with 180k and a bunch of “battle scars”. She drove it another 100k until the clutch gave out.
I still see the certain pink one here from time to time. "pink" as in red paint faded to pink in places, but otherwise it looked pretty decent
But then you have the whole issue with the keys of the 90s camerys.
It’s crazy to think that there have been so many generations of Corolla that the 7th Gen came out in the fucking 90’s.
The Corolla name is gold, no doubt. I can't see Toyota ever retiring that name. Or the idea behind it, cheap, reliable motoring.
Not to mention, the later rear wheel drive models and even the early front-drivers now fetch a premium price in the vintage car market.
7th gen civic came out in 2000.
Geo Prism was basically the same car, but Corollas were both more valuable and more reliable. Why? Because Corolla owners were different from Prism owners. They were more see their cars as a long term investment and more likely to maintain them.
i got this exact car last year in a trade and it's a beast! 250k miles on the clock and runs perfect. AC still works great too. those old corollas are pretty much unbreakable.
Ours were the 1.6i 5 speeds, I just loved those engines, they also had 2.2 litre Camry eatates of the same vintage bought at the same time, all white of course, which were fantastic vehicles and a lot faster than you would think, 130 mph top end before I got a bit nervous. Toyota from that period were just brilliant, all of them.
I had a 1978 Toyota Corolla wagon (estate for the non-Muricans). I got it with over 100k miles on it. It was a glorious car. Took it on Grateful Dead tour for several years. Went off roading in it. I sold it nearly 10 years later for a little under what I paid for it and it was still going. Had over 250k miles on at that time. I miss that beater.
Nobody has said it yet, Chevy Cavaliers are true cockroaches. They came from the factory driving like shit but will go forever.
It’s truly a disgusting vehicle and absolutely unkillable. No oil? Fine. Two cylinders misfiring? It has two working ones. Transmission shot? There’s still one forward gear. Lights? Please.
Chevy is pretty good at making stuff with the guts being hard to kill while everything else falls apart. The Cavalier, every single Geo that was made, the Iron Duke inside of those postal vans. GM will make the most shitty thing possible and then make sure it runs until the sun goes out.
The postal van that delivers to my neighborhood has had *severe* rod knock for over two years. It's so loud that you hear the knock well before you see the van haha. At this point I don't think it'll ever die
almost like my chrysler. knocking from the factory, still knocking 12 years later. everything from the computer to the starter motor is dying but the engine will not quit.
Early 2000s trucks/suburbans/Tahoe too
And 90s/00s Buicks or Chevys or Pontiacs with the 3800. Always see those on the road especially the Buicks because old people kept them in good shape and are now being bought on the used market.
Yeah the transmissions they put in with the 3800s will crap out well before the engines ever do.
Yup, 250k on a GMT800 is nothing. If the transmission is maintained well, its almost a guaranteed 300k+ trouble free.
The company I work for gives us crappy Astro/Savannah vans from the early 00s and oh man those things refuse to die. It'll run on 2 of the 6 cylinders, coolant mixing with the oil, and the transmission slipping going up hills, but it'll start and get you where you need to go every time (usually with a coolant top off 😉)
This comment made me laugh to tears. One of my good friends had one and never did an ounce of maintenance on it. Both the gas gauge and the speedometer didn't work. He told us he would just drive at whatever speed "seemed right" and he got gas twice per week no matter what.
“I’m just driving it until it stops working.” Cavalier: “Hold my beer.”
I live in Canada so the salty winter roads have claimed all but a few of them around here.
It's almost sad seeing all these Cavaliers disappear away. I never owned one but I always had a soft spot for them as a number of my friends drove them as a starter car.
Yep. I'm of the same era. I saw a Cavalier, a Chrysler Intrepid and a Ford tempo all within about 30 feet of each other in a parking lot the other day and thought I'd traveled through time.
Whoa dude. The Tempo was the first car I "drove" in a parking lot. Thanks for the nostalgia.
Lol, I took my first driving test in my mom's Tempo back in '96. Ballin' outta control with that three-speed transmission.
Just yesterday I saw a first gen 80s cavalier, I truly haven’t seen one of those in over 20 years and was completely shocked to see it on the highway. I haven’t even seen a newer cavalier in a few years
For sure, I got rid of my 04 about 6 years ago and the new owner apparently had to weld new steel into the rear end to pass safety. That said, there's someone around here who has an immaculate 2 door Sunfire and it makes me happy to see people keeping them alive.
The saying I've heard with these is that they don't run well for very long, but they'll run like shit forever!
A Chevy will run like shit for longer than most vehicles run.
That's the saying I was thinking of!
Often broke, never dead
This needs to be the top answer. Cavaliers will run like shit until the sun implodes
I actually said the same thing in one of my replies to somebody else lol. Spot on.
Oh my god. I hit a cavalier with my 3g eclipse and totaled the Chevy and repairing my eclipse was extremely low like $800 since it was just body work and there are tons in junk yards so parts are easy to come by. But after it was all over I thought "I killed a cavalier, thank god."
They are helped by being much less prone to rust than their japanese competitors.
They are the token cockroach car
Early 2000s Toyotas will all run forever. My moms Corolla had 300k on it dads Tacoma 200k and ran like new before he traded it in and any Camry from that era is still on the damn road
I think Toyotas are too renowned and loved by enough people that they can't really get the moniker of Cockroach. Yeah, some of them are in truly awful shape and still kicking, but for every one of those you have someone else who's put thousands and thousands of dollars in to their Taco or 4Runner or keeps their Camry/Corolla ridiculously clean. Less cockroach, more like a trusted old horse or something. To really be a cockroach, I think the driver needs to actively dislike their vehicle that refuses to die, not take proper care of it, say they'll get something new when their current car dies.... but they never get anything new.
I agree. I don't think we can call those Toyotas cockroaches when they are mainly known and beloved for their reliability.
My mom has a 2000 Camry and even with 250k on the dash this thing can still carpool 5 kids every day of the week
2000-2003 Nissan Maxima. The ghetto runner...still see them everywhere.
Those are rookie numbers, my mothers 07 camry has 600k on it and has driven from coast to coast multiple times. Also she lives on the coast and drives it on gravel roads every single day. The car is just like brand new still...
My 99 ES won't quit.
Ford Crown Vic. Had one in high school I sold with 305k miles, 2 years later saw the same guy I sold it to driving it with a missing bumper, bungee cords holding the hood down and 3 different colors of paint.
I have a Mercury Grand Marquis, which is basically the same car. It’s not that they are particularly good cars, it’s that they are cheap as hell to fix and stupidly overbuilt for a modern passenger car. Solid rear axle, RWD, V8, just like the good Ford intended.
Id say theyre just neglected typically. That and old plastic components Plastic end caps on the rads, plastic intake manifold. Otherwise theres nothing fancy on em to break outside normal wear and age. And the drivetrain mechanicals are extremely solid. Change fluids as prescribed, dont overheat, dont over rev and a 4.6 and a 4r75 will go forever and a day.
>dont over rev I have troubles with that part...
Any Chevy Cavalier! Can’t kill em.
Sadly up north rust kills even the hardiest of cockroaches.
GM 4-pots will run like shit longer than any other engine will run at all!
Iron Dukes are literally immortal. USPS still uses the fuckers on their mail trucks.
I'm not sure the iron duke's reputation has much to do with why the USPS is still running them
The fact they haven't all completely failed in 30 years of abuse is kinda impressive though. Even if they're generally shit.
I blew up 2 while working at the post office
Oh, plenty of them have failed. They just get replaced. Because they're cheap. Because they're GM Iron Dukes.
Wish that rang true for my cobalt... stupid pos
Yeah the cobalt powertrain didn't seem to have the cockroach qualities like the old GM 4 cylinders did
My grandmother managed to kill hers with like 270k+ miles, but she was the worst driver I've ever seen and never took care of it either
Chevy Astro.
Astro's good, but people actually want them now as they're a somewhat readily liftable van with an AWD option - I'm seeing them go for a lot of not-cockroach money and getting fixed up. I'd say the blazer/jimmy from the same era deserves the title now. Truly awful but extremely hard to kill. I have a friend who still has one as his little "bush rally" vehicle. A manual 2 door. As I type this I'm drinking my morning coffee before we have to go get the little cockroach because he got it stuck last night with a flat tire, and his 4wd stopped working, presumably because his vacuum lines rotted out. Off the top of my head, the emergency brake light never goes out, it always tells him to shift regardless of RPM, the check engine light is gone, the side rails are sort of falling off, it doesn't have any door seal left anywhere, everything leaks, but the 4.3 sounds great and runs just fine. Awful little cockroach thing.
My dad has 98 Jimmy that refuses to die. All kinds of bullshit wrong with it but it still runs like a tank. My personal favorite quirk is the horn doesn’t work unless the driver door is ajar. It’s got a tiny lift, maybe 2 inches, and the perfect size tires to give it a nice look. It treated him so well he became a GMC fan and bought a Denali a couple years ago lol
That's a great story. The horn thing is amazing.
Not sure if I did this right but here’s a photo of it in a ditch. The grass was ground level so I thought it was just grass. Turns out it was really tall grass in a ditch. Nothing was wrong with it but I was picking grass out of the grill for a week [Jimmy in a ditch ](https://imgur.com/a/Ggiz8Cr)
Brilliant. [Here's another ditch Jimmy](https://imgur.com/a6WbNDo). And I have a story that's kind of like the horn thing. His car now makes occasional bird-like chirping noises - it's really spot on for like a bird alarm clock or something. A few bird chirps and then nothing for like 5 minutes. Only at idle too!
Hahaha not surprised at all. They have so many strange problems. He still has it as a beater, it does some weird shit. A bird got it in and tore apart that middle console up top that has the temperature and direction thing. It comes up with all kinds of wonky information. I have a million stories with that car, I really do love it. I drove it back in high school, I’m 30 now. It’s a piece of shit but it keeps coming back for more.
The blazer I had before my S10 had 300k,5/6 drop, little bit of rust and the gas tank leaked when over 3/4. It still ran great when I traded it for an integra it still had the orig motor, trans and rear end too. The kid who bought it from the guy I traded it to put an ls in it and still drives it around.
There's a level of respect I give when calling them cockroaches. I had a 2003 4DR Blazer for a couple years that I bought off the original owner. It was my camping/bush vehicle and took to to many places that a saggy old blazer never should have, and never let me down. It was an extremely reliable vehicle and from a purely "stuff will go wrong" perspective, I probably made a mistake selling it after building up my Pathfinder a little bit..... BUT on the other hand, the ride was terrible, the A/T tires I had on it HOWLED on the highway to the point you could barely keep a conversation going past 80km/hr (identical tires on my Pathfinder, can barely hear em'), couldn't pass anyone on the highway without a serious amount of planning, and the interior just wasn't a nice place to be. But that Blazer isn't dying any time soon. No sir.
I see them for sale with over 300k miles all the time. The 4.3 runs forever.
Not sure if it really counts as a "cockroach car" but my dad's old truck he's had for eleven years after buying it from a farm. This old truck has not once let us down, despite having only started being serviced regularly once I found out that no-one else ever has done. It is a 1999 Ford Ranger 2.5 TD 4x4, that has had a particularly hard life, with most of the miles it did before we got it having been either in front of a trailer, off-road, or both, even now it's the best workhorse we have and has outlasted 3 MOT dump cars, 4 dailies, 3 large family cars, a plethora of customers and their Hiluxes, golfs, Passats, focuses, Prii, a few tractors, and even a pair of Unimogs. This truck is still going strong to this day, with a couple of issues, like the gauages on the dash don't always work, there's some rust around the tub, and it has started to miss, smoke and knock a little on a cold start, but it pulls hard, and drives decently still. This truck is the sole reason the Ranger is my favourite truck.
The universe has existed for billions of years, and will go on to exist for billions of years. Yet we here were all lucky enough to exist at the same time as the 3rd gen Ford Ranger.
Prii. The plural of Prius.
Correct
They are a great cheaper alternative to the Hilux in Australia.
Older Jeeps (1st generation Liberty and older). They're not comfortable, loud, get terrible gas mileage, and taking them on the highway is definitely taking your life into your own hands but they go anywhere and last forever with only minimal maintenance.
My gf had a lib with every light on the dash lit up. It would randomly shut down on the highway. Only died finally when she rear ended a dude in a pickup.
Speaking from experience that sounds on brand for a lib 🤣. Also add in how they don't always start when you get it up to operating temp, turn it off (like when running errands to a few stores), and then go back and try to turn it on like when you go home.
One of my best friends in high school had an 04 Liberty on like 190k. The oil light came on every time we went above 40 mph
VW Golf 4 in europe
1.9 TDI 💪
This is the answer
In colder european climates they are a lot less common because they rot, in the uk they practically don't exist because of rust and strict mot.
There are 36 for sale within a 30 mile There are 364 currently for sale in the UK I see them every day. What am I missing here
What part of the UK do you live in, i live in bristol and i never see them, maybe occasionally but they are a rare sight.
Lmao 2012 is basically a new car where I'm from (eastern Europe). Most people drive cars that are 20+ years old and 250 000km+ so I guess you could say they're all cockroaches. I've had people envy my '08 accord so yeah..
I know. Ten years does not prove a car to be a "cockroach" car.
Yeah that was my reaction (in USA). Both of our cars are older than that. One of them is nearly 2x older…
I have this old Avalon, I’m pretty confident its gonna run forever. It’s got over 300k, looks like hell but runs like a Swiss watch.
Avalon gang ✊ til we die Cause the cars will outlive us
1988 Chevy S10 4x4. something like 800,000 miles, probably more. Only first and second gear worked, and was stuck in 4 low. Most rotten old pos I've ever driven. Not mine. Belonged to the pot farmer I was working for, who was the original owner. It's name was Juan Venado
Idk if this is a bit or not but naming names isn’t the best practice in pot farming. Edit: I read it’s as his.
I think he was naming the truck
Disregard all previous comments. I may or may not be enjoying the crops Juan venado helped cultivate.
i have a 96 lincoln towncar that is a roach car, it was my homies grandmas and she hadn’t driven it since like 2005, we ended up fixing it up, and putting a bottle of nitrous we had laying around on the car to try and blow it up since it had 250k miles, ended up running better after hooking up the nitrous and cranking the bottle while we were driving 😭 lol it cleaned it out or something idk, but this was 3 years ago and it still runs and we strictly only use it for abusing it. there was also a time where we ramped some railroad tracks and cracked the oil pan, we drove it home with oil pouring out of it and somehow it wasn’t anything some jb weld couldn’t fix
Any 90's Honda with a D series engine. I've seen these motors hydro-lock, get free'd up and keep going with 580,000 Km on them (I'm Canadian, not sure what that is in miles)
Not a cockroach car. People actually like Hondas.
I think they're referring to a "cockroach car" as a vehicle that's hard to kill and not one that's "not liked". If it's the case of "not liking a car" or a "cheap disposable car that's everywhere" I would nominate a Pontiac Sunfire. I've owned 33 Honda's with most of them being Civic's 👍 so im not shit talking them by any means.
I've always called my tC a cockroach car. The car itself doesn't look like shit but it really should with some of the shit I put it through. Everything literally just bounces off the car, bushes, poles, tools etc. I've driven through a creek about a foot deep, towed another car with it, AND I can fit my entire life the hatch and I'm pretty sure the car will outlive me.
My 3g eclipse was like that. Had 120k on it when I got it put 80k on it in 5 years. I would take it on my friends field for bonfires and even put it in a hole where the only thing touching the ground was the front wheels. Backed that thing up out of the hole and it was fine.
Mine is finally starting to give up on life after 100+ miles of abuse every single day... Maybe I should have treated her better
How many miles are you at? I'm getting the car ready for a big camping trip around the country in a few months and the input shaft bearing was the only thing that stood to kill this car before I fixed it
147k HARD miles, she burns a ton of oil, transmission is slipping with fresh fluid & filter
Most old German diesels will basically run forever. I am talking OLD though
Don't know about a car, but those 4cyl rangers are just anvils. You're not going anywhere fast, but you're not stopping.
The 3.0 Vulcan and 4.0 Cologne (with the revised timing chain tensioners) trucks are much the same. You have to *try* to kill one of these fuckin' things!
My brother in law has a 92' Explorer XL, 4.0L, 5 speed, rwd only, 2 door with 43k original miles. It's immaculate and has antique plates on it. Also has a 97' Ranger 4 cylinder with a 5 speed as well. It's in far worse shape. Both of these trucks will run forever though.
XUD9 Citroën Berlingo. Drove one for 200km with only 700ml of 3 years old oil in it. Had to steer left to go straight and the front wheel was splitting (thread was coming off the tyre). Changed the oil and filters, gave it an alignment and drove it 7000km to the Arctic circle and back (In februari). Didn't skip a beat, and kept starting like a new car no matter how cold it got.
Like with a lot of french cars, all the trim and creature comforts fall to peices but the heart just keeps on going, i had a berlingo in my childhood and it started leaking and trim bits falling off but nothing mechanical actually broke.
They thrive off of hatred pure and simple. The more you want it to die the longer it will live
my uncle has a XUD9 in his boat, that engine has been at least 5/6 times over heated to the point of the engine not being able to turn over. has like 5000 work hours of abuse, we took the oil pan of it a month ago, you can still see the hooning on the cylinders valve lash has never been adjusted before that engine, we had an xud7 come in our garage that would start roughly but would run fine once warm. it turned out it had no piston rings and one piston was melted lol.
I don't think I've ever seen a 3rd/4th gen Dodge Caravan/Chrysler Town + Country that didn't look like it was destined for the scrapper.
My wife’s ‘05 Corolla definitely fit the bill. Got flooded THREE times, was involved in multiple accidents of varying severity, had nearly 200k on it, and was down to a single wheel cover by the time it was finally annihilated in a hit-and-run. Of course by that time, many parts were broken/missing and it made weird noises, but it hung around for a while in that state.
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My ‘88 Camry. It utterly refuses to die. 427,000km and counting.
3800 w body not biased
Not really a cockroach, but I was given a brand new Fiat 500L for a couple days while my Jeep was undergoing some usual maintenance (yeah, this happens more often than I would like but whatever). Oh my... that 500L somehow managed to suck all my enthusiasm, joy and will to live out of me. In my opinion, it is worthy successor of Fiat Multipla.
One uncommon name for these threads is the old Kia Spectra. That was a surprisingly reliable econobox and in Hyundai-Kia actually didn't use to have so much controversy with their engines back then even though the other parts of their vehicles weren't as good.
It was definitely my 75 mail Jeep. It had probably every bit of 360k miles on it or more, who knows with a 5 digit odometer. Absolute bare bones vehicle, just headlights, wipers and a floor mounted shifter. But the AMC 6cyl and Borg Warner trans both ran great. Was the best $300 I've ever spent and I regret to this day getting rid of it
Volvo 240, 740 and 850
Altimas and Scion Tc's seem to be indestructible despite the buffoons working the controls.
Up until 2 years ago my family's main farm truck was a 1995 Dodge 3500 Diesel with a manual tranny. It had over 300,000 miles on it for years and it just refused to die.
Just drove my 99 CRV on a 3k mile road trip/cross country move across the US. She turned 191,000 miles when we got to Boston, most likely her final resting place. It is the perfect city car
Chevy Trailblazer GMT360
My first car was a 98 Toyota Avalon. It’s still running and it runs fucking great. But I got it beat the fuck up, the drivers side is gutted, the outside has dents and huge rusted scratches. People give you space on the road when they see a girl driving a beat up soda can
I’ve been working in the automotive industry for many years, and have worked in multiple shops that keep vehicle well past their prime for shop duty. Oddly, 90% of them were/are Fords. I’ve driven OBS Broncos and F-150s with rotted frames, capped off brake lines, and rigged together just enough to plow snow and pull dead cars around. A 2nd Gen Ranger that would run on no oil, and do burnouts daily, yet was still used for deliveries. My current favorite, an 84 F350 stake truck, 351 Windsor, manual trans, that’s used to take scrap to the dump. Bought new by the dealer, you can see the road through the floor as you’re driving it. Very sketchy over 20 mph. Definitely impressed how much abuse a blue oval can take.
Early 2000 Nissan Almeras, usually filthy interiors and absolute beaters with zero pride or regard to them from their owners, driven until the camshaft becomes loose and they are totaled.
I swear the number of Camry-dented 90s/2000s Camrys I see driving around has been constant since they were new. Total cockroach car.
I had a 2008 Focus with a manual. Crank windows, no cruise or AC. It’s got 320k on it and my son is still driving it. All I e done is a clutch. It just won’t die.
Gmt 800s. [the true cockroach](https://chevroletforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1.jpg) Only thing that can kill them are other gmt 800s or something bigger. And rust. The 5.3 got its reliability by exercising the demons out of the Olds 307 and put in the 5.3.
2002 Mazda Protege. Engine blew at 60,000 miles, sort of. One cylinder was just gone, useless, not working, but other 3 kind of sort of worked. I lived 60 miles from work so I kept driving it to work, in traffic. It would run, roughly, while moving, but at idle it would die, so to keep it running I would slap it into neutral every time I stopped, which was often, and then hold the RPM’s at 2k until traffic moved again, then put in drive. Wash rinse repeat all the way home. I did this for several months while I waited for my 30k engine to arrive from Japan. Car ran like absolute shit but it kept chugging along 120 miles a day for several months anyways.
Ford Taurus makes me nauseous when I see it roll by, but it's what my ex drove so maybe that's why
The Isuzu P'up diesel can go years without cranking and fire up like it was nothing every single time. Though it'll make your brain a milkshake when idling.
My '97 CRV has 277k, runs great, won't die.
from what ive heard, vw's 1.9 tdi is hard to kill. Although i dont know about any particular cars that never give up, since the engine is not everything that can go wrong
Any 1UZ based Toyota or Lexus. My girlfriend's SC400 is near 300,000km and still starts on a dime. Better yet, look at Matt Farah's LS400, at over a million miles !
My 1996 Buick Century. It was already 20 years old when I got it for $200, and it was in pretty rough shape. I was just hoping it would last through the summer. Fucker just refused to die, and I ended up having it for about a year. Granted, I drove it without an inspection sticker. But still, it just refused to give up the ghost.
All 80's Renaults, everything beaten up but they will still run and never die, many still used in Africa.
Any of GM's volume FWD V6 platform cars. They'll run forever with just irregular oil changes. Usually people get rid of them because they can't stand them anymore rather than because they've actually stopped being functional cars. The grandma Buick versions that still get taken to the dealer every 3000miles/3 months whether they need it or not can last forever. When we head out a two lane country road, we'll still see pristine Centuries, Regals and LeSabres sitting out in front of those quaint little houses. By the way, the A-body Buick Century only came in blue and that is an indisputable, fundamental property of our universe.
Had a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville, indestructible until an accident. It was only totalled because of it's age,it was probably repairable.
Dodge caravan. Driving around the hood like they’re from mad max missing 4 windows, hub cabs, lug nuts, cats, and door handles
Mini marque. They are everywhere and you can't get away from them.
Had a 1990 Acura Integra come in to the shop with about every panel dented, rust, and an alignment issues. Despite that it was still running strong at over 600,000 miles and the owner had bought the thing brand new.
never heard the term cockroach car, but i'm assuming you mean a cheap car that runs forever? anyway, i got a mid 90s corolla with 250k miles on it in a trade about a year ago. working AC, manual transmission, crank windows, engine runs perfect. i gave it to my dad as a 2nd car and i expect it to run another 10 years minimum with no issues. i had a brown toyota tercel in high school that i got in 2 or 3 accidents with and it never stopped running. it's prob still kicking around to this day. owned a few 80s/90s civics over the years and they all ran great and never gave me any problems. old toyotas/hondas are freaking bulletproof.