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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.
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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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.
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...
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.
That and the fact that every new car seems to be built on the principle that repair costs are no obstacle...
Compared to people repair/replacement costs, yes. Modern cars deform so "badly" in accidents by design in order to absorb as much of the impact energy as possible so that energy isn't absorbed by your bones and squishy bits.
Personally I would rather have to make a car insurance claim than a life insurance one.
wouldn't "If life gives you lemons, open a GM dealership". make more sense?
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.
None of the GM divisions have been tops for initial quality
With the exception of the now defunct Saturn. I'm convinced they gave Saturn the axe because it made all the other divisions look bad. Love my indestructible Saturn commuter car...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You're clearly not from the Motor City. Badges have little meaning - nearly no meaning, really - as it's the *platforms* that are designed by the automakers, with the badges shared among them.
Pontiac was put to pasture because its offerings were redundant to those from Chevy, Buick and Saturn. Even then, Saturn got the axe for the same reason. The end result was a healthier portfolio of platforms upon which various GM makes could be engineered, tuned and packaged.
This, however, is the insight few folks realize: The automakers each have a cache of core engineers with talent and capabilities that vary wildly. The executives move their most talented engineers to the platforms that need success most, and their lesser engineers to the platforms that need it least. So, Ford F-150 and Chrysler minivan engineers are the best of their respective companies for a time, and fleet car platforms get the chaff. When the fleet car platforms suffer to the degree they need triage (Chrysler 200, Dodge Durango, Ford Focus), the best engineers are shifted here to perform some one-off miracles.
From here, it sounds like the trim engineers assigned to the aging GMs you had were running in "maintenance" or "cost reduction" mode. Shame for them to lose you, as it's clear to me the star teams were on call for the recent launch of the Cruze and Sonic.
Hard as it was for GM to eliminate and consolidate (trust me, I know, I lived off Pontiac's teat for the last decade), it was the right thing to do.
The new farts know what the old farts don't: Follow the star engineers' platforms for great reliability success!
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I agree with the GP. I don't expect a car less than 3 years old to break down. Reliability should not even be measured at anything less than 50,000 miles. It's hard to claim that GM is on par with Toyota when it comes to quality when GM's fall apart at 75,000 miles and Toyotas are still going strong at 150,000 miles. *Initial* quality, maybe, that that's not what I would call reliability.
As for not having a time machine, well, that's the price that domestic automakers pay for forcing crap down our throats for the past 30 years. Reliability takes time to judge. You can't build trust by saying, "All our new cars won't break down before 50,000 miles". You build trust by building a car that lasts 10 years with no problems. And yes, it takes that long to build trust.
In my personal experience, I've had eight cars in my life time:
1) 1980 Ford Thunderbird: This thing was falling apart when I bought it at 40,000 miles. I would have to fill it up with oil before I left the house and all of the oil would lead out within 30 miles. Wheel bearings went out. Alternator went out. Water pump went out. In replacing the water pump, a bolt that was only made for this car sheared off in the block of the engine. The bolt was, and I'm not kidding, $70 to replace as it was a dealership only item. I drilled the old bolt out myself. Oh, and it was not unusual to have parts simply fall off this car while on the road. For example, as I was leaving my neighborhood, the grill fell off. I had to stop the car and go back and pick it up. This thing would only start when it wanted to and flat out died in bad neighborhoods more than once. I sold the car for $100 before it hit 60,000 miles.
2) 1986 Jeep "SporTruck": I had to replace the transmission three times before 75,000 miles. A clutch lever broke at one point requiring some welding. The driver side external mirror simply fell off one day for no apparent reason. The lever that worked the lights broke, causing me to have to hold it in place by putting my hand behind the dash to turn the head lights out. The parking break would release on its own, causing the truck to roll away after being parked at random times.
3) Toyota truck (don't know the year): Bought this truck for $500 at 100,000 miles. I drove it until 250,000 miles and had to replace the water pump at one point. Sold it for $700. The guy paid $700 at the advice of a mechanic who looked at the truck and said, "it's ugly and the seats are torn, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. You should easily get another 100,000 miles out of it".
4) 2000 Isuzu Rodeo (leased new): Put 75,000 miles in 3.5 years in the area around Michigan (snow, salt, etc). No problems. This was a company car that I gave back when the job was done.
5) 1998 Ford Explorer, Eddie Baur edition: At 70,000 miles, while trading it in for my wife's minivan, it caught on fire. We had just signed the paper work and got $2000 for it. (this thing was so rare that it didn't show up on any of the books. It was a V-8, 4WD, and every mechanic we took it to said it didn't exist)
5) 1996 Toyota Avalon: Bought for $500 at 75,000 miles. Traded in at 150,000 miles for $1000. The cup holder broke.
6) 2008 Scion TC: Bought new for $18000. Drove for 2 years. Put 60,000 miles on it. Traded it in for $13000 because it hurt my back to drive a standard in traffic. No problems.
7) 2006 Toyota Tacoma: Current vehicle. Purchased used at 40,000 miles. Currently has 60,000 with no problems. Toyota financing cut my interest rate to buy the extended warranty. It costs me $0.03 a month to have a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty. I have not had to use it yet.
This is why I don't judge quality before a car is 3 years old. I'm sure you will understand why I'm reluctant to buy American again. I'll trust American cars when they last on average 150000 miles with no problems other than wiper blades, brake pads and tires.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I always loved the saying: "In America, Mercedes are luxury vehicles, in Europe, they are taxis."
The Market doesn't work worth a damn when external costs (not paid for by the user) are not included in market price. For gasoline the big one now for the USA is what we pay in military costs to keep the oil flowing out of the Middle East -- there should be a $2 surcharge on every gallon just for that. Gasoline's other externalities are mostly environmental -- although I will say that emissions at the tailpipe (other than CO2) in the in newish cars are now so low as to not be much of a problem in most areas -- but the "free market" didn't put those clean engines in the cars, regulations did. Those regulations are there so that I, as a breathing person, don't have to pay the costs of you building your refinery upwind without including the equipment to keep your emissions out of the air in my lungs. Fix the problem of externalities and I'll be all for the free market.
No, they gave it the axe for two reasons:
1) Americans started buying ridiculously oversized SUV's. And so GM, in all its wisdom, decided to put EVERYTHING into its SUV's because hey, that trend is never going to end, right?
2) Saturns were all made in a non-union plant, and the unions were pushing back.
As someone who worked for Saturn for almost 9 years, I can tell you this is incorrect. The last union contract negotiated by the workers in Spring Hill went beyond what the UAW had in place with other manufacturers. That's the reason the unions were upset.
The main reason Saturn was killed is due to the fact that it failed to show enough of a profit over its life. GM continually sank money into it while all the other divisions posted a higher percentage of profit over the amount of money invested (basically, it's was like we were being subsidized). And as someone who has owned 5 Saturns, quality had become a major issue starting around 2000. The L Series had major quality issues, the Vue was OK if you got the 6 cylinder engine (which was manufactured by Honda) and skipped the CVT transmission, the Ion was garbage, and the Relay was a re-badged Chevy/GMC mini van with an extra $3,000 added to the sticker price for no reason. I left just after the release of the Aura, so I can't comment beyond that point.
That being said, I loved my SC1, my SL1's, and my SL2's. Cheap and easy to maintain, and other than the timing chain in the twin cams and the alternator, EGR valve and coil packs across all models, they had relatively few problems.