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

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

#121

Post by jcbrand »

mantoto wrote: post #78
lnsru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure in Leipzig is awesome because it was newly created after joining Western Germany for the money from westerners. Infrastructure in Western Germany is crap! My wife uses subway in Munich and there is no week without complaining about delayed or canceled trains. Buildings of universities in Western Germany is a bad joke. University in Regensburg was literally collapsing while one in Dresden got many new b…

Our subway is good. I'm using it every day and just because one train is canceled doesn't mean anything because 10 minutes later the next one comes

Agreed, I lived in Munich for 5 years and its public transport is excellent and very extensive, some of the best I've seen.

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

#122

Post by cbames89 »

taurath wrote: post #56
mrarjen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd ague that Japan's quality is a bit better than EU but also depends on what food you are used to. Mainly healthy options wise I think Japan stands out even more.

It’s so hard to get a proper vegetable conveniently in the US, while in Japan you can get it at a 7-11.

In North Carolina, it's very easy to get proper vegetables.

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

#123

Post by pb82 »

atq2119 wrote: post #69
lnsru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure in Leipzig is awesome because it was newly created after joining Western Germany for the money from westerners. Infrastructure in Western Germany is crap! My wife uses subway in Munich and there is no week without complaining about delayed or canceled trains. Buildings of universities in Western Germany is a bad joke. University in Regensburg was literally collapsing while one in Dresden got many new b…

At least there are trains... and Munich in particular is slightly weird in that the subway (U-Bahn) is run by a municipal company and works very reliably given the amount of people they're moving, while the suburban trains (S-Bahn) are run by Deutsche Bahn and are often a mess at rush hour. In part that's due to the design flaw of having a massive central bottleneck. Similarly for universities, the quality differs. G…

Germany sets its priorities to a good quality education without student debt, and the buildings themselves don't matter much for the education

That is true to some extent. However, the noise of the rainwater dripping into many buckets at the central library of the University of Regensburg made it hard to concentrate on anything.

That was around 2010. Not sure if the leaky roof has been fixed since. Wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no.

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

#124

Post by tim333 »

repsilat wrote: post #72
tim333 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the power of large corporations seems to have run amok a bit allowing them to foist crappy bread, chocolate etc. In Europe things are more regulated and it seems easier for local producers to not be wiped out by the large corporates. I think the US need some political reform so it's less easy to buy political influence.

> foist crappy bread A more charitable interpretation is "American consumers care more about price than quality." Or perhaps it's a market for lemons. American consumers don't know which products are of good quality, and don't want to pay extra for the same quality, so they buy cheap to not be taken advantage of. There is nothing stopping people from making good bread and chocolate in the US, and many do. They would/…

There was an interesting anecdote from Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy about when he launched a burrito called the Dilberto. He got it in supermarkets but the merchandisers from large brands would go around the stores and shove them to the back of the shelf and their products in front. It's hard for small producers who can afford merchandisers to compete with that kind of thing. I see you point but the playing field is kind of tilted.

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

#125

Post by LeonidasXIV »

contravariant wrote: post #114
kstenerud wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree. I've lived in Japan (5 years), in San Francisco (6 years), and now live in Germany. The food quality goes Europe -> Japan -> USA, with a sharp drop between Japan and the USA. I'm currently living in Leipzig, which still has bombed-out looking empty buildings from the time of the Iron Curtain (although things have finally been picking up over the past few years). And yet even here the infrastruc…

Interesting, I was under the impression that the food quality in Japan was quite good. Although I suppose I have no reason to believe Europe would be any worse, or different. What makes you say that Europe has a better food quality?

> What makes you say that Europe has a better food quality?

More space to grow food and a large open market between EU countries, whereas Japan grows a lot of rice on the very limited space they have and is very restrictive wrt. importing foods from abroad. Which is why you can good food in Japan but sometimes fruits are ridiculously expensive. Also, bread in Japan is terrible (but then again, good Japanese food in Europe is tricky too).

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

#126

Post by denzil_correa »

lnsru wrote: post #33
kstenerud wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree. I've lived in Japan (5 years), in San Francisco (6 years), and now live in Germany. The food quality goes Europe -> Japan -> USA, with a sharp drop between Japan and the USA. I'm currently living in Leipzig, which still has bombed-out looking empty buildings from the time of the Iron Curtain (although things have finally been picking up over the past few years). And yet even here the infrastruc…

Infrastructure in Leipzig is awesome because it was newly created after joining Western Germany for the money from westerners. Infrastructure in Western Germany is crap! My wife uses subway in Munich and there is no week without complaining about delayed or canceled trains. Buildings of universities in Western Germany is a bad joke. University in Regensburg was literally collapsing while one in Dresden got many new b…

A delay of 10m is different than a delay of 1h or a lack of public transport. The Munich Transport Corporation (MVG) guarantees a return of fare, equivalent to a full day's ticket, if they delay is more than 20m [0].

[0] https://www.mvg.de/dam/mvg/ueber/unternehmensprofil/mvg-imag...

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

#127

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

justapassenger wrote: post #36
kstenerud wrote: post #2

It's interesting to note the difference in communication styles when company PR teams respond to requests for comments. Fiat Chrysler and Chevy both responded in predictable marketroid speak, complete with extensive use of passive voice and grand, hand-wavey platitudes "We care committed to blah blah blah" "Quality is of the greatest importance blah blah blah" "blah blah above industry average blah blah blah" "blah b…

Words are cheap. They’re under investigation for possibly hiding recall and issuing OTA instead that surprised people with sudden range loss ( https://www.businessinsider.com/nhtsa-investigating-tesla-up... ) They force customers to go over arbitration to fix yellowing entertainment screen on cars as young as few months. They tell people it’s normal wear and tear due to using cat in the sun ( https://teslamotorsclub.…

Perhaps the grandparent comment was actually talking about the quality of Tesla’s Public Relations department.

Otherwise it would strike me as odd that someone would boost a vehicle manufacturer that doesn’t sell spare parts, in a thread on vehicle reliability.

Edited a few words to better express my point.

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

#128

Post by oblio »

Luc wrote: post #40
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…

I think there is something to this, but in my experience they just don't care. Their stuff is optimized for their own cultural values, which you perhaps expect to be more like your own than they are. I have had American visitors marvel at the (German built) windows in my French home, calling them something you'd see on a space station. On the other hand they think I must be having money problems for not having a tumb…

Could be.

I find it amusing that from a climate change point of view, both their comments are basically negative:

* good windows provide better insulation and reduce the need to heat/cool down a building, plus their reduce dampness since they keep moisture out

* while a tumble dryer uses electricity for something which is not much of a chore (it takes like, 5 minutes, to hang the laundry and 5 more minutes to pick it up when it's done)

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

#129

Post by rjzzleep »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75
Someone1234 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's the same in the UK, where most of the bread you can get is basically intended for a toaster. But, it's down to volume and consumption; in my country (NL), bread is a daily staple, often featured in two meals a day - so a family will easily go through a loaf a day. It makes more sense to optimize the production and logistics for a shelf life of days instead of weeks. We can get reasonably fresh (factory-produced)…

I actually hosted some couch surfers from the UK and other places in the world while in Germany. I had a local market with an old bakery(remember that even in Germany the great majority of bakers are now a handful of companies) very close to my place.

The bread they bake is genius it has just the right amount(little) sourness and never tastes soaky, crispy around but soft inside.

But the point being is that some of the couchsurfers would hilariously laugh at the strangeness of having bread that isn't white fluffy toast. I got that reaction from Brits and South Americans. The French would appreciate it and the cheese choices with it.

The UK is an interesting little phenomenon IMHO. Not quite the US but also not quite Europe. In a lot of ways more similar to the US(not always in a bad way). You also get plenty of HFCS there

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

#130

Post by SiempreViernes »

patrickk wrote: post #74
The_Double wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Tesla's problems seem related to the other parts of the car: doors, seats, suspension, etc. They are probably the best electric powertrain company in the world, but still not that great at being a car company.

A lot of those parts are from third party suppliers (not that it excuses Tesla completely of course). I watched a video some time ago, where Musk was complaining that the big automotive parts suppliers simply didn't take Tesla seriously, and therefore it led to quality issues, in the video it was the quality of the sun flaps. It's probably due to Tesla shipping much lower volumes, and the big suppliers not being fami…

So Musk is saying their finished cars have problems because they get bad parts and they have to put those bad parts on their cars?

I would have tough you did some quality assurance on all parts you put in the car, and not use the bad ones.

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