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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

#431

Post by davidgould »

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…

My then girlfriend had a Sunbird. She was a very nervous driver. I thought it was part of some other psychological issues she had. Then I had to drive her Sunbird somewhere. Terrifying! Somehow in a noisy gutless cramped smallish car GM had managed to reproduce the floaty uncontrolled body motions and vague imprecise steering of the full size cars of a decade earlier.

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

#432

Post by invaliddata »

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…

For someone who doesn't want to buy American made cars, you sure speak fondly of some of them. Tundra and Sequoia have only ever been made in the us, matrix was once upon a time made in the nummi factory that is now Tesla's, and have been made in North America since, crv have also mostly been made in the us, otherwise North American production, same with all newer fits. The only car you mentioned made outside of North America would be the first generation fit, made in Japan.

I had a friend's dad who was one of the few people I talked to who, as a Japanese brand enthusiast, went out of his way to find a Chevy/Geo prizm - same mechanical bits as a Corolla, built in the same factory, but way cheaper because of all the people who reflexively avoided American brands.

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

#433

Post by Luc »

refurb wrote: post #379
Luc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a HN thread about bread some time ago, someone living in California protested that one could get top quality European style bread basically everywhere. I looked it up and the bread they recommended comes from a single industrial bakery that supplies the whole state of California. So yeah, there's that thing again where they don't know that better is possible.

Industrial bakers can’t make good bread?

Good but not great, because that's what they choose to do. Plus there's the shipping delay and its effect on freshness.

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

#434

Post by Luc »

rtpg wrote: post #190
Luc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I didn’t mention this in my original post and I kinda wish I did now, seeing the replies. I am American. I grew up in Texas and generally feel at home with other Americans (to a degree, politics is weird). At times in my life I’ve thought about moving back to the US and I still thought that it was easier to pay the quality of life costs of being a foreigner in other countries (being half illiterate and having a hard…

Ah, plot twist. Yep, I assumed you were not from the US. I hope you find the perfect place for you!

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

#435

Post by Luc »

tropo wrote: post #428
Luc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

After hanging the laundry outside, won't you need to wash it again? Most countries have things birds, rodents, and pollen. Do you always have dry non-freezing weather? If the humidity stays high, the clothes will get moldy before they dry. If the temperature is low, you'll get ice in your clothes. There may even be rain.

What can I say? These are just not issues to me. It's not that I choose the hard life willingly.

The clothes dry on a rack next to the washing machine. I have a large enough house with wooden floors and high ceilings that the humidity is not an issue.

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

#436

Post by Luc »

refurb wrote: post #381
Luc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had to live without a clothes drier and it felt like being a student again. There is a reason they call them modern conveniences.

Yet I'm not inconvenienced. The expense would be trivial to me.

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

#437

Post by Luc »

navigatesol wrote: post #214
oblio wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making so many assumptions in 1 short comment that it's hard to dismiss all of them without writing a novel. But still, this is HN, so let's go: - I'm not German and most of my points apply in quite a bit of the EU - the EU is about 4m sqkm, which while smaller than the US, puts them in roughly the same ballpark (they'd both qualify as "huge countries") - the EU as a whole has at least as diverse climates as t…

> the EU as a whole has at least as diverse climates as the US It's laughable to talk about "the EU" as if it's in any way homogeneous. It's an economic union, not a country. We are talking about France and Germany, which are tiny and far less diverse in their climate than the US. > I'm not even sure what to respond to the "needs" part Perhaps you're unaware that there are places in the US that have frigid winters, a…

> My argument here is that it's ridiculous to think that we don't have or use "high quality windows" in North America because you once had friends over to your home that were impressed.

That is indeed ridiculous, I agree! You're the one inferring that story though. I'm not about to write an essay with quotations of industry figures and national polls here.

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

#438

Post by ptaipale »

timc3 wrote: post #294
ptaipale wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't believe Tesla gets any worse parts than other manufacturers. Those parts come from the same production line. They are the same parts. Almost all of the automotive industry uses the same parts, chosen from a fairly limited variety of models, produced in great numbers. The design of a car has a great impact on how long those parts last. It's easy to blame a parts supplier for faults that are because of y…

Is there somewhere to learn about this type of engineering without going though education? Just found your example a really interesting read and would like to read more!

Thanks for comment - alas, I can't really point out to any publically available training on-line or such. Probably automotive engineering courses and model-specific trainings for car mechanics bring up more of these.

What I wrote I've learned by fixing cars myself and by listening to the mechanics who've been doing things for me (I've been driving for over 30 years and mostly rather cheap cars, so I've seen a mechanic or two).

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

#439

Post by dwoozle »

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'".

And rarely do the biggest vendors ever blame anything on one of their own vendors.

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

#440

Post by philwelch »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #427
jtbayly wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For not building a non-internal combustion vehicle.

There’s no sensible use case for one that isn’t more effectively satisfied with a plug-in hybrid?
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