61–70 of 97 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or basically any pre-2004 diesel from VW, Ford, Mercedes, or Dodge :) Edit/addendum: I personally strongly encourage the use of biodiesel or appropriate diesel alternatives where applicable, pre 2004 are often more compatible with biodiesel. Would still take any diesel vehicle over gas
Yeah, but man, the WRX sure is a fun car :)
Initial quality always seemed like a silly measure to me. I'm more interested in total cost of ownership through 150k-200k miles. Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results, IMO.
This was not our experience with a brand new GMC we had a few years back, which was about as reliable as the previous one, which we got rid of at ~15 years / 250K+ miles. The older one broke down every year or so, but we'd beaten the heck out of it. The newer one experienced multiple major failures in two years, including stranding itself. The old one only stranded itself once through its entire lifespan.
Initial quality always seemed like a silly measure to me. I'm more interested in total cost of ownership through 150k-200k miles. Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results, IMO.
Back in the 70s and 80s, it was common to buy a new American car with a double-digit number of serious defects right off the line; Japanese cars had their initial success in the States when they were generally fine at purchase. Overall quality has been greatly improved since those terrible days, but it's still a useful measure. Nobody wants to have to keep taking their brand new car into the shop. Also, if you wait u…
Electric vehicles (EVs) performed worse than gas-powered models in the study. EVs had 240 complaints per 100 vehicles on average, plug-in hybrid vehicles had 239, and gas-powered cars averaged 175. This never fails to baffle me. An ICE vehicle has a hundred times as many moving parts as a BeV. Just how much lower is the BeV production quality to give them more problems?
Initial quality always seemed like a silly measure to me. I'm more interested in total cost of ownership through 150k-200k miles. Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results, IMO.
Reality is that no one owns a car for 200k miles anymore. There are of course outliers, but the vast majority of people are either buying/leasing/trading every 3-4 years, or are at the opposite end of the spectrum buying whatever cheap rust heap they can keep running.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
ICE vehicles have 100 years of improvement and refinement behind them. A significant number of ICE power trains in current vehicles have direct lineages going back to the 90s and total production numbers in the 100s of millions. The limiting factor in the durability of an ICE is maintenance. Friction will eventually wear an engine beyond operating tolerances. But proper maintenance can keep an ICE going for a very lo…
GM's ecotech is built on iterative improvements of Triumph Slant-4 engine which showed up in 1968.
Whereas, tracing the lineage of a Nissan VQ, GM L-series, or VAG EA motor back to the 90s is very easy.
Choosing 90s was basically a CYA for a "citation needed" claim.
My 2014 WRX has had a myriad of reliability issues. Bone stock, always maintained, and just constantly going into the dealer for issues. Thankfully I have an extended warranty. Issue #1: 19k miles - OEM turbo blows. Subaru FSE determines a bearing seized prematurely. Turbo replaced. Issue #2: 23k miles - Replacement turbo starts making more sounds mimicking the same noises the OEM turbo made before it blew. Subaru re…
Subaru and the WRX is just notoriously unreliable, and that's always sort of been the case unfortunately.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost everyone derives value from existing cars either by using or selling it. I also would need concrete data to believe most people are swapping cars willy nilly. Based on income/wealth statistics, most Americans most certainly cannot afford to.
They can afford it if lenders are giving car loans to just about anyone: https://twitter.com/GrahamStephan/status/1542860348742836225
A “problem” can be that your car breaks down or that you don’t know how to use the infotainment system. That’s a pretty wide berth. JD power has bad incentives to track these things.
Since the survey used and the methodology aren't presented, it's anybody's guess.