Reliability comes with maintenance. There's many DSM owners who kept up with maintenance and just had little problems nothing major. The key is to replace any parts thats due to be replaced and whatever else needs to get done... then mod. But most who buy DSM's start modding right away without noticing the issues that might arise or are already there.

 

take my car, driven by one owner before me and he took the car to the deal for everything and its bone stock... and now that i have it at 90k not one thing is wrong with it.... infact iam save money to have a motor built on the side 2.4L storker

 

Its all in the upkeep although some now need overhauls.

 

It will be moderately reliable after you replace everything. Pretty much everything has broken on my car, but I'll give it credit- most of the stuff I have replaced hasn't broken AGAIN. Some of it did though.

Real answer: 95 percent of the cars (1gs) are old ragged out pieces of shit. Find one of the 5 percent that aren't or be ready to replace and rebuild everything that could possibly wear out or break. 2gs probably have a higher percentage of non-POSes because they're newer.

And no, this isn't normal for every older car you can buy. So DSMs ARE NOT AS RELIABLE as other makes you could buy. They are a lot of fun, though.

 

They can be reliable to a point. Anyone who expects to double or sometime triple the power of the stock car and beat the piss out of it without issue is dreaming. High mileage is mostly what kills the reliability, especially when you start modding. These cars can nickel and dime you to death. It's not huge problems but enough to make you get pissed off because you spend 2 saturdays a month fixing little shit.

 

ive more than doubled my power so far from stock, and i daily drive it, but just because youre making the power doesnt mean you have to gun it everywhere. my car sees maybe 5psi on a daily basis...MAYBE if its lucky. so the key is, drive normally, dont gun it everywhere, if you want to rag on somethin or gun it everywhere, go buy a stock toyota econobox. now if you daily drive it and take care of it, youll get alot of enjoyment out of it at the right times. im not here to tell you how to drive your car, but i am just giving advice on how to keep it running. part of the reason i havent had anything breaking on me, is whenever the car is in my garage, i have the hood up and am always checking over things, now with something stock, you wont really have to do that.

 

Do I really have to say something???

 

yes he needs your .2 cents lol

 

you and your reliable 30r 7 bolt can shut it!

 

^lol