Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Toyota or Chevy?

no toyota junk,i've owned 4 chevy trucks sense 1976 when i started driving and i still have 2 of them on the road. drove my first till 1988 sold it still running with 349,000 miles on it. a friend parked it soon after that and put the transmission in another truck. itsstill running. drove my 1988 chevy over 280,000 miles til 2009 when i sold it to a farmer who is still using it. bought a new chevy colorado in 2004. 114,000 miles and tires and oil changes is theonly thing i've done to it. also bought a gmc 1500 in 2010 .oil changes is all i've done to it,still has original tires on it.thos unreliable chevies last a long time for me. toyotas break parts way more often from what i see and cost more to fix.

You obviously didn't have one with their 700R4 transmission. What a piece of crap. They routinely need rebuilding around 120k. I've had to have it done in 2 trucks. Then, when the 2d one was 6 mo. out of warranty, a piece of metal broke off the torque converter and was sucked through the transmission, totally gutting it. That's another $1700 rebuild.

neither

Well I have a 2000 Toyota Celica GTS (173K) I drive to work when it's nice and a 2001 Chevy Blazer ZR2 (157k) I drive when it's crappy. Bought the Blazer new in '01 and the Celica used in '06. Both have had minimal work. If I had it to do over, I would have bought a Tacoma instead of the Blazer, which was the plan until the dealer pissed me off.

You do realize the Colorado and Canyon were developed for GM by Isuzu? Your experience with GM vehicles is definitely unique, IME.

I am sure you could get that kinda mileage out of a GM truck. You would just have to go it a steady supply of parts.
The other thing about GM trucks is that the hit about 75K and the are just rattle traps/loose feeling.

I just sold a '91 Chev 3/4 ton with 170k on it. Other than the aforementioned 700R4 transmission, it's been a really good one. Almost everything else on it is still original. It never had real good power with the 350 engine even with 4.10 gears, but I attribute that to that POS transmission. I wouldn't be afraid to take off across the country with it right now. If it had had a manual transmission and 4 doors, I'd have kept it and saved my money for a new engine when the time came.

Not unique in my experience. First car was a '55 Chev and I've had a whole bunch of Chevys since then. They've all been really good, no trouble with any of them. My '94 3/4T GMC gas truck bought new was parked in '04 when I got the DMax. Mostly sitting for the last 8yrs and with 230K miles it still runs very well. Even after spending 6mos. every winter covered with snow, it's never not started if there was juice in the battery. It doesn't rattle. Don't tell me GM doesn't make good vehicles.

I wouldn't say that any of the automakers aren't capable of making "good" vehicles. As for the percentage of "good" vehicles I don't think any other makers have as high of a percentage as Toyota and Honda.

My best GM vehicle was a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am with a 400 and 4 speed transmission. Was a fun car that I drove the hell out. Brings back a lot of memories. I don't remember doing anything other than a fuel pump to that car. Wish I would have kept it now.

One of my extra duties in the department I work for is vehicle fleet manager. The Fords we have had have proven to be more reliable and less expensive to maintain overall. Having said that, one of my favorites was the 96 Caprice with the LT1 in it. When our last one was retired a few years back it had right at 175,000 miles on it.

Having a reliable American vehicle, GM included, is NOT unique. I see some very unique issues with some domestic rigs from posters here. Issues I've never had, nor heard of even. These magic imports are not immune to problems. Some folks refuse to drive imports, myself included. I have never owned one, never will. So what? mtmuley

The automatic trannys are scary (even the 4l60E's). My wife's 99 suburban had 88,000 miles on it when I had to pull it and replace the reaction sun shell ($52.00 part). The dealership told me they would rebuild it for $2,300.00 but I said they could go F*&%^ themselves and just put in the part that was bad. That was 30,000 miles ago. It's been working like a champ but I told my wife I only gurarantee it for 50,000 . Like I said earlier I've had problems with my 04 GMC tranny too. I knew the tranny was weak when I bought it so I bought an extended warranty for it and the dealership rebuilt it 1 year after I bought it along with the front differential. The big suburban gets better gas mileage than my truck does and it has the old antiquated 5.7 vortec in it instead of the new ls1 5.3 L. that my truck has. Do an internet search on the 4l60E tranny and you'll see that they are a pos just like the 700R4 (basically the same tranny except the 4l60E is electronically controlled [bleep].....oops, I mean shift)....

The 700R4 was originally the old TH400 which was a pretty good transmission. They added an OD gear that was too weak and that's the gear that caused the problems in both of my trucks.

I was warned by a former Chevy owner that they self destruct at 75k . He was off by 4k

Toyota.

71k dang that bites

Especially when the only time it was used as a truck is when it went hunting..it was beyond babied. I have a list of people that will buy any vehicle I own if and when I decide to sell them. I traded in the Chevy .

Miguel,
If you drive lots of miles and need to haul stuff I recommend a diesel. That eliminates the Toyota. Buy a used one that hasn't pulled anything heavy (no fifth wheels or goosenecks). Then when you get to 200,000 miles you won't be looking for a new/used truck. I like the Ford 7.3, but the Chevys and Dodges are good also.

120k?? I have never seen one make it past 70k. GM stuff is garbage and the people that say its not have only owned and driven GM stuff and don't know any better. my dad's GMC envoy the fit of the body panels is so terrible that you would think its been in a wreck and poorly fixed. over the years I have worked for companies with a variety of vehicles. the chevy stuff had ill fitting doors, door handles that fell off in your hand, interior controls that would break easily. ITS FREAKING GARBAGE!!!! I will not own anything GM, toyota has been very reliable for me. I also think ford is putting out a decent product although still no toyota. if I needed a 1/2 ton or small truck. I would prolly buy a f150 with ecoboost. but not for the reliablity so much but because its a nice truck and gets decent mileage.

I bit the bullet and bought a used 2009 Tacoma TRD quad cab yesterday. So far, so good. It is everything I am looking for in a truck. I looked very hard at several Silverados, but Toyotas reputation for dependability finally won me over. I'll try and post some pics this weekend. Thanks everyone for your input.