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

221–230 of 475 posts

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

#221

Post by CharlesColeman »

Angostura wrote: post #144
azernik wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, proper vegetables are very attainable.

When I've visited, I've noticed that the fruit in particular look gorgeous in the shops, but taste like damp tissue paper. Weird

> When I've visited, I've noticed that the fruit in particular look gorgeous in the shops, but taste like damp tissue paper. Weird

Thank the market: the food companies have prioritized durability, yield, and appearance over taste.

https://www.npr.org/2011/07/09/137623954/the-troubled-histor...

> On top of that, the tomatoes you see in those supermarkets have been bred for high yields and durability, not flavor. "As a farmer once said — an honest farmer — 'I don't get paid a cent for flavor,'" Estabrook says.

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

#222

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

arethuza wrote: post #8
inferiorhuman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're much simpler but they're still complicated and you still require experience to design and build properly. Tesla was too busy breaking the rules to stop and think about why things may have been done a certain way.

Actually, most of the problems we had were fundamental design flaws e.g. a Toyota my wife had where the instruments (speedometer etc.) started cutting out occasionally - problem was tracked back to, of all things, the sunroof! There was a small leak and the electrical connectors for the instruments were in the bottom of the passenger foot-well - where the water was collecting from the sunroof and shorting things out.…

>Edit: To anyone asking why we bought a car in Scotland with a sunroof, I do wonder and we'd never do it again!

Actually I really enjoy a sunroof especially in cloudy weather as it makes the interior a lot brighter and less claustrophobic even in dark days.

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

#223

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

At that price you should just make your own bread if you care about the flavor of bread. Bread makers aren't that expensive if you really desire the convenience of not having to kneed anything.

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

#224

Post by rtpg »

iainmerrick wrote: post #131
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…

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 Western Europe or Japan ends up with better infrastructure than the $2M duplex in California I think there’s truth in this, but the factors behind it are tricky. Unlike something like bread, it’s not easy for co…

> I’d like to know more about the driving factors - is it purely a matter of cost?

My thesis on this is that people do what they can get away with. If you think you can get away with really low quality stuff, you do that.

Definitely helps to have a housing shortage, where there's probably no other choice anyways. So everything is cheap (since there's no incentive to make a nice place. You're gonna get someone in the apartment anyways!) and so nobody actually knows what "nice" is and just assume it's normal to be able to punch through your door.

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

#225

Post by rtpg »

ralfd wrote: post #46
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…

> The UX is awful Wait, what UX does a fridge need? Mine just has a scroll wheel which goes from cool to cold.

- When you open a door, its hinges don't provide nearly enough friction so it starts closing immediately, instead of being able to be propped open (like when you're cooking and holding other stuff so need time to take stuff out)

- The drawers are all basically impossible to use without fully opening the door, but (see above) fully opening the door makes it swing back super hard as well so now you're fighting two different parts of your fridge at once

- It's huge but somehow the space inside the fridge is super small compared to comparable fridges. Probably a shelf thing.

- Some of the design leads to little cracks that are hard to clean up without pinching yourself with the door.

It's basically door-related stuff but it's also stuff I don't experience with my ... $200? Fridge from Hitachi. I feel like my own fridge is fine. It's a fridge. Nothing to write home about. It would probably get a wirecutter recommendation if they did "small-ish fridges for 1-2 people"

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

#226

Post by thrill »

arethuza wrote: post #158
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…

That rule applies to pretty much any car though - having bought a completely new model of BMW when it first came out I would never do that again, mind you I would never buy a BMW again! Personally I'd wait at least a year before buying any new model of car.

I bought one of the first BMW 328 convertibles off the line. I drove it 20 years with over 500,000 miles with minimal repairs - even the soft top was still working fine and looked "ok" when I finally hit a large pothole and totaled it.

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

#227

Post by greedo »

mojuba wrote: post #65
tim333 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the power of large corporations seems to have run amok a bit allowing them to foist crappy bread, chocolate etc. In Europe things are more regulated and it seems easier for local producers to not be wiped out by the large corporates. I think the US need some political reform so it's less easy to buy political influence.

Yes it's regulations, but there's another factor too: population density. In Paris for example, you can find food markets where stuff is brought from small farms and is ridiculously cheap, right in the city central areas, though often hidden in the back alleys. The reason this works is that this type of commerce doesn't require marketing: local people just see it and use it. Only possible in higher density population…

Ridiculous generalization. In my suburb, we have a bikepath that runs along a protected area, a lake, and a park area. Nearby (within 100m) is an elementary school with an open 10 acre field. The nearest shopping center is 2 miles away.

What all the metrophiles advocating for the abolishment of suburbia either willfully forget or misunderstand, is that people like the suburbs. Especially people raising families.

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

#228

Post by mariorossi666 »

MayeulC wrote: post #140
mariorossi666 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This particular issue was for this particular year, and has long since been fixed." On the other hand, you don't have to fix a problem you haven't created. Most of Tesla problems are self inflicted. Moreover "Model X vehicles today is 3.5 times better than the quality of brand new Model X cars from 2015." According to which metric? It sounds a lot like "this is the fastest Mac ever built, 2.5x faster than the prev…

According to an article I read recently[1], they measure quality in rate of defects per car produced. According to this, we can get an idea of the scope of the improvements. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/11/customers-rave-about-mo...

Thanks for adding the metrics.

As much as I think they are doing a great job and deserve to be there, I've also never seen a car in the $40k range (more 50-60k euros on this side of the ocean) not being "a pleasure to drive" or not having a good customer service.

For the same price I can buy this

https://www.audi.it/it/web/it/modelli/a6/a6.html

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

#229

Post by linksnapzz »

basch wrote: post #215
huffmsa wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The seats are comfy enough, the steering wheel is beefy, the only point of failure I've had is the battery. Otherwise, it's exactly what it's supposed to be. CR give my other car, a Jaguar F-Pace low marks for "loud engine and cabin, stiff choppy ride and bad infotainment." Which to me sounds like a lot of soccer mom's thought they were getting "luxury" utility vehicle but accidentally purchase a 350hp supercharged v…

These ratings are comparative. If youve mostly interacted with your two brands, and not the other ones at the top of the list, how can you compare them and say yours isnt worse? Infotainment includes maps, air conditioning, heat, radio. Those are important things to do easily in a car.

HVAC is certainly not infotainment, there are safety implications if the defrosters don't work. The HVAC controls should never be at the mercy of whatever phoned-in UI the radio and satnav have in your car.

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

#230

Post by mariorossi666 »

dx034 wrote: post #217
mariorossi666 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is so obsessed with the discount model, It is really not. Nobody goes to LIDL to buy food, unless has some real money problem. You have to make a different comparison: buy quality food from a local farmer and the same food from a local European farmer. You will notice that in Europe is much more common than you think, it can usually be found in the local market in your neighborhood and it's much cheaper than in the…

Oh, I just learned I have a money problem. Never heard that before. Sure, many Lidl products aren't great in quality, but some are definitely comparable with food bought elsewhere (at a much lower price). And buying non-local produce at a farmers market doesn't really make that much sense.

> Oh, I just learned I have a money problem

Sorry, not trying to be disrespectful, I was referring to where I live: Italy.

They usually don't even sell fresh food here and when they do, they are not much cheaper than the better alternatives.

Post reply on HN