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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

#411

Post by hnick »

noobermin wrote: post #396
hnick wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is the problem though, all your competitors go cheap, you go cheap. Customers (often, not always) don't notice until it affects them, and eventually acclimate to the new normal that is trash service. Just see for example how shitty phone bots have replaced call centers which were already outsourced. The thing is no one chooses a cellular provider based on the customer service, we generally just accept the servic…

Yeah, that's true in a lot of industries. Airlines are another obvious example.

I pay more for our internet company (Aussie Broadband) because they promise not to over-provision and they have local support staff on the phone. They've been very quick to answer and helpful when I had to call and are willing to skip the basic troubleshooting when I explain what I've done already. And I've never had the evening peak slowdowns that my friends have had. But is it worth $20 a month more? Probably not, but it's nice not having those worries occupy my mind.

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

#412

Post by to11mtm »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #130
patrickk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Based on the stories we hear about people waiting for replacement parts when their cars need repair, I'd wager that the are probably running too lean on inventory.

This creates a dilemma of either not delivering cars because then they'd have to wait for replacements, or delivering cars that have parts that are not 100% to spec.

And no, it's not about people cancelling orders because of waits IMO. If you're waiting for the part to finish the car, you can't really finish selling it and get the money you have tied up in that incomplete build.

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

#413

Post by BeetleB »

briandear wrote: post #359
BeetleB wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most food carts in Portland charge about the same amount as non-food carts. For most people, if it's not cheaper, it aint street food.

Street food has a price threshold? In China, street food might cost 20 yuan for a dish of something. The median income for all of China’s is 18,000 yuan. In Portland, the median income is $53,230. A street dish might cost $10. In China, street food is actually a lot more expensive than Portland, adjusting for median income levels. Even if you bought a dish for 10¥ it is still more than twice as expensive as Portland.…

I meant if it costs the same as a restaurant, it's not cheaper and thus I wouldn't call it street food. I wasn't comparing across cities. If a decent restaurant decides to ditch their downtown indoor restaurant, and decide to get a food cart and offer the same food for the same price as they did, is it really street food?

A number of popular food carts in Portland have a median price of $10 or above. For things like Mediterranean food I've often found restaurants charging the same or less. At the end of the day, I'm paying for the privilege of standing in the cold/rain.

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

#414

Post by linksnapzz »

linksnapzz wrote: post #238
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…

Why not both? The J-cars (cavalier/sunfire/sunbird) existed b/c of the second oil crisis in '78. GM needed something FWD, smaller than the X-cars, that could get better fuel economy than the RWD V-6 and V-8 cars it had been selling in the '70s. The thought was that people in the US would buy these because they had to, not because small cars would suddenly become appealing to Americans in their own right. The Js were…

Replying to myself: the 2.4 in a Toyota Cavalier would be an LD9-series Quad 4, not a "Quad OHC" which was an earlier L40-series SOHC version of that engine.

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

#415

Post by aaaaaar »

mcny wrote: post #92
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 bought some bread from Safeway earlier this year in August. I called the number on the package when the bread started to mould within four days of me buying it. Outside of New York City area, I wouldn't think of doing groceries more than once a week. The place I've lived at are all terrible in terms of how grocery stores are walkable.

That's not a sign of bad bread. If you bake your own bread, you may find it also molds in 4 days, depending on your climate and how you store it.

I'm more leery of manufactured breads that keep forever.

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

#416

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#417

Post by pragmatic »

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'".

Don't forget, big companies used to have QA. They actually tested stuff before barfing out the perpetual betaware we have now. So relying on a vendor with deep pockets and QA used to kinda make sense.

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

#418

Post by stephencanon »

bluGill wrote: post #272
stephencanon wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In much of the rural US, it’s easy (ask folks which farmstand they go to). In cities, it’s also pretty easy (asian or mexican grocery for non-organic, specialty produce shop if you want organic). The problem is the suburbs. Don’t live in the suburbs. If you must, get veggies at the farmer’s market.

Every suburb I've been in has a big box grocery store with a large selection of fresh produce. If you want something specific you might need to go to a specialty store, but there are plenty of vegetables where people buy groceries. You won't find them at gas stations, but nobody buys groceries at gas stations.

As identified in sibling posters, the issue with these vegetables, in as much as one exists, and speaking very broadly, is that they look pretty but are flavorless.

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

#419

Post by TylerE »

GiorgioG wrote: post #323
oflannabhra wrote: post #316

I'm an American and I will probably never buy another American made car again until we switch to EV. Time for anecdotes! I'm in the process of changing our families vehicles: I've sold our Toyota Tundra and purchased a Toyota Sequoia, and I'm currently selling our Honda CR-V and will be downsizing to a Toyota Matrix or Honda Fit. The Tundra has been one of the most amazing vehicles I've ever owned. I bought it used w…

I'm an American and used to only buy american cars (until I finished college) because my father was a GM factory worker and that was the expectation (right or wrong, GM paid the bills for my upbringing.) I've driven GM, VWs, Hondas, Toyotas and currently drive a Ford F150. I've had the fortune of rarely having serious problems with any of them, but we haven't kept most of the vehicles for more than 4-5 years for a va…

That's not really a rare situation. Even the worst cars today are far better than the best were 30 years ago.

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

#420

Post by BeetleB »

thedaemon wrote: post #232
navigatesol wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it amusing that from a climate change point of view, both their comments are basically negative: It's almost like countries like Germany (350k sq km area) and the US (10 million sq km) have different climates and needs. This thread is filled with Europeans saying, "I went to the US once, and their grocery store didn't have produce like my French neighborhood market!"

You have offended Europeans, therefore you get tons of downvotes, even though it's against the rules to downvote someone because you disagree.

> You have offended Europeans, therefore you get tons of downvotes

From the Guidelines:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Also:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

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