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

401–410 of 475 posts

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

#401

Post by erobbins »

asperous wrote: post #283
Marsymars wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dig the WRX, but I would love if the engine were quieter. IMO a quieter engine is always desirable - akin to how I always want my computers to have quieter fans for any given level of performance.

Not to enthusiasts, who are driving for the experience of driving, including the feel, sound, etc

I have an Audi S8, and it's "holy fucking shit" fast... but the exhaust is so quiet :( It's quite an engineering achievement actually, that big V8 is moving a ton of air. I wish they hadn't done quite so well.

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

#402

Post by xyzzyz »

screye wrote: post #147
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 might be reaching a bit (also a tangent), but a lot of US's problems are rooted in their urban design and sprawl. From my experience, Americans often do grocery once every couple of weeks, because the super market is usually a non-trivial drive away. I can see how a lot of their foods developed to accommodate that shopping cycle, and forced preservatives that make things last those 2-3 weeks while compromising on f…

> From my experience, Americans often do grocery once every couple of weeks, because the super market is usually a non-trivial drive away.

Overwhelming majority of Americans live less than 20 minutes drive from a proper grocery story (i.e. not a gas station convenience store), and most probably live 10 minutes drive. In my metropolitan area of 4 million, I can't think of a place that's more than 10 minutes from a large supermarket.

Americans don't do grocery shopping very often simply because it's such a waste of time: there are 5 large supermarkets (two Safeways, one QFC, one Whole Foods and one local chain) 5 minutes drive from my home, and there's also Costco 10 minutes drive. Despite that, I go grocery shopping once a week, because it usually takes an hour. Doing this more often would replace one hour-long trip with three 45 minutes trip. Since the drive is only 5 minutes, living literally next to them wouldn't change my habits much.

Also, let me assure you that most Europeans don't live in 5 minutes walking distance from grocery stores, so the travel time here is not what makes the habits different.

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

#403

Post by mattlondon »

thedaemon wrote: post #351
kube-system wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It matters what milk and bread is sold in. The FPLA requires metric units to be included on labeling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Packaging_and_Labeling_Ac... https://www.nist.gov/standardsgov/compliance-faqs-packaging-...

Yeah, we all see metric on the items we buy. None of us understand what that means. We understand 1 Gallon, not 3.785411784 L. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units

They said the same thing here in the UK years ago (the 90s I think) when they started forcing labels on food to have metric.

"I want a pound of sugar, not 453g!"

Turns out the world didn't actually burn down. The containers mostly stayed the same size, but I think they slowly gravitated towards logical sizes (so e.g. that 453g package became 500g or 400g at some point)

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

#404

Post by luckydata »

mojuba wrote: post #183
w-m wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The quality can be measured by cost of maintenance or more likely by the costs associated with warranty repairs (and product returns) incurred by the company.

in this case quality just means how likely is a customer to experience issues covered by warranty in the first x days. That's usually called "initial quality" in the industry jargon. Model X was particularly bad off the gates, it had tons of issues especially with the stupid vertical doors that broke all the time.

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

#405

Post by hnov »

metanoia wrote: post #389
amyjess wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And historically when the Japanese _have_ gone overboard on tech, back in the bubble era, they also tend to back it up with overengineering. Think of the fourth-gen Toyota Supra or any version of the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Or the Toyota Soarer/Lexus SC, which was basically a detuned Supra packed with luxury equipment and unique styling. They were technological marvels whose engines were overengineered beasts that could…

The 2JZ engine was one of the best (as in, most durable) engines that Toyota ever produced. The sheer number of Supras, Lexus IS300s (1st generation), and GS300s that are still running today, most with over 200k miles, is a testament to the amount of over-engineering that went into that engine. And then there are the crazies who took the NA version and added turbos...

A lot of E46 M3s are still running around with 200k on the clock despite having motors and chassis that chew themselves up. Same with the MK3 Supra and its headgaskets. IMO whether you still see cars around is as much a function of their value retention as it is of their robustness.

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

#406

Post by mattlondon »

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.

Yep particularly in London. Absolutely every new build is advertised as "luxury apartments", but it is all thrown up as quickly as possible to sell either to desperate people trying to get away from renting, or sold off-plan to investors who leave them empty as the price goes up, or to buy to let landlords. A lot of work is done by unskilled labour picked-up in the back of transit vans from street corners on a day by day basis, paid cash in hand.

Landlords especially don't care about quality so long as the yield is good. Who gives a shit if you can hear the neighbors behaving sex or taking a piss if you are not living there, but someone else is paying you £1500-3000 a month for the pleasure? A fancy "luxury" apartment with a flash looking kitchen worktop and fashionable bathroom allows charging a premium.

Any damage or breakage of the low quality construction comes out of the tenants' deposit at the end of the tenancy, and repairs are tax deductible too.

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

#407

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Daniel_sk wrote: post #186
blkhawk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those are common in Europe too. A Thermostat is nice but it does not solve the "first water" problem. A shower will always run cold at first.

Also - there is almost no cold water if I switch on the shower. That's because (at least in new houses) there is a closed circle for warm water and the heating system cycles the warm water (2 pipes of warm water + 1 pipe of cold water for each water outlet) in the pipes to keep it ready for use. You have instant warm water.

That sounds great, but also expensive.

Electricity and gas are relatively expensive in Australia compared Europe or US, so I’m lead to believe. Might be better in a new house with good insulation on the pipes.

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

#408

Post by jtbayly »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #303
jtbayly wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the Toyota hybrid engines were very innovative.

Innovative in 1997 (first Prius model year), not so much 22 years later. They're coasting on that tech at this point. Tesla was incorporated in 2003, and has existed for only 16 years. What's Toyota's (an 80 year old manufacturing and logistics behemoth) excuse? Rhetorical. Entrenched interests (both internally and at dealers) and a lack of courage.

Excuse for what? I don’t even understand the rhetorical question.

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

#409

Post by to11mtm »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #18

Yeah, as a Kiwi, I'm entirely unsurprised. I've owned Japanese cars from various manufacturers, but the absolute worst I owned was a Toyota Cavalier - a rebadged Chevrolet as part of some trade deal between the US and Japan - that the Japanese steered well clear of and immediately exported to NZ and Aus. It had a great wee 4 cylinder 2.4L engine, a hell of a lot of fun to drive, but it was of notorious build quality…

In the US the J-bodies (Cavalier being one of them) are regarded as somewhat disposable cars. In the US, the repair story is somewhat better, but that was more a result of the abundance of them in the states.

The bigger reason that Japanese buyers stayed away from the Cavalier was probably due to it's engine size (JP taxes at certain displacements, I know going over 2.0L is a bump) as well as vehicle size (at least according to Wikipedia, it was too big to be taxed as a compact there.)

Of course, being a J body doesn't help. The fact that many of the automakers had/have an unfortunate tendency to cannibalize themselves doesn't help either. Another example of this behavior from the 80s was the way GM would treat any project that could hurt sales of the Corvette (That whole mess with the Fiero, the way the Turbo 3.8 was quietly shooed away and ignored...)

This infighting was at least part of the reason GM tried to start another car company in the US called Saturn. If you thought Subaru people were culty... Saturn had a whole thing where people across the country drove to the headquarters every year. They managed to build cars that were a bit more reliable than the rest of the GM line (Oh, they still had a couple of problems though. And the engines loved oil.) The original models also had a unique part line and were built in a plant that tried to follow a more Toyota/Honda style mentality. Oh. And plastic body panels. In any case, I tend to see more Saturns still on the road than any other GM small car of the 90s.

It worked for a bit, until GM got tired of waiting for their sales to get up to speed, and started meddling with them TOO.

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

#410

Post by hnick »

wahern wrote: post #387
hnick wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We chose the cheap option but don't blame us! This was entirely unexpected!

It's the meaning of nobody every got fired for choosing IBM/Microsoft/AWS. These were definitely never the cheapest. You paid a premium for being able to pass the buck--"hey, we just did what everybody else did and which was considered 'best practice'".

Yeah I work part time in a b2b company that deals at the 'enterprise' level. A small business could almost always do it better and cheaper, but the big banks need a big name or they have no one to hide behind when things inevitably go wrong. Inevitable because the customers usually aren't very technical and we're often stuck talking to marketing people who care more about colours than business rules :D
Post reply on HN