That's funny, considering that Toyota is #2 in the world with recalls. And guess who's in first place? Not Chrysler.
And Chrysler had a 5-speed automatic in the Grand Cherokee before Toyota had one in the 4Runner...and said transmission has proven to be bulletproof. So bulletproof, in fact, that it's been used behind Jeeps with diesels and Ram 3500 Hemi pickup engines for years.
I'll grant you that BMW makes low quality stuff, but I think most people here know by now that I will not let Chrysler bashing slide on the forums. :hand:
This guy is claiming that in 8 years, he's had no CV leaks, no t-case actuator failure, no head gasket failure, no frozen brake calipers, no brake booster failure, and none of the other rampant problems we all face with these Toyotas. I find that extremely hard to believe, but I will take his word for it. And I predict that in the next 100K he's going to be spending money hand over fist to keep up.
First off, your assumption that more recalls= bad company is close minded and fairly erroneous, much akin to most liberal politician's beliefs on gun control, because it fails to take into account a whole slew of real data. Toyota recalls serious and ridiculous stuff, the shear number of recalls, TSBs, and campaigns Toyota has are laughable in some respects because many are not serious at all, but we do have some serious quality issues in the last five or so years, not debating that (in fact I do tend to laud that as well as their current warranty scheme.) Chrysler has a HUGE history of never recalling serious items until forced to (I have yet to find even a TSB mentioning their horrible issues with Hemi engines, least of which is dropping valve seats, I believe though they did come out with a campaign to add stickers to their exploding intake manifolds AFTER they injured and killed a couple guys!), even then they blamed customers and everyone but themselves. Toyota hasn't gone bankrupt twice, hasn't had to be saved by the government and then subsequently sold and saved by Italians for their horrible reputation and quality (that speaks volumes considering, so far even GM and Ford who had quality issues managed to stay afloat and so did Toyota in the face of a Tsunami and bad PR on
mostly over-exaggerated pedal issues [there are a small number of legitimate claims of unintended-acceleration, but most of it was owner stupidity, please reference any of the pedal threads for more information]).
I fail to see your point about the 5 speed transmissions, they still have issues with them, granted their not as much a pile as their 3.7L V6's with their sticking valves, the horrible disintegrating Dodge Ram Dashboards, large amount of issues in the JGC over a few generations, the Liberties are garbage, Dodge Neon? do we even need to go into that? Or how about the Seabring? Crossfire? Town and Country? All with various major reliability issues over the last 10 years. Or the fact that Chrysler computers are probably one of the most failed components in their brand, there's a reason Chrysler computers are a couple hundred dollars and most Asian ones are in the thousands and its not because the Asians mark crap up (alright fine they do) its because most of their units don't go as bad.
You're brand loyalty is admirable to a fault, it really is; but I have been dealing with used cars of various brands for years now among my normal work and I see a clear pattern in the quality of various vehicles. The top two brands with the most horrible quality of vehicles is BMW & Chrysler, time and time again these two brands roll into our shop with nothing but problems and usually ranging anywhere from 20-100k+ miles on them and most of them are barley worth even fixing. Toyota tends not to be as bad, GM is hit or miss depending on the model (the older 3.1 & 3.4 V6s are leaking monstrosities), Ford is also hit or miss (their V8's are problem childs for high mileage service because of their continued spark plug issues), Nissan is not that great (we're seeing a lot of CVT issues in the 60k+ ranging from noise to failure), Mercedes is also hit or miss, Volvos tend to be beat to hell, Hondas are also hit or miss (LOTS of transmission problems I the '00-'05 range on their CUVs and vans.) Hell even "Newer" Toyotas aren't that great and their quality is slipping in the past few years (they're not Chrysler & BMW bad, but they're getting Old GM bad in my view)
In short, congratulations you own a Chrysler that didn't explode into a pile of garbage! You own the Jesus of the Domestic world! But reality is, we see a small percentage of owners on this forum, with a smaller percentage of people who have issues in their 4th gens; the truth is the Brake booster issue is a small one when compared with the cross section of owners. The headgasket issue is something Toyota needs to address but is also smaller than many other issues, the T-Case failures are mostly due to improper care on the owner's part (i.e. RTFM and exercise your 4WD system properly like any other 4WD vehicle), the CV leaks are probably the most notorious but relatively benign issue with the 4th gens.
I'm not paid by Toyota to shove Rainbows and Unicorns up everyone's arse and many members have seen me not pull punches with Toyota when it comes to mistakes on their part and their dwindling quality (I bring it up every now and then in the 5th gen forums and 4th gen forums when these types of conversations come up). But Toyota has managed to maintain a level of quality above most manufacturers over all, while some brands have consistently maintained a crap reputation, crap quality, crap customer service, and have been all but been gutted and turned into Lasagna in the past 20-30 years. So feel free to defend whoever you want? That doesn't mean they deserve it and if Toyota keeps up what they are doing lately, they won't see me defending them either because they won't be "good quality" anymore in my eyes. GM and Ford are making good products and Hyundai & Kia are cranking out amazingly well built cars with great value, I base my support of Toyota vs. Chrysler on my hands-on experience, numerous (and we're talking about 50+ individual shops and owners and drivability techs who float around fixing crap) conversations, and data I have seen over the years.
To the OP-
Once again Congratulations on your very happy Toyota, may it bring you many more trouble-free miles and I am sorry for throwing that wall of text on your thread.
