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Have Bad Cars Gone Extinct?
Hugh Pickens writes "AP reports that global competition is squeezing lemons out of the market and forcing automakers to improve the quality and reliability of their vehicles. With few exceptions, cars are so close on reliability that it's getting harder for companies to charge a premium. 'We don't have total clunkers like we used to,' says Dave Sargent, automotive vice president with J.D. Power. In 1998, J.D. Power and Associates found an industry average of 278 problems per 100 vehicles, but this year, the number fell to 132. In 1998, the most reliable car had 92 problems per 100 vehicles, while the least reliable had 517, a gap of 425. This year the gap closed to 284 problems. It wasn't always like this. In the 1990s, Honda and Toyota dominated in quality, especially in the key American market for small and midsize cars. Around 2006, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were heading into financial trouble and shifted research dollars from trucks to cars after years of neglect and spent more on engineering and parts to close the gap. Meanwhile Toyota's reputation was tarnished by a series of safety recalls, and Honda played conservative with new models that looked similar to the old ones. Now it's 'very hard to find products that aren't good anymore,' says Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of the Edmunds.com automotive website. 'In safety, performance and quality, the differences just don't have material impact.'"
if bad cars have gone extinct. take a seat, it will be a while before he's done laughing.
The author has obviously not driven a GM vehicle lately. Let me count the problems with my two year old Pontiac...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Of course lemons exist.
Lots of them. Its just that, now reliable cars number quite a bit.
but there still exist a set of people who think money can be saved by skimping on QC practices.
Its more of a mindset issue.
Other than that, if you have ever been part of a JD power survey, you would know what it actually is.
Here is an interesting link
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/41820-my-experience-jd-power-quality-survey.html
So another question is.. are the right questions being answered?
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...is the price of gas.
Back then the general feeling was that Asian cars were better quality but based on this I always wondered how much was reality and how much unconscious bias.
In-car 'infotainment' and navigation systems are now becoming more common, so what we have gained in mechanical reliability we can make up in the endless sorrow of interacting with dubious software...
.. at least underneath.
I don't know how it is like in the US, but in Europe almost all the car manufacturers have consolidated. Cars are a commodity now. The cars from many different brands (e.g. VW, Audi, Skoda) all have the same chassis and parts. They all have the same body shape (more or less). Usually the only difference is in the body panels, the interior trim and the badge at the front.
As such you can pretty much buy any of the above cars, and you'll find that they all have similar reliability. For many people cars are just a method of getting from A-B, so overall the above is good news for them. They can pick based on things like warranty, extras included, financing options, etc.... while the cars are more or less the same.
For example, once upon a time in the west, Skoda's were considered lemons, now they are basically rebadged VW's with reliability to match. Now they are known as VW reliable cars, without the price tag and some extras that the VW's may have.
Not my thing personally, I prefer my cars unique, so I buy old cars built before the consolidation, but for the majority of people, it is a benefit.
is the fact that most new cars are very difficult for the owner to repair themselves, given that many are highly integrated with computer systems. Shade-tree mechanics are going to disappear.
That and the fact that every new car seems to be built on the principle that repair costs are no obstacle, so if a car gets hit, its highly damaged, extremely expensive to repair, and much more likely to be a write off - meaning you need to buy a replacement.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Go to any taxi rank in Germany (where almost all taxis are Mercedes). You won't have any trouble at all finding one with over 500,000 km on the clock.
No sig today...
Of being stranded on the side of I95 in the dead of summer with steam pouring out of the hood of a behemoth Ford.
TFA appears to emphasize the shrinking delta between the best and the worst(as well as the gradual decline of the average number of problems per 100 vehicles). 92 issues per 100 cars certainly isn't something you'd want out of your satellites; but for fairly modest definitions of 'problem' isn't too terribly surprising for complex mechanical devices, relatively cheap, in the hands of unskilled users.
The big news is not that the absolute reliability of the best-in-class has changed that much, though it has improved a touch; but that the average quality of the junk has increased quite sharply, narrowing the reliability gap considerably.
There's a big difference between "initial quality" reports and long term (5, 10, 15 year) reliability, though there is probably some correlation due to overall manufacturing control at the factory. Initial quality tells you if something was built correctly, for the most part. Long term reliability has more to do with the design and specifications of the car and its components. You can have a cheap car (or camera, or toy, etc.) that works fine out of the box and breaks in a short time due to cheap materials. Or you could have one built of high quality materials with fine tolerances that lasts effectively forever.
I work in the car industry. That means I am a hell of a lot more qualified than most
of you people to make an informed comment on the current state of the art in new
cars.
Cars now are junk, even very expensive cars. The "product cheapening department"
has found new ways to lower the production costs for cars, and this will come back
to haunt anyone who owns a car for more than a couple of years. Since only the wealthy or
the stupid buy new cars every couple of years, this means a lot of people are going to get
screwed by how the new cars are being built.
Such things as plastic intake manifolds, wiring which is as small as possible in gauge in order to
save copper, and even thinner body sheet metal all mean the cars you can buy today are more
of a disposable item than cars built a decade or more previously. Argue against this if you like,
but you will be wrong.
My 1982 Mercedes W123 has almost 500000km* and not only that, for the last 12 or so years, it has been modified to run on LPG (because it is cheaper) and I stil use LPG when I want to go somewhere more than a few km away (I can only switch the fuel source to "LPG" if the engine has warmed up**).
* probably already reached it, but the odometer has been replaced and the mechanic did not bother setting it to the same number as the old one.
** The process is like this (completely manual system):
1. If the engine is cold, switch on gasoline, start the engine.
2. When it has almost reached ~40C, turn off gasoline, drive (or wait) until the gasoline that is still in the carburetor is used up - I can usually go up to 1km on that.
3. Switch on LPG.
The body had some rust, but i had the car patched up. Also, it seems that I will need to replace all the door seals and the back window seal (I already replaced the front window seal) as 30 year old rubber is not known for its ability to keep water out.
Try a Subaru. Great quality, and great in the snow, and they make nice wagons if you need the room. If you get a turbo model, they're also a blast to drive.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I always loved the saying: "In America, Mercedes are luxury vehicles, in Europe, they are taxis."