“ it still runs...” Seemingly invincible cars.

It seems in my neighborhood there are some vehicles that just don't seem to die. Very common one is the 88 to 91 Honda civics. The 88 and 89 flip up headlight accords and prelude. these are sort of a given, considering how well-built they are. As well as the lack of performance parts for the last two, it seems like they won't be modded to death.

But then there are some that are just incredible. Almost mouth dropping. On a regular basis I will see an 80s Ford Taurus, or a GM cutlass sierra Calais, whatever you wanna call them. These things were total bombs when they were new, and yet here they are, still sort of driving around town.

What junk is still on the road in your neighborhood?

Any and all fwd corollas. Mostly ae92 and ae101 generation. Unkillable. Also, a shockingly large number of E36 M3ty jeep liberties, including mine. I bought it for 500$ a year and a half ago. I've opened the hood twice. 

In reply to Mndsm :

I agree I do see a lot of Jeep liberty's

In before "my car"

There is a early 2000's Dodge Stratus running up and down my street with no exhaust that I REALLY wish would die.

Slant six, Ford Six, Chevy I6 powered anything.

Those three will run poorly longer than most vehicles will run at all.

Late '80s-mid '90s Chrysler Lebarons. I don't know why. While everything else of that era, including all the Lebaron's Mopar brethren, has returned to the earth here in NY, I still see a shocking amount of those Lebarons rolling around. Literally 3 or 4 a week. I find them oddly attractive cars.

I refer to these kinds of cars as "automotive cockroaches".

In reply to Vajingo :

And many are first gens

There is an old Ferd F series - honestly, no clue if it is a F250 or F150 - that has a sagging/broken frame, but it shows up every trash day to collect any scrap metal it might see. I thought it was going to fall apart when we moved in here almost 5 years ago. It hasn't. 

The only old junk in my neighborhood is pretty much the stuff I own, lol.

But, the general thing is that any old Toyota truck (pickup, tacoma, tundra, 4Runner, Sequioa) are always the oldest trucks I see, still running fine but usually rusty as hell. I see 90s toyota trucks all over the place (and some 80s), but almost never see Ford/Chevy/Dodge trucks of those eras any more. 

There are too many 60's pickups, and too many 60's Mustangs around here to count. 

Our local PD still has quite a number of Crown Vics still on active patrol.  How long since the last one rolled off the line?  And how hard is cruiser duty?  It's impressive.

how many toyota land crusiers of any vintage are still going?  see prices of said cruisers as well

We have 2 crappy 2007-2008 Silverado trucks at work - 225,000+ miles on each one.  Always 1-2 quarts low on 7-10,000 mile oil changes and never cleaned or maintained.   

One is 4wd and a guy left it in 4 high for a month as he thought it was AWD and didn't know it needed to shifted out.  Two years later not a problem.  

Total POS's and nasty - ones steering wheel leaves your hands black and they just keep running.......

Around here its early 2000s GM cars with 3.8L engines. Most are near cockroaches due to rust but I see at least five or six of them running the roads most every day. 

The next group would be the 1990s Jeep Cherokee, noisy and leaking oil but still chugging along.

The late 90s Tacoma's are easy to spot because they tend to be holding traffic up, but still putting along. 

1985 Delta 88 - once in a while I see a beater one go down the street.  

late 90s/early 2000s Corollas.  And they always seem to be blue.

Volvo XC90s.  I see so many of them around that are obviously neglected, yet they never rust out and are always super high in miles.

88-95 Isuzu pickup. Roommate in college had one. He was not mechanically inclined. He asked me to look at the brakes, he had worn through the pads, through the backing plates, into the calipers. It still stopped. Similar situation with the oil. After a few YEARS he asked us to help him change the oil. It came out black and chunky, but the engine seemed unphased by the abuse. I was impressed enough to find and buy one. My Dad was impressed enough to buy one after I got mine. 

infinitenexus said:

late 90s/early 2000s Corollas.  And they always seem to be blue.

I had a 95 Prism that my wife owned before me (the pirate made me buy it from her). I refused to pop the hood on that car and drove it about another 56k before I sold it.

Around here, it's all the '80s and '90s smaller GM FWD cars. A couple of those Cutlass Cierras and their platform mates, plenty of Grand Prixes, Luminas, a ton of 3800-powered Buicks, that kind of thing. I suspect most of them are barely hanging on, but are good enough for around town. There was a period of Buick Rendezvous being the hooptie of choice, but that seems to have passed.

There are a fair few late '90s 4 cylinder Accords around too, and they all seem to be driven at WOT all the time and have leaky or missing exhausts. I don't usually see them, but you can hear them - for whatever reason, they sound distinctive to me when you combine the exhaust sound and the 1-2 shift of that auto transmission, and there are 4 places within hearing distance where you turn from a stop onto a road with either a 45 or 50 mph speed limit so I hear them all the time. It's a hateful sound, and It's enough to keep me from ever considering buying one.

As much as people hate on Saturns, those things were mechanically simplistic and absolute tanks

Guy has had a for sale sign in his Saturn daily driver here at work for a long time. 

GM W-bodies. Especially Buick Regals for some reason. Usually rusty, with broken exhausts, and collapsed suspensions, but still driving around

In college and for years after, I inherited my mom's '98 Z34 Monte Carlo. I parked it on the street when I bought my first house since it was a sieve. Add oil, add coolant. The thing never missed a beat. I even traded it in, in 2010 when I got my 2006 350Z. 

It was a tank.

GM W-bodies. Pretty much any truck with a SBC. the saltbelt cancer is about the only thing killing these.