"Wow OAA9898 you called me a lier and a retard in one post LOL.Sure its just one case and I said they make them better today then they did back then.But it is a true story.I guess you just do not believe everything you read.Just every thing Consumer Distorts and JD powers writes?Still its a fact you do not see 20 year old Rice burners on the road.Thats a fact.Maybe up on blocks.Even this retard can see that." Actually they did make them good, even back then. Why do you think the imports were so popular? American cars in the '70s were gas hogs of substandard quality. All cars built back then were of abysmal quality in comparison to todays cars. I'm not suggesting imports were perfect at all; however, every car in the 70s had rust problems. The problem with imports back then was that very few mechanics would touch them, so dealer maintenance was necessary and expensive (and therefore often left undone). Guess what happens if you don't change the timing belt on an interference engine? It snaps and the pistons hit the valves, and well, you can guess the rest. If your car has over a 100,000 miles on it, and the engine is ruined due to a snapped timing belt (due to poor maintenance) you could put a couple thousand dollars into an eight or nine year old car, or cut your losses. What choice do you think a lot of consumers made? BTW, in 1985, Honda and Toyota sales were growing but were far from being at the volume of domestic cars sold at the time. Of course you see more domestics; thats simply due to the fact that more domestics were sold. Japanese car companies concentrated their sales in markets were demand was the highest, like on the West coast. You live in Illinois, the demand for gasoline was and is much higher in California, and probably always will be; therefore, there was a greater demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. Hence, more Hondas and Toyotas were sold there as opposed to where you and I live, the Midwest. Despite what you may believe, everything is not the same everywhere, johndeere. And thanks to competition cars today are far better then they would be without Japanese Imports. Thanks, Japan. Don't knock Consumer Reports. Unlike J.D. Power & Associates, they are one of the only non-for-profit consumer advocacy groups left in the country. They accept no advertisements, corporate donations, and don't allow their name to be advertised by manufacturers. Say what you will, that they're biased towards foreign cars, or other garbage like that - but it will be completely unfounded.

"The service advisor - he told he's never seen it (radiator cracked contaminating tranny) happened in the 10 year he has been with the dealership" A few things about his comment. One it's quite possible he's never seen that for a couple of reasons. One is this happens more often with older vehicles than new ones, and typically older cars tend to frequent the aftermarket shops (independents). Secondly, while ten years of experience in most fields is enough to have seen just about everything, thats not the case with auto repair. I've been fixing cars for thirty years, and I see something new all the time. As far as the multiple visits, I would of had to see what was happening in order to give a fair opinion. One possibility that always comes to mind first is the fact that "flat rate" (thats the pay plan most dealer techs work under) rewards the techs for getting the car in, making (hopefully) correct snap decisions, doing the repair and getting the car out. Jobs that have an uncommon failure often result in the car having to come back because of poor or improper diagnostics. The funny thing is, if a tech takes to much time diagnosing the cars he works on, he wont be as productive as the dealer wants him to be and he ends up looking for another job. A certain degree of failure is inevitable under those situations, and it's always the techs fault. NOT a VBG Thats one of the reasons I quit working at dealerships almost twenty years ago, and went aftermarket. Now I own my shop, and nothing like that occurs here, I'll guarantee it. VBG. BTW The Toyota sludging problem has several causes. Extended oil change intervals being one of the biggest, but it turns out now that a lot more research is being done and they have found that few oil products on the market had the correct additive packages to permit the oils to even attempt to achieve the extended drain intervals people were trying to use. Some are blaming the oil companies for issuing approval ratings for oils that really didn't meet the manufactuers specs. Oh well, once again I'll say, my daughters Rav4 will never sludge up. Between doing 3mo/3000 mile services, and using top dollar conventional oil from IMO the most trusted auto parts corporation NAPA, I've always been using the correct oil for all of my customers vehicles. Yes it cost more, and I have to charge more for the service when I do it for my customers, but NONE of them are having gelling issues. Thats why they come here when it is cheaper somewhere else.

Someone mentioned Sunbeam Tigers. I still have one and put about 300 miles on it today. My girlfriend has one of those souped up Subarus and still prefers to drive the Tiger. Her comment today while driving was, "My car is pretty speedy, but I can feel the power in this one (she meant the torque). What amazes her is the low down power. She made a mistake today and left a stop sign in 3rd gear and didn't seem to notice the difference. Now old Hemi's.....they were something else. They weren't especially fast off the line, but get anything up beside it at about 70-80 MPH and the Hemi would walk away from them at that point. Took a trip with a friend who had one and he wouldn't let any car go by him on the interstate. He used to love to get Vet's trying to pass. I never saw a car get by that Hemi on the interstate. Now gas mileage in one...wow. I agreed to split the gas cost with him on one trip. The way he drove we averged about 6 miles per gallon. of course we were only paying about 35 cents per gallon. Take the air cleaners off, rev it up and there were 8 jets each flowing a stream the size of a pencil. You can see why it would suck up the gas. As far as I'm concerned, there was never anything like. But, if you want some fun at a decent price and with decent mileage, look into getting yourself a Tiger. If it's not enough for you, buy a Ford 302 crate engine of 340 Hp and in that 2300 lb car, you will have all that you would ever want....and still probably get over 20 mpg especially if you also drop in a 5 speed with overdrive.

We put down a trex deck on east side of our home with lots of shade 3 years ago. No problems with mold until we had a very wet spring and summer in minnesota this year. I expected to have to wash and maintain this low maintenance deck. We had lots of mold staining everywhere on deck. After tring Behr deck mold and remover with no luck I was extremely unhappy. Tried Simplying Green full strength with no luck. After pulling out my hair and complaining to my husband about why he wanted composite instead of wood I told him I would have been better off spending 2 days staining a real wood deck. After lots of reading on various threads on composite decking problems and trex websites on how to clean it,I finally found a product that working amazing! I used Mold Armour ez deck wash from Home Depot. I know the product contains a bleach solution but it worked in a matter of min. I did wet down the surrounding areas with a water hose including the railings and grass. Wet down the deck boards first before applying the product with a soft brush in an ice cream pail. No scrubbing was required but I had control with application by this method. I did small section at a time and rinsed off after only 5 min or so. You can see the product work! Be careful not to let solution on boards to long because it does contain bleach and bleach will fade anything it comes in contact with. I did this project on July 4 and want to see how long mold stays away. I plan on buying a more eco friendly product in future like Corte Clean but didnlt try it this time because no stores in our area carry it and it is quite expensive. You also have to watch expiration date and have to buy it on line. Has anyone had luck with this product with mold spots and how long does the mold stay away with Corte Clean or Mold Armour? By the way my deck looks amazing and has no structure problems like some I have been hearing about. My husband built deck himself and followed all the proper guidllines to install. We also used hidden fastener system for instalation and used proper support system underneath. We have the saddle color with accents brand. Hopefully the mold issue will be a controllable one since we plan on staying ahead of it this time and not wait so long to wash it. We also had alot of snow this winter and I didnt always get out there to promply to remove snow. Let me know if you have had better luck with other products as I dont want to use a product so often that contains bleaching agents. Still wish my husband would have agreed with me to use cedar but I lost the battle and had to settle for composite. I keep telling him I told you so about composite and I am stuck with an $8,000 deck that is not low maintenance. I appreciate any feedback on a sealer or something to put down so i only have to wash deck to maintain and keep mold spots at bay. Any luck with sealers or stains?