My parents and I have had a succession of cars over my life. The first car they ever bought was a new 1965 Volkswagen Beetle. They drove that until 1975, when they bought a new Mercedes-Benz 240D. That was an amazing economy car, getting excellent fuel economy, combined with running for 437k miles before breaking down for the first time That was in 1985. in 1980 my parents bought another car for my mom, because they both needed a car, they got a Subaru. My parents sold the 240D to my aunt, who ran it until 1990, 510k. In 85, my mom and dad bought a Mercedes-Benz 300D. In 1988, with 262k miles on it, two of the Subies motor's rods tunnelled their way free because my mom acidentally shifted from third to first(!). The oil caught fire and that was the end of that car. We had not budgeted money for a car then so we bought a Yugo. I still remember that car... more on that in a moment. The Yugo timing belt had been replaced regularly, but in 1995 the job was skipped due to a) a lack of parts, and b) a lack of time... whats a couple of thousands of miles? A lot, because the timing belt snapped. Due to that happening, and the 300D being 10 years and 617k miles old, they decided to replace both cars. We went to the Mercedes-Benz dealership. They offered us a token $1 for the Yugo and $5k for the Mercedes. Cool. We bought two 1995 MBs, a C220 and a E300D, both pricinply stripped, except the C220 had climate-control, regretably. As usual, the AC for the E300D lasted until 2000. The C220s lasted untill 1998, but to hell with it we never use it anyway. I got the C220 with 125k on it for 2001 and my mom got an Audi A6. My dad still is driving the E300D which has 410k on it last time I checked. I put a large Turbo on my C220 which I got out of a friends Saab.
Anyway, my automotive history is to account for the large amounts of driving my family does. The E300D sould reach 1 mil cause my dad hates the new one. POS comparatively. Also, I want to point out that in addition to a Yugo, we have generally also owned the best cars out there (Mercedes)
The Yugo was a nice car. It did not have the build quality of the Mercedes. Nor should it have. These were all old school Mercedes, built to be the best with price set after cost was figured, not like the POS engineered to a price cars you see today. We beat the living hell out of those cars... we all have lead feet. But the Yugo was a solid peice of machinery. SOLID. The car's body was like a tank. The gauge of metal was very thick. It was not well screwed to together in some places, and it caused rattles, but the body was not one of those places.
It gave us a good 230k miles of extremely reliable service. It only broke down twice. It probably could have gone further.
The jokes that I have read in this thread about them being POS cars, about not lasting a long time, about flatening like a cardboard box in an accident... they are all not true. I had a friend who got hit by a Ford Explorer at about 45 MPH. The car was totalled, but my friend kicked out the door, and walked away. 230k is an impressive mileage for a $5k car. Breaking down twice is not impressive, but its not POS territory. I have a friend with a Kia Sedona that has broken down way more than that. We might have bought another one if they had been around. We always liked solid cars, and in 1995 the C220 was simply the cheapest one out there. Volvos 240 was out of production then.