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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

#131

Post by iainmerrick »

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 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 Western Europe or Japan ends up with better infrastructure than the $2M duplex in California

I think there’s truth in this, but the factors behind it are tricky. Unlike something like bread, it’s not easy for consumers to actively choose good plumbing over bad plumbing.

Installing new plumbing is something you do very rarely. Most often it’s done by a developer rather than the person who will actually live in a property. And when you’re buying or renting a property, plumbing quality is lower priority than other factors, notably price and location.

So developers go for the cheapest option they can get away with, property owners don’t necessarily like it but don’t push back enough because they have bigger concerns, and the result is that most plumbing is low quality.

Even if you yourself are the developer, it’s hard to ensure decent quality unless you spend a lot of money, do a lot of research, have a lot of time available, or ideally all three.

I’ve learned this to my own cost - on a renovation project, we ended up with some crappy fittings and crappy installation because we didn’t manage it closely enough and the builders don’t care. I would like nice stuff, but how do I get it?

Edit to clarify: I think building standards are driven much more by builders than by homeowners. I’d like to know more about the driving factors - is it purely a matter of cost? I hope not, because that suggests everything everywhere will inevitably become crap.

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

#132

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

roenxi wrote: post #70
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Australia. What are the tax incentives to spending money on my home?

When you spend money on your house the value of that house increases. When you sell your primary residence, it isn't caught by the Capital Gains Tax. So essentially if you are looking for a place to park money you have two choices: 1) Put it in your primary residence. Wealth is stored, no future tax liability, you are more comfortable 2) Buy a productive asset. Wealth stored, you will pay capital gains tax on the ass…

Thanks for clearing that up.

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

#134

Post by kstenerud »

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?

Japan is not as strict over antibiotics or general conditions in livestock.

Japan has a huge problem with counterfeit fish meat (substituting inferior, sometimes toxin tainted, different species meat).

Japan's non-seaweed vegetables are generally watery and not as nutrient rich as what you can get in Europe (rucola & feldsalat, for example). Their staple "vegetable" tends to be a nasty variety of cabbage, and daikon and pumpkin.

Bread in Japan is blanched wheat flour. In Europe there are dozens of grains to choose from. Even grau brot tastes amazing. Japan's XYZ pan couldn't even compare. Home cooked food in France was a truly magical experience.

Bio (organic) is very popular and very strictly regulated in Europe. In Japan they don't care as much, and in the USA its a joke.

It's relatively easy in Europe to get prepackaged foods (such as canned goods/soups & frozen foods) made strictly from first ingredients (there's nothing in the ingredients list you can't pronounce, or that you wouldn't add yourself if making it from scratch).

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

#135

Post by oblio »

_xnmw wrote: post #62
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…

It’s not until I was forced to live in Europe due to circumstances that I realized that there exists a much better life than the North American one. Even though I’m in the East (Ukraine), everything is better here. Everything, especially the food, the prices, and the lack of racial tensions and militarized police. The only thing I miss here is trying to fill the emptiness in life with same-day Amazon junk delivered t…

Well, just glide about 1000 km west and you can still have Amazon :p

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

#136

Post by tibbydudeza »

huffmsa wrote: post #52

> CR says Chrysler’s Pacifica was one that contributed to the drop in rankings thanks to the minivan’s infotainment and transmission issues. Every single "downgrade" I read about is either infotainment or transmission or both. Except Honda, which apparently has shit locks on it's kid hauler. I'm a bit skeptical of consumer reports after actually reading it. My car, a Subaru WRX is given low marks for "stiff ride and…

Yep you buy a WRX for the drivetrain and rally heritage ... the terrible plastic interior was a moot point.

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

#137

Post by ianai »

w-m wrote: post #108
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…

I found this part very interesting: "In fact, the quality of brand-new Model X vehicles today is 3.5 times better than the quality of brand new Model X cars from 2015.". (I have no idea what "quality" means here, and how you can put a number on that, that rises 3.5x, but that's beside the point). With one sentence, Tesla is telling 2015 customers that they got screwed over, and future customers that they should wait…

Isn’t that somewhat standard practice in tech? It’s an industry that experienced exponential growth for decades.

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

#138

Post by HeckFeck »

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…

You could also lay some blame on a race to the bottom; i.e what is the minimum definition of a product that we can get away with making in order to keep those profit margins as wide as possible.

Less profit, though still plenty of it, can be made from high-quality goods. It's not that profit is inherently wrong, rather it's widespread business and corporate attitudes. An obsession with numbers and statistics rather than any pride in work.

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

#139

Post by tonyedgecombe »

patrickk wrote: post #98
CalRobert wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ROI (so not UK but similar in many respects) and I feel like the construction here is utter crap. Hell, houses are now being sold with 10 year structural warranties (rather short, that) because of a history of houses falling down because of pyrite. Nevermind that we always feel 20-30 years behind everyone else; god help you if you want a timber frame, or for that matter have a heritage building where the builde…

Aldi and Lidl's quality is overall better in Ireland because they use local suppliers for certain items. The dairy and meat in Germany is quite low quality for example, although the beer is way better and cheaper in Germany.

When I worked in Germany people didn't seem to buy much meat or baked goods in Aldi/Lidl, there was always a local butcher or baker. In the UK nearly all the independent bakers and butchers disappeared years ago.

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

#140

Post by MayeulC »

mariorossi666 wrote: post #112
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…

> "This particular issue was for this particular year, and has long since been fixed." On the other hand, you don't have to fix a problem you haven't created. Most of Tesla problems are self inflicted. Moreover "Model X vehicles today is 3.5 times better than the quality of brand new Model X cars from 2015." According to which metric? It sounds a lot like "this is the fastest Mac ever built, 2.5x faster than the prev…

According to an article I read recently[1], they measure quality in rate of defects per car produced. According to this, we can get an idea of the scope of the improvements.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/11/customers-rave-about-mo...

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