GM gets to be the punching bag for this issue, but let’s be honest- lots of other carmakers have this issue too. Just off the top of my head I remember owners of VW’s, BMW’s, Subarus, Jeeps, and Hondas complaining of excessive oil consumption.

Most of the yellow cars have faded to “Tempra Paint Yellow” unfortunately. The Celestial Blue Pearl and the Tahitian Green Pearls still look fantastic, if you can find one that isn’t 50 or more percent rust.

I had one of these for a while after my POS GMC pickup transmission decided it did not want to be attached to the motor. Borrowed mom’s Buick until I saw an HF model of these in blue for $1,100 with 150K + miles. Test drive and it was mine. Had a front brake caliper lock up and ruin the rotor and caliper. Caliper was…

No A/C, rough around the edges, not registered in eight years, not smogged.

Tellurides going off-road.

Honda had a recall for some of their 4 cylinder engines due to piston ring issues. However, they refused fix the issue on our 2009 Accord and very clearly told us that burning just under 1 quart per 1000 miles is totally normal on a car with 60,000 miles. They would only fix it if it burned more than 1 quart every…

Plenty of manufacturers actually accept 1 quart for 1000 miles before they will do something, and this includes Japanese makers.

I’m not up on current snake oil products, but when I worked in GM dealers 30 years ago there was a product called “Top Engine Cleaner” which had already been around forever. And actually, I just looked it up, and that’s still the name. The formula has been modified at least once. It comes in liquid and aerosol.

Theres an actual GM product called Top End Cleaner. I believe it was designed originally for the Northstar and it's carbon buildup and sticky rings. 

“GM recommended to its dealers that they clean the pistons of the vehicles in question”

It sounds like he has been driving unreliable crap for a while. Get him something reliable with a manual and call it a day. Look Honda Accord, Civic, Fit with a manual should have a good transmission and driving dynamics while serving him for years. If you can find a manual Accord coupe, that would give him a bit more…

Yeah for Automotive Journalists they sure pick shitty cars. 

Time will tell I guess. My assumption was they switched the A4 and Q5 to this “barely-hyrbid” to make it cheaper for people in Europe to drive in cities where they already tax non-hybrids pretty aggressively. Just a guess though. 

I think it applied to all V6/AT combos of this vintage.  Accord V6 had issues too.

Have we all forgotten the Honda V6 transmission woes of the early 2000s? from the Wikipedia on the Acura TL:

80K miles that still a fairly young engine and parts are cheap and plentiful when they do break so there’s that aspect as well.

Infiniti M45? They can be found below $10k and the V8 should give enough performance to be fun?

Done, and throw some snow tires for the winter

Wait - the reader asked for something a little nicer, and didn’t want to be dealing with CELs and maintenance issues...and was recommended a Cerberus-era Dodge?!?

I’m not sure about the Type S, but the standard TL automatic transmission was prone to issues. Otherwise, it’s a better option than the rest of the list.