2nd Feb 2010, 22:25
Neon's are a pain to work on, but they are just as good a car as any other. You should see my Neon, it's perfect, and it's an 03 with 83K miles. It drives like brand new. Why? Because it's been meticulously maintained from a certified mechanic who knows his stuff, not guesses at random what the problem may be and throw parts at it.
The Neon by the way, is a crap load more comfortable than the ridiculously overpriced Civics I keep driving. America can make good cars, really. It's just the stupid "American cars suck" intuition that people believe the car sucks, and at the first sign of problems, they freak out and blame the company.
My Civic's engine was toast at 119K miles, and everyone told me it was a fluke. I am hear to tell you that the shop I go to sees more Honda's than any other car on the road by far. My mechanic says the ratio of Hondas to other cars for him is 4 to 1 (4 Hondas in for repairs to 1 other make).
3rd Feb 2010, 17:40
LOL You got so lucky. I have a '95 Neon with 87,000 miles. It's been nothing but problems. I've replaced the transmission, the head gasket, the power steering rack, and all 4 struts. My engine is now currently on it's way to failure, as my mechanic is now telling me that the knocking sound it's making is the cylinder 4 wrist pin and the whole engine could blow at any minute. I'm gonna run it till it does so. Funny, my first Honda was a '76 Civic with over 500,000 original miles. It never let me down.
10th Oct 2011, 15:38
I have been in the market for a Neon recently, just because they are cheap cars if you buy them used, and I hear they are good on gas. However, I've heard nothing but negative things about them.
My husband owned a 96 Neon that was a work car to keep miles off our new car; he had nothing but engine problems out of it since the day he bought it, but we also took into consideration that the car was over 10 years old.
I've heard a few negative thoughts on here about GM, CHEVY, AND FORD, and I can personally say I love all of them. I've owned several Chevy's; never no problems except bad gas mileage. and I now own a '05 Mustang that I have had for 3 years, and have never done anything to, other than standard oil changes and tune ups. The only reason why I'm looking to get out of it, is because it has no room in it, and the fact that it's a gas guzzler.
I'm now starting to reconsider buying a Neon, or at least a 2003, because it seems that's the year most people have the negative reviews.
12th Jul 2009, 18:07
The only reason why I do'not like "domestics" is because of their variation on their production processes, you can hear about people doing easily 200k on their Neons and some others doing nothing but problems, and those are the results of variation (helped with driving habits and poor troubleshooting skills of service guys). The higher quality of a Toyota is the result of their tighter process variation and strict specs for their supply chain.
P.S. I'm telling "domestics" because Toyota, Honda and are made and designed by Americans also, but with other philosophy... also you can hear about some "crap Toyotas" "overpriced, etc etc" but they are less...