Every vehicle should outlast fate. Many cars don't reach 200k miles because of driver error; they get totaled first. I think however, that every car should reach that mark without any troubles, any special care, and even with some mild abuse. For every model vehicle that has a chronic problem, there are dozens that do not, which demonstrates that each specific chronic problem is avoidable. It's rare however, for a car to have NO chronic problems. But why should it be?
I've had several cars over 200k miles that I've beaten the **** out of. I regularly go 15,000 miles without an oil change, never check any fluids, spark plugs, cap, rotor, or anything else unless the car threatens imminent death. If it sputters, I find out why - otherwise I continue to drive the piss out of it. I do the bare minimum - period. These cars I speak of have all been junk cars I paid almost nothing for. One of them in particular (my Honda) I secretly wished would die, but couldn't bring myself to purposely destroy. Neglected as it was, it lived on. I still own it and it still runs fine, (dammit.)
So if my $100, 200k mile Honda lets me drive over curbs, run it out of coolant repeatedly, add oil only when the check light comes on, and never-ever-ever-ever gives me any trouble; why then should my expensive, top-of-the-line, high tech, low miles, modern Subaru SVX get all "bent out of shape" about a little hard-braking?
It's a big car. They used small brakes. That's why. Either the engineers screwed up, or somebody else made a lousy [cost-cutting] decision. Sure, a lot of cars warp rotors, but not all. I've had the ones on my Honda glowing red, and faded far beyond the point of stopping my car. (Closed course, familiar road.) And the same goes for the transmission. Except under extreme circumstances, a tranny should NEVER fail - and even under those extreme circumstances, a well-built product should be able to deal with it. The rear bearings? Same thing. There's no excuse. Every other manufacturer seems to be able to make their rear wheel bearings last. Bad packing grease? Maybe, but even the factory-installed bearings tend to fail. Subaru's people aren't any dumber than Ford's people. (The other way around is debatable.)
What's the real issue? Failure rate. The question is if the failure rate of the SVX is too high. In my opinion, (and basic logic tends to back me up,) the SVX should never have failures. Unfortunately, this is no so. No doubt planned obsolescence is part of the equation, but the SVX suffers an abnormally high rate of failure - a high rate compared to the average rate of all other automobiles. This is reflected by their resale value. One major appeal of the SVX to me was that I could get a lot of car for the money, but the reason for this is that the car came with some strings attached; high maintenance.
In my not-so-humble opinion, the SVX is lemon. There are worse lemons - much worse - but it's a lemon nonetheless. ...a neat lemon though, and I'd buy one again regardless.
Italian design - outside, as well as inside.
