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Have absolutely no credibility with CONSUMER REPORTS.
Next time please state the demographics of Consumer Reports subscribers. Enough said about Consumer Reports.
Please explain what you mean here. Do you think that the demographics of CR subscribers influences their reliability reporting? If so, what would the effect be and what would cause it?
Are you really saying that CR subscribers tend to be interested in a certain type of car (reliable, not what many car people around her consider exciting or fun to drive)? If so, what does that have to do with their reported reliability? Beyond that, how does that explain that the CR user reports come from drivers of all different makes and models of car?
My own personal experience is that American cars are slightly less reliable than the Japanese cars, but are far less comfortable, and are poorly designed from a human interface perspective. I drive a 2010 4Runner that has had two issues in 100,000 miles that weren't related to wear items. The rubber on the hatch switch degraded and had to be replaced, and the touch screen has quit working. I can live with that. From a human interface view, the controls in the 4Runner are far easier to use than on any similar US car I've driven, and the feel of the controls is better. The 4Runner also has the 4WD features I wanted, which are not available on any US SUV of a similar size.
German vehicles just work better too. I drive a Ford Transit 350 for my van pool. It's been very reliable. However, the controls are pretty awful, especially the intermittent wipers, which just don't work well at all, as the sensor and computer that controls it can't tell when to wipe the windshield. The Mercedes I rented in Germany last year did that task perfectly. The Ford's other controls are in awkward places, the Mercedes were exactly where you would expect them to be, intuitive, and easy to operate without looking for them.
Please explain what you mean here. Do you think that the demographics of CR subscribers influences their reliability reporting? If so, what would the effect be and what would cause it?
Are you really saying that CR subscribers tend to be interested in a certain type of car (reliable, not what many car people around her consider exciting or fun to drive)? If so, what does that have to do with their reported reliability? Beyond that, how does that explain that the CR user reports come from drivers of all different makes and models of car?
That's the usual thing. Self-professed "car guys" sneer at the mainstream car buyer/car owner who primarily wants reliable & economical transportation that suits their life's needs. That isn't necessarily a Cam/Cord, Civic/Corolla, Rav4/CR-V, or bigger family hauler but it's not focused on high horsepower performance cars. That kind of buyer isn't CR's target market.
My other observation is that most of those "car guys" are lookers, not buyers. They read the latest reviews of 6-figure performance cars and opine about the relative merits but in real life, they very much have a beer budget. It's pretty likely that anyone who slams the gigantic CR reliability database likely lacks the 21st century job skills to afford a Lamborghini or even a midlife crisis Corvette Z06. The boy racer crowd with the fart can exhaust system and huge exhaust tip are famous for it.
STATISTICALLY speaking, in LONG TERM data, Japanese makes TOP all reliability charts for over a decade.
You can argue all you want to based on personal opinion, you can't beat that hard fact. Even the most pro domestic reviewers have to bite the bullet and agree to that.
That is said for RELIABILITY considerations. So if that is your beef, sure.
While, in the same time, domestics dropped many makes, and the giants went through you all know what and headed there again.
While, in same time, European and Scandinavian makes went down in reliability and are now hazard to buy.
That is another fact. Folks, it's a fact, not personal opinion.
Again it's reliability.
Now, there are other factors. Quality of fabrication. Appearances. Horse power. Ride comfort. Ability to move massive amounts of cargo or humans. Customer service. Warranties. PRICE. Add more as you wish.
Are Japanese stellar in all of those factors? Surely not.
I'll toss in personal experience from few days back. I test drove 19 Pilot. AMAZING power train. Yet, same time, it is likely the cheapest interior car I have eve been in. What killed any interest in the product.
Hence, as I said - it depends, as usual, what is that YOU consider.
On anecdotal note, when we moved in to the US in 1993, I noticed that there is a lot of domestic cars sold cheap right at around 50-60 000 miles. I asked, how come. As I was told, Americans know they will start breaking down as soon as they get out of warranty and simply rid of them.
Based on the above data, I feel there are some conclusions one can draw:
The top of the charts all have one thing in common regardless of whether it's Toyota, GM or Ford.
Low stress, low RPM, large displacement engines rule the day when it comes to long term reliability.
If you're really worried about reliability, don't look at the brand. Look at the number of cubic inches under the hood.
Who makes the largest number of these type of vehicles?
Not Toyota, not Honda, not Nissan.
It's GM.
IMO, Ford is not doing themselves any favors in this area with these turbo V6s.
Hence, as I said - it depends, as usual, what is that YOU consider.
On anecdotal note, when we moved in to the US in 1993, I noticed that there is a lot of domestic cars sold cheap right at around 50-60 000 miles. I asked, how come. As I was told, Americans know they will start breaking down as soon as they get out of warranty and simply rid of them.
From the 1990's until the 2009 stock market crash, American car companies all had an oversupply of manufacturing capacity. That resulted in a large supply of cheap "appliance cars" - ford tempo's, Chevy corsica's & pretty much chrysler's entire lineup. They were new, very cheap & actually pretty good at their intended purpose- moving people who didn't necessarily have a lot of money from point a to point b. Massive quantities of those cars went into rental fleets who deprecated them quickly so they could be sold even cheaper at 30-50k miles & only a couple years old. GM, ford and Chrysler all had stakes in rental car companies & they used those companies to absorb excess product. Those cheap cars weren't maintained by enthusiasts or by dealers - they were limped along by consumers who routinely abused the hell out of them, while retaining the right to ***** about "quality".
At the same time, the Japanese automakers were tightening the noose on their dealerships - the big three had twice as many dealers as they actually needed, leading to domestic dealerships knife-fighting each other over pricing on a product that was already cheaper than the Japanese products & the Japanese dealers were able to enforce pricing without rebates or much haggling - meanwhile, domestic dealers were trying to make profit by selling warranties, paint protection & window tint, because there was $0 profit in the sale of a new domestic car & the buyers didn't return for service work unless it was covered by warranty.
The price affected the perception of quality among consumers- those who paid too much for their foreign cars took better care of them on an overall basis & big surprise, those cars lasted longer.
The role of buyer demographics can't be unravelled - I remember reading that gm's most stable, sure-footed & road-gripping car, the corvette - also held the dubious statistical victory of being the most likely car to be involved in a rollover collision. Not for a year or two, but for decades. The car wasn't objectively "more likely to roll over", it was more likely to have an idiot behind the wheel.
So too, for the cars of the 90's as to "reliability" - engines like the 2.0 Chevy, 2.3l ford & the 2.2l dodge were and are quite reliable & unlikely to make a driver walk, unless they're abused mercilessly (and most of them were - simply because they were so cheap and easily replaced). Nobody rebuilt a 2.0l Corsica engine or put a transmission in one because by the time they failed, you could buy another complete car for a grand.
The big three endured tons of abuse for making "cars nobody wanted", but when you could buy a three year old car for $4999 for the wife, millions of Americans did buy them - they just didn't take care of them.
Based on the above data, I feel there are some conclusions one can draw:
-Americans DO make reliable cars - just not all of them. You have to be more careful what you buy.
-A Toyota is not necessarily more reliable than a Chevy or a Ford. HOWEVER, Toyotas are more consistently reliable across all models, so you're more likely to get a problem-free vehicle. Toyota doesn't make ANY "0" score cars.
-Reliability of American-made vehicles is skewed toward large cars. A notable list of statistically very unreliable vehicles includes: Focus, Fiesta, Contour, Taurus, Five Hundred, Fusion, Aveo, Cruze, Sonic, Monte Carlo, Malibu, HHR, Impala.
Or in other words, it's probably fair to say that Americans DO make unreliable cars, but they make decent trucks, vans and SUVs, and the occasional reliable car.
What year was that data from? There are models in there that went out of production long ago
(e.g. Thunderbird). Also, surprised to see Subaru way below industry average.
What year was that data from? There are models in there that went out of production long ago
(e.g. Thunderbird). Also, surprised to see Subaru way below industry average.
I worked on cars for twenty six years and then went to work for a large aviation manufacturing company. Beginning in the mid sixties we mostly worked on American made cars, by the late sixties and into the seventies foreign brands were coming into the US market and we began to see some huge differences in fit and finish on the foreign cars, overall, a much better grade of build quality than any US made cars.
I left the car business in the late eighties and went into aviation work. Much of the workmanship and overall engineering on the aircraft was reminiscent of the US built cars of the fifties and sixties, very poor fit and finish, but new, and highly advanced technology was coming to the fore in both aviation and the automobile manufacturing sectors. By the late nineties, that new technology produced a much better product in both planes and automobiles.
Today, we can easily see the difference between the hand made cars of the early years and those built almost exclusively by machine technology, US made cars aren't really US made anymore, likewise for most foreign cars built around the globe. Machines have leveled the field to the extent that there is little difference between manufacturing know how, but, the engineering is still a huge factor when one considers the directions given to the machines, German cars are still horrendously complex and difficult to work on, while Japanese engineering is uniquely straightforward and relatively simple.
I'll add my own observations of timely maintenance having a lot to do with any car's longevity and reliability. I've read and heard of people driving American made cars well over the one hundred seventy five thousand mark with few problems, and I've also heard the horror stories of problematic American cars. I drive a Toyota, it is a truly quality made car, my neighbors all drive US made cars and tell me they love em, so, I guess it comes down to choices based on statistical evidence, and that's why I bought a Toyota..
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