I Learned To Drive In One

My mom used to own a '76 Vega wagon.

I learned to drive in that car, a 5-speed manual 4-banger.

The grand total of problems Mom had with that car was a radiator and it rusted out from under her.

It was replaced by an '86 Civic, so it gave ten, virtually, problem free years just doing timely oil changes.

We benefited from having the second iteration of the 140 cc motor, the original's reputation lingered and was responsible for the death of the model.

The consumer often doesn't care if real problems have been fixed by the time they start looking at it.

It's very common.  And it's a pattern for GM.  I've lost count of the number of models that were finally sorted by their last year.

It's also common for someone who got a good example of a given machine to insist that their exception is representative of all of them even when it's patently not true.

There's five years of Vegas being shit boxes and two years of them being adequate.

Still, there's a warm spot in my heart for that old car.  One always remembers your first.