31–40 of 231 posts
>The J.D. Power US Initial Quality Study, which gauges problems encountered in the first three months of ownership. A very questionable definition of "reliability".
It seems odd that Dodge has the top score here, with Toyota and Honda significantly below the industry average. This runs counter to my personal experience and general perceptions. I wonder if historically unreliable brands like Dodge are becoming more reliable than Japanese brands, or if this is related to how this survey is conducted?
Tesla though consistently ranks low on these kind of surveys. It's not really a surprise as small design or manufacturing issues take years to work out. There's a reason car companies that are very conservative with change like Toyota often top this list and companies that are pushing new technology into their cars frequently like BMW do not as well.
As an example, around 2000 BMW was one of the first companies to introduce variable valve timing on its whole line of cars. It was new and unsurprisingly VANOS seal failures soon became a frequent issue on higher milage cars. Basically every car has variable valve timing now and it's usually not an issue.
Edit: I use the term unbreakable instead of reliable because the kinds of issues that this survey tracks include things that aren't really about reliability in the traditional sense we think of it. If a company introcudes a particularly flimsy door handle and people are breaking them it comes up in this survey just as much as check engine lights. Minivans for example get docked a lot in surveys like this even though they are often well built because kids are hell on car interiors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't doubt that Tesla's are less reliable by other definitions, but I agree that this isn't a great measure. Tesla's have lots of new and untested technology. That's their appeal. If toyota wanted to be less conservative and start using blazing new technologies in their cars, I'm sure we'd see the same issues there. Teslas are notorious for software bugs that eventually get fixed. What i'm more interested in is wh…
> If toyota wanted to be less conservative and start using blazing new technologies in their cars, I'm sure we'd see the same issues there. The Toyota Prius was the first mass produced hybrid vehicle and is notoriously reliable.
IQS is the Initial Quality Survey, and it is basically "What defects did new owners notice". Historically, vehicle models with more years of production since model change/update have done better on the IQS Survey, which is why some unexpected cars score higher. Additionally, simpler cars have fewer things to go wrong.
Disclaimer: I work for General Motors, this post consists solely of my opinions.
> Tesla’s issues are primarily with production and things such as paint imperfections and poor fit of body panels, according to J.D. Power
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/tesla-lags-auto-industry-in-...
Warning: anecdote. My boomer parents have a Tesla and complain constantly about its reliability. However, often this is a consequence of their own disinclination to the more "techy" interfaces that Tesla favors. There are several cases where what they see as the car's failures might be seen, by Tesla say, as user error. There's a good lesson about design and demographics there. If you're selling expensive cars in the…
That includes fatalities at Tesla so this should be no surprise.
The survey is meaningless if they do not disclose the questions.
The story isn't right, though. This isn't a reliability survey. It's a survey of initial build defects shortly after purchase. Reliability surveys have to be made a year or two later.
Tesla is still learning how to run an auto plant. The first years of Fremont were pretty bad. They botched the automation. They were operating in a tent at one point. Bloomberg: "Paint, panel gaps, scratches, and dents were the biggest problems owners reported." That's routine auto factory quality trouble. Possibly delivery process trouble. The drivetrain and control system seem to be OK.
There's a tradeoff between production volume and quality. Some companies, like Toyota, can do both, but it took Toyota decades to get that worked out. Most of Detroit then figured out how Toyota did it. Tesla isn't there yet.
[1] https://www.jdpower.com/business/automotive/us-initial-quali...
Musk didn't found Tesla. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.
> Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
and that they, with a third employee,
> connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million round of investment in February 2004
JD Power is clearly in bed with the traditional Detroit automakers. If you look at their history of rewards[0], you'll find that many times they choose the big three american companies vehicles over clearly superior import vehicles. They're vehicles on the page show one vehicle from each of the three big automakers in the US, one Chevy, one Ford, and a Dodge. There's also a Volvo in there that I'm sure fought some ba…