Cloud's car stuff

[Cloud]

whether or not I can get my flippin' check engine light fixed or NOT; it's clear to me . . . the writing is on the Wall . . . that it's time to think about getting a new car. But Lee! you say, your car is only 9 years old . . . and you only have 54,000 miles . . . and you still haven't learned to change the tire. Tough, I say. It's time if I can swing it. So: this is a thread for me to talk about cars and car buying. I hope you'll be patient with me, because it's likely to take me a long time.

First: What's up with all the recalls? I'm reading the car news, and there are recalls or inquiries on Hummers, Corvettes, Dodge Calibers, Toyota Sequoias, Nissan Infinitis . . . and more. My own Honda had a recall on the side airbag.

In terms of the Toyota recall, Consumer Reports says:

So far, 1.6 million (or roughly 70 percent) of the vehicles related to the sticky accelerator pedals have been repaired. Toyota claims to have also repaired 1.5 million vehicles for the potential floor mat pedal entrapment (about 27 percent of the total), and 115,000 (75 percent) of the 2010 Toyota Prius and Lexus models related to the antilock brake system. Over 732,000 vehicles have received both the floor mat and sticking pedal fixes.

That may be fine, but it seems like they've been having lots of reliability trouble spots in the past few years. So maybe I should scratch Toyota off my list? And are there that many more problems? I thought cars in general were more reliable these days. Does that mean the watchdogs are doing a better job?