Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

jalopnik.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 475 posts

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#81

Post by Hendrikto »

ralfd wrote: post #46
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

> The UX is awful Wait, what UX does a fridge need? Mine just has a scroll wheel which goes from cool to cold.

The handle, the different compartments, the drawers, …. That’s all part of the UX.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#82

Post by mariorossi666 »

patrickk wrote: post #37
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

One of the small, but significant things I noticed about German apartments was the lipped 'bezel'[1], where the door and the frame fit snugly into each other and there is a rubber/plastic seal between the door and the frame. This is a big deal in an apartment, because it reduces noise, reduces drafts, and eliminates the need to heat more than one room at a time. Also, the door itself seems to be very solid, you'd hav…

That's pretty standard feature in Italy, it's called door frame and it's basically everywhere, even on cheap doors.

I didn't know it wasn't common all over Europe.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#83

Post by dvdkhlng »

Someone1234 wrote: post #50
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

American bread is particularly problematic as someone that moved from Europe. Until I found bread I liked I'd often joke that it was suitable for storage in a bomb shelter since it has an unnatural shelf-life and tastes like it. After a tedious search, we wound up buying $2.60 "Sara Lee Artesano Style Bread" which is still less good than a 70c loaf of Hovis in the UK, and certainly less good than fresh made French br…

Maybe you should consider importing a consumer bread making machine from europe :)

(in case anybody wonders what that is, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_machine)

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#84

Post by gherkinnn »

arethuza wrote: post #15
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

There are plenty of shoddy new build expensive properties in the UK - I've been amazed when looking at some new properties how poor the fit and finish is but they still sell.

UK housing standards, especially the plumbing, is a joke.

Tiles misaligned, not sealed off, some bathrooms have no tiles but a bulge-ridden plastic ground cover. All the cupboards are loose. Doors don’t close. I have to manually fuck around with the boiler to get water for my shower. And it still has low pressure. It’s atrocious.

No idea where that comes from. I have a feeling that there’s a disregard for craftsmen. Plumbers, joiners, painters, are all looked down upon. There’s no pride in doing a good job in these areas.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#85

Post by Gravityloss »

roenxi wrote: post #43
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

America has a trade deficit of ~600 billion, which roughly equates to every American having $2,000 to spend buying stuff from overseas. Then on top of that there are all the services America exports. If foreigners are willing to give Americans stuff for paper there is a real pressure for Americans not to bother making stuff and printing more paper instead. That probably influences a lot of the decisions behind Americ…

True. In Finland where taxation is high, you get a certain sum per year that you can hire home improvement work without tax. (Ie you can deduce it from your taxes). Also makes tax avoidance a little less attractive.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#86

Post by patrickk »

mariorossi666 wrote: post #82
patrickk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the small, but significant things I noticed about German apartments was the lipped 'bezel'[1], where the door and the frame fit snugly into each other and there is a rubber/plastic seal between the door and the frame. This is a big deal in an apartment, because it reduces noise, reduces drafts, and eliminates the need to heat more than one room at a time. Also, the door itself seems to be very solid, you'd hav…

That's pretty standard feature in Italy, it's called door frame and it's basically everywhere, even on cheap doors. I didn't know it wasn't common all over Europe.

It's not standard everywhere. My theory is that furniture and home fittings like doors have not really been disrupted by the internet (perhaps because of high shipping costs and bulky sized items). Therefore, there is wide variance in cost and quality from country to country.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#87

Post by mpweiher »

rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

> Maybe this is the result of 30 years of wage stagnation.

Don't think so. My family moved to the US in the early 80s and all the same observations applied back then.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#88

Post by gattilorenz »

ralfd wrote: post #46
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

> The UX is awful Wait, what UX does a fridge need? Mine just has a scroll wheel which goes from cool to cold.

Well, the fridge needs to be opened, closed, has inner compartments, you need to be able to regulate the temperature, possibly to let the user know the fridge is running/which temperature is inside... all this happens in the kitchen, possibly with dirty hands, or with wet hands, or while you're holdin ga handful of things... that's all UX-related aspects.

The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman, had a nice example of how even the wheels for regulating the temperature can be very confusing (and indeed, in basic fridges you don't regulate the temperature, you set a number on the scrollwheel e.g. between 1-7. But is 7 a higher temperature or higher cooling power?).

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#89

Post by shmageggy »

lgbr wrote: post #24
rtpg wrote: post #5

This is a bit flame bait-y but I really feel like America is getting a super Galapagos effect compared to the rest of the world. Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I go to peoples houses in the US sometimes. Some of these houses are multimillion dollar homes. The doors are all terrible. The plumbing is crap. The furniture just feels bad. The cheapest studio apartment in…

> Then you get to grocery stores, and you have to go to the “fancy places” to even get the baseline of quality you see in the rest of the developed world. All the chocolate is bad. While I agree with you on other points, I take issue with this. American grocery stores are a real treat when visiting. Produce is colorful, plentiful, and delicious thanks to American embrace of GMO's and subsidies for farmers. Raw ingred…

I have to agree that it depends on specifics. Being used to the famous and beloved Wegman's in the US, I'm finding the Sainsburys and Tescos of my neighborhood in London to be a real disappointment.

Re: Every American Car Brand Is on the Bottom Half of CR's Reliability Rankings

#90

Post by svrtknst »

manderley wrote: post #34
lgbr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you get to grocery stores, and you have to go to the “fancy places” to even get the baseline of quality you see in the rest of the developed world. All the chocolate is bad. While I agree with you on other points, I take issue with this. American grocery stores are a real treat when visiting. Produce is colorful, plentiful, and delicious thanks to American embrace of GMO's and subsidies for farmers. Raw ingred…

Lidl is a discount supermarket. It's not about choice, it's about the lowest prices possible with a limited amount of variety available in exchange. There are plenty of other chain supermarkets that have the huge variety of flour (?) you crave. And "colorful" doesn't mean tasty with produce, unfortunately.

Also Lidl, at least in Sweden, does some things amazingly. One of the best shops for produce, for instance, both in quality and price.
Post reply on HN