I believe I am definately being realistic with my view of Isuzu.

Yesterday on CNN Headline news they had a story about repeat buyers. It was conducted on the basis of "willingness to buy another vehicle by the same manufacturer".
First Place - Toyota
Second Place - Honda
41st (Dead Last) - Isuzu

Search anywhere on Edmunds, Car Review.com, Consumer Reviews ect. and you will find Isuzu's ranking well down the list in reliability.

In no way am I cutting down Isuzu. I still love isuzu, because they allowed me to have an awesome vehicle for less than any other brand our there.

But I also realize Isuzu's quality is not up to par with most of the other Japanese brands. This is more than understandable considering the absolute over the topness of the QC measures in place at Toyota/Honda. But when the company ranks far behind Chevy/Ford/Dodge/Jeep in reliability of their vehicles it becomes questionable.

A few months ago my dad recieved a TSB for his 96 Toyota T100 (years out of warranty). He can take his truck to any Toyota Dealership to have the headgasket replaced for free because a of a seal leak in a small percentage of the 3.4L produced. On the other hand literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of people have roasted their 3.2L DOHC Isuzu engine because they did not know about its oil consumption problems. I almost did when I first recieved my Isuzu. I checked the oil when I got it and drove it for a month and for some reason decided to check it again for safety and it was about 1.5 quarts low. This was before I found this site. If you search on google (planetisuzoo.com and suv.com have several as well) you can find countless horror stories of car-ignorant people driving their Isuzu without oil in it because of they did not know or expect that kind of consumption out of a newer vehicle.

I realize they made a mistake in the designing of the engines but they should have corrected the problem on every vehicle not just the ones still under warranty.


I still love Isuzu and an never lose site of being thankfull for having such a cool vehicle, but that doesnt cause me to deny their underachieving reliability.

I will try to keep my Rodeo in good health as long as possible, but if it keeps up with these little nick-nacks or comes down with major trouble I may just cut my losses and make do.

Again thanks for the responses - this forum is invaluable to any Isuzu owner.
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