Do you know what grinds my gear?..
I own two vehicles - '02 Hyundai Elantra and '01 Audi A6. The Hyundai was brand new and the Audi was about 4 years old when I bought them. I have never had a problem with the Hyundai because I don't drive like a Nascar driver on the street and I take care of it like any owner shoud. I had to fix an oil leak in the Audi, but it was a price that came with buying a used car..
Now, just few days ago, I changed the spark plugs in the Audi and I had this "mechanic" guy helping me. I worked on the passenger side and he worked on the driver side. After all was done, he was saying how easy to fix and reliable Japanese vehicles were compared to, say, European vehicles! I've had other guys talking about the same thing - about how reliable Japanese cars are, before this just makes me angry. These guys have never owned anything BUT Japanese vehicles, for one thing, and from what I hear from several experts, this whole Japanese cars being more realiable than any others ls more of hype than anything else. Yes, I will agree with how easy it is to fix Japanese cars because of my personal experience, but that's as far as I would go.
Am I just being overly protective and proud of my non-Japanese vehicle ownership experience, or what?
Okay, one thing you should know is, this is based upon fact that, European vehicles are (traditionally) unrealiable. As far as best to worst, when it comes to realibility goes, it's been Japanese (best), American, European. Now, I base my information off of a proven source that I'm sure you've heard of, called Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports, which is a product of Consumers Union, sends out yearly automobile surveys that people fill out and mail in or take online. They base all their information on reliabity, on the results of these surveys. So, they are not just basing it of "their one car" or "their one unit"! It's a pretty solid way of doing it and I highly reccomend, before buying any car, in buying their most recent "Consumer Reports Buyers Guide"! Or, better yet, subscribe to their website and get a magazine archive of 6 years, exclusive web stories and more, for only like $19.00 a year! Not too shabby, if you ask me! Or, if you want information on a specific model or even more information than the magazine or buyers guide provides, they have a used car service that will send you extremely detailed information, about any model of car and the history of the model! Not a bad deal! I don't know how much that service costs but I know, for the confidence of owning a reliable vehicle, it's definitely worth it!
Lastly, I will point out one fact. I used the magazine, a little over a year ago, to steer my father towards buying a Mazda MX-5 (Miata) over a Pontiac Solstice. This year, after the Solstice has been out for awhile, he is extremely that much more satisfied! Reason being, this years Car Buying issue (April of every year) shows that, predicted reliability of the Solstice is 234% worse than the average vehicle, when it comes to reliability! Their reliabilty of the MX-5, although based upon these circles that are filled with either black (worse) or red (better), there are 5 possible dots and it's equilvelant to a 4 out of 5. The Solstice, obviosuly, scored a 1 out of 5. I should have mentioned, 1 being worst, 5 being best. So, obviously, the MX-5 did much better! Now, this is only a "prediction", but it's based upon factual information and is pretty reliable, as long as he didn't get a lemon! So, we'll see, but he's got around 30K miles on it and has had no problems, thus far! Now, he did just wreck it, but I'm going off topic so I'll shut up! Anyways, good luck!
Lastly, I remind you of this. Cars like the Hyundai Sonata and others, are made in America. Cars like the Ford Fusion? They're made in Mexico. It's a smart move to not trust the brand to tell you where the car is made. Rather, check the specific vehicle! Good luck and have a great day/night!
"Cars like the Ford Fusion? They're made in Mexico. "
What's wrong with Mexico?
"...based upon these circles that are filled with either black (worse) or red (better)..."
I've often wondered about the relationship between the dots and CR's overall reliability. For several years during the early 2000's by 1998 Regal ranked below the Camry and Accord in overall reliability, but it had all red circles; full or half. Yet the other two cars had a few empty circles and a couple half black ones. When you figure this disparity out, please let me know. I'm sure it's obvious, but I'm in the flash card section.
I don't think random meant anything by it. I believe he is saying some domestics are not made in the USA and not all foriegn makes are made outside the USA.
Car quality and reliability is mostly a function of design, followed by the quality of the components that go into the vehicle, and finally the assembly quality.
The Ford Fusion is a major step in qualility improvement by Ford. Basic design, quality parts); it is also assembled in Ford's best plant worldwide, Hermosillo, Mexico.
By and large, Japanese designed cars have:
1. Very good to excellent design, with very little corner-cutting that was the Hallmark of US manufacturers
2. Very tough parts manufacturing standards; Honda has Six Sigma, where you are allowed one bad part in 344,000 or so.
3. Very good assembly quality.
It does not really matter where a Japanese car is made, the same processes apply. I have ridden in some really exellent Toyotas manuafactured in Thailand from Thai-made parts.
European manufacturers have not mastered the design quality yet, especially in electrical and electronic parts. They furthermore do not have the Japanese Six Sigma statistical quality control yet. BMW has shown the most improvement in this area.
Assembly quality in European-built cars is generally good, but hides the other flaws.
A Volkswagen built in Mexico suffers from inadequate engineering, poor quality Mexican parts (especially plastic ones), and sloppy assembly. A Nissan built in Mexico is a very good car, by comparison.
The reliability thing didn't start yesterday. In 1976. The underside of a Toyota was ten yeard ahead of any car built over here. The exhaust system had little hooks that fit into O-rings, You never had to replace an exhaust hanger. The Toyota Corolla was a small car that was built like a big car. Steering box, timing chain and a rocker cover gasket that could be changed in twenty minutes and wouldn't leak. The Chevy small block engines were no fun at all. You could botch the installation badly if you weren't careful. The Corolla had torsion bars and the suspension could be greased easily. Those little bombs ran up to 200,000 miles with almost no maintenance. The exhausts after the converter were crap if you bought the cheap ones. I changed mine every Spring for $60 and it took a half hour in the yard. Plus, it started every day when the temperature was minus 30 or worse and it never got stuck in snow. Those days have changed a little. Toyota isn't that far ahead now. As far as your luck with cars goes, not every car is going to fall apart on you. Some people had Chevettes that got over 250,000 miles on them. Your gears weren't ground in the early 1960's. Don't worry, we all show our age when we ask questions. I learned not to discuss Jimmy Carter with an 18 year old; ten years ago.
That's true. I still have a '74 Corolla that is a really quite amazing car for its time. It has a 1.6L cross-flow head motor that's rated at over 100HP, which I think is about the same as the same vintage 6-cylinder engines with three times the displacement that were in most big domestic cars. And the Corolla gets around 30MPG on the highway! Of course, what it was competing with was the VW Super Beetle, which also had a 1.6L engine, but it only did 57 horsepower and was a far flimsier car.
I don't know why those old Toyotas don't have more of an enthusiast base-- mine is a really fun car that I've really enjoyed owning.
I don't know why those old Toyotas don't have more of an enthusiast base-- mine is a really fun car that I've really enjoyed owning.
The ONE bad thing of the Japanese cars from that era were they RUSTED OUT VERY QUICKLY. They didn't get it fixed until the late 80's. They were GREAT mechanically...but they rusted out faster then ANY American car on the road.....Even the Dodge Aspen or Plymouth Volare'.
No enthusiast base? Check out the local drift course or compact car show. ...and no its not because of 30mpg or the inspiring 100hp motor. Real-wheel drive baby!!!.. I'll correct myself before anybody does... Most of the ones you'll find will be early to late 80's....'74 i'm not so sure
Toyota's 22R engine, used in so many of its vehicles for so many years, was exceptionally reliable and gave hundreds of thousands of miles of service. Ford's 4.9L truck engine was phenomenally strong and reliable, I personally drove a 1981 E-150 400,000 miles with no engine problems. And as for Ford, a fleet of 6 mid 1990s Ford Aerotar vans were driven by college age girls more than 10,000 miles each month and serviced by me. When the contract was lost these vans had from 300,000 to 400,000 miles each and none had ever required a tow. Only one had the engine replaced. Maintenance-maintenance-maintenance.
The older Volvos and Mercedes Benzes seemed to be as basic to diagnose and repair as an 8N Ford tractor but my experience with them is limited.
While in Japan for a short time in the 1960s I saw that they don't drive what they sell us. Or they didn't then, anyway. Subarus then were 2-strokes. Pickups were tricycles, some with 2 cylinder diesels requiring pulling a rope to start. And most young Japanese wanted American cars, especially Mustangs, but Japanese law required paying Ford's list price plus a high duty in cash, up front, to order the car. On arrival some weeks later each American car (new) was individually inspected and certified for a considerable fee. Needless to say, few American cars were on the street.
Also, Japanese cars are usually junked at 100,000km because of a required inspection/recertification on their domestic cars.
Many of these 100,000 km cars are NOT JUNKED; they go on to live for another 10 years in countries where they drive on the left side of the road and where there is no active car industry. New Zealand, Ireland, many African countries, most SE Asian countries, etc.
I worked in a city in Malaysia where the entire taxi fleet was made up of the hand me down Japanese cars, lovingly cared for till they accumulated nearly 1,000,000 kms. A Japanese car with 100,000 km or ten years old is considered as good as a locally assembled car.
Just like it's unfair to say all American named plate cars are less reliable. it's unfair to say Japanese cars are all more....see Nissan products, esp, Titan and their mini vans....Pontiac makes a great Vibe, and it really doesn't matter who helped. Toyota should take no more credit than Pntiac whoes willing to sell it under their name plate. Brand name reliability is difficult to generalize with except for Toyota and Honda.
I hear you and wasn't picking on you....just the idea that there really are no American/Japanese or European made cars. There are just parent car companies that have American/Japanese and European names that make or even subcontract cars to be made for them; who knows where. Even Toyota is contracting one of it's Scions to be made in Korea or elsewhere.
That's why I have to agree that model surveys that CR does is about as reliable as you can get.
The question of whether Japanese cars are still better than Domestics seems to be getting grayer and grayer all the time.I myself have owned nothing except Toyotas. None of them have ever been in the shop and all have lasted well over 200k. But on the other hand, I know three people with Chevy trucks that each have amazingly good reliability. One has 256,000 miles, the second has 340,000 miles, and the last with 287,000 miles. My Grandmother has a Buick Lesabre with 172,000 miles. I know many others with tons of miles on their GM or Ford cars and trucks. But I also know of quite a few where they simply blew up at 50k.
I will say that I looked at a Chevy Malibu awhile back and the quality in my opinion was as nice or nicer than a Camry. The fit and finish was very nice. I'm still hesitant to trust anything other than the big two from Japan, but I feel less strongly so with every passing year since it seems like most anything Toyota makes today simply looks boring and bland.
I will say that I looked at a Chevy Malibu awhile back and the quality in my opinion was as nice or nicer than a Camry. The fit and finish was very nice. I'm still hesitant to trust anything other than the big two from Japan, but I feel less strongly so with every passing year since it seems like most anything Toyota makes today simply looks boring and bland.
Good observation. The new Malibu appears to be a quality car with good looks. GM finally woke up and designed a car that is not boring looking.
It is nice to know that the gap is closing. American large pickup trucks are generally well built and last a long time, especially when not used as trucks. The new Malibu and Ford Fusion are very serious efforts to compete with Honda and Toyota.
The lower priced American designed cars are still much lower on the quality scale than Japanese designed compacts. US companies treat these as an afterthought but that will change with rising gas prices. It will be interesting to see how the Belgium-built, German-designed Saturn Astra (Opel)will fare. Opels in Europe are known as solid, but somewhat boring cars. I like that designation.
Until GM/Ford and Chryco make fundamental changes in their management structure I don't see them ever catching Toyota and Honda or Nissan in quality.
From Plant managers and up their salary is based on quarterly results. The plant manager has a certain budget. It's NOT in his best interest to make changes to the plant even though it may increase quality by a factor of 10....IF it means these changes will go over his budget. And he'll get a certain percentage of every dollar he stays UNDER budget.
There is NO incentive to build a better product. They are very very short sighted. They look at the next 3 months ONLY. GM and Ford do have R&D that is completely different from the rest of the company...but once the R&D goes to production...it falls in this trap of making the car the cheapest way possible to maximize profit. This has to change in order for them to survive.
Now with a recession looming and auto sales down you'll see a change in policy. This happened back in the early 90's. During that time GM, Ford and Chryco did make some good changes and quality went up. But when the economy turned around....back to old tricks and quality went down again.
Until they make some DRASTIC changes I don't see them ever catching up...It's damn shame too.
Yesterday's tomahtoe's, Mike. Things have changed in a big way. GM discovered that there is money to be made in cars as well as trucks. especially since their truck fleet will be obsoleted by the new CAFE regulations.
04/08/2008 11:33:07 PM
