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Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

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Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#31

Post by coupdejarnac »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Automotive EE here. In the last 5-8 years there has been a DRAMATIC change in the way vehicles are tested and released. Everyone has become much more focused on electronic features - while at the same time almost everyone is completely outsourcing electronics design and firmware. Cars hit the lots with 10 new flashes waiting. When I started, it was a BIG DEAL if you had a lot held up somewhere in Detroit because of a…

Has there been a trend to bring controls back in house? I used to work in another mature industry, HVAC. It also went through a period of outsourcing all electronics/software, and then they realized that all the IP/secret sauce going forward will be in the controls and related software.

My former employer had plenty of unpleasant experiences outsourcing firmware, which contributed to bringing it all back in house.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

4ad wrote: post #26
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Automotive EE here. In the last 5-8 years there has been a DRAMATIC change in the way vehicles are tested and released. Everyone has become much more focused on electronic features - while at the same time almost everyone is completely outsourcing electronics design and firmware. Cars hit the lots with 10 new flashes waiting. When I started, it was a BIG DEAL if you had a lot held up somewhere in Detroit because of a…

I completely despise the new consumer facing electronics in cars. Not because I find anything inherently wrong with electronics, but because I find the software/electronics in every car, in literally every car made today, cheap or expensive, to be an epic disaster both from an industrial design, and security standpoint. Sadly, I think "normal" cars will go extinct the way non-smartphones and non-smart TVs went extinc…

> It's impossible to buy a TV these days that is not infected with Internet of Shit.

It's possible, they are just called monitors or commercial displays; there's a significant premium for them at typical living room TV sizes compared to things marketed as “TVs”, though.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#33

Post by kbutler »

kogus wrote: post #6

This comment seems wrong to me: There is no inherent reason why a more-expensive car should be better or worse in terms of reliability than a less-expensive car, so my guess is they’ll track each other fairly closely going forward. If the metric is per car faults, then surely more features mean more opportunities for defects, given an equal attention to quality across all features?

I'd say that there are reasons that both higher and lower price vehicles should have fewer defects, but it's not clear which reasons would dominate. (And probably different factors dominate in different periods of car production).

High cost: more attention to detail, higher quality parts, more care with fit and finish, should yield fewer defects.

Low cost: simpler vehicle systems, fewer moving parts, fewer unproven features, mass production with consistent processes, should yield fewer defects.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#34

Post by Simulacra »

I've always shied away from luxury brands because repairs are so expensive. Little things like a switch, or a seat lever, or even trying to replace the middle console lid because your kid scratched it up, is always more expensive when its a luxury brand. Just because it comes from BMW doesn't mean it should automatically be more expensive.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#35

Post by albeec13 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Automotive EE here. In the last 5-8 years there has been a DRAMATIC change in the way vehicles are tested and released. Everyone has become much more focused on electronic features - while at the same time almost everyone is completely outsourcing electronics design and firmware. Cars hit the lots with 10 new flashes waiting. When I started, it was a BIG DEAL if you had a lot held up somewhere in Detroit because of a…

With the exception of safety features (think blind spot monitoring, backup cameras, lane keep assist, parking sensors) and mobile connectivity features like bluetooth, frankly I'm getting tired of all the crap they're throwing into vehicles these days for many of the reasons you mention.

It seems every manufacturer or parent brand has their own infotainment system, NAV, etc. and you pay the price for it when you buy the car. And god forbid you want the upgraded safety features or leather seats, but don't want any of the other bells and whistles, because you can't have it without tacking on $4000 for the "technology" package.

My ideal car these days is one with the safety bells and whistles, limited luxury features (automatic and heated/cooled seats, climate control), but without any complicated infotainment beyond bluetooth/Android auto/Apple Car Play connectivity. There's no reason to have redundant technology built into cars by companies that aren't as good at it when we have perfectly capable, and generally more up-to-date mobile devices with us at all times.

Is anyone making reasonably well-appointed vehicles without throwing everything and the kitchen sink in there?

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#36

Post by justin66 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #9

Automotive EE here. In the last 5-8 years there has been a DRAMATIC change in the way vehicles are tested and released. Everyone has become much more focused on electronic features - while at the same time almost everyone is completely outsourcing electronics design and firmware. Cars hit the lots with 10 new flashes waiting. When I started, it was a BIG DEAL if you had a lot held up somewhere in Detroit because of a…

> The mfgs wanted to outsource the development, and now when they need an adjustment to traction control it's a $50, 100, 250, 500,000 charge, BUT, they've also moved the responsibility to the mfgs like Bosch, ConTevis, etc.

I can see where this would complicate and slow delivery of bugfixes, but if you ask me who I'd rather have mucking around with my ABS firmware, a GM engineer or a Bosch engineer, that's an easy answer.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#38

Post by danans »

As electric vehicles mature and increase their share of the consumer market, it will be interesting to see how these sorts of reliability measurements change to maintain relevance. Already today, a luxury EV is probably more mechanically reliable than a mass market ICE car.

Electric batteries and drivetrains have their differences in reliability for sure (IIUC, the 1st generation Nissan Leaf lacked a battery temp management system). However the difference between the reliability of EVs isn't likely to be that big since EVs are much simpler machines.

A lot of the complexity that provides the luxury ICE driving experience (smooth, quiet drivetrain, strong acceleration) comes for "free" in an EV, even in mass market models. With that complexity gone, there's much less to differentiate cars from a reliability perspective.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#39

Post by 4ad »

dragonwriter wrote: post #32
4ad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely despise the new consumer facing electronics in cars. Not because I find anything inherently wrong with electronics, but because I find the software/electronics in every car, in literally every car made today, cheap or expensive, to be an epic disaster both from an industrial design, and security standpoint. Sadly, I think "normal" cars will go extinct the way non-smartphones and non-smart TVs went extinc…

> It's impossible to buy a TV these days that is not infected with Internet of Shit. It's possible, they are just called monitors or commercial displays; there's a significant premium for them at typical living room TV sizes compared to things marketed as “TVs”, though.

Yes, the "dumb" version is much more expensive than the "smart" version.

But that is not all of it. Most monitors approximate (some better than others) sRGB, while TVs approximate (again some better than others) Rec. 709. Rec. 709 and sRGB share color primaries, so they have the same gamut, but Rec. 709 uses a different transfer function. If you use the (profiled) monitor with a computer that does color management, and use a color-managed video player, all is well, but if you use the monitor as a "TV", without a computers, there's no profiling and no color management, so the broadcast and movies will not appear colorimetrically correct.

But wait, now we have Rec. 2020. I don't know if Rec. 2020 TVs are common now, but they will become common soon enough. Computer monitors are very different than Rec. 2020, even wide gamut ones. You MUST use color management to display Rec. 2020 on a computer monitor. Without a computer involved, computer monitors can't display Rec. 2020 properly.

But that is not the final story still. TVs can generally do both 23.976 fps, and 24 fps. Computer monitors very rarely can do this, generally reserved for expensive models designed for professional media creation.

So even if you pay the huge "dumb monitor tax", you still can't get the same result.

Re: Toyotas and Chevys Are Holding Up Better Than Most Luxury Brands

#40

Post by dsfyu404ed »

kenhwang wrote: post #18

This article seems to be written using results from a J.D. Power report. J.D. Power's methodology is commonly known to be extremely flawed in that they weigh all "issues" equally. So an engine failure is the same severity as Bluetooth not connecting. Furthermore, tiebreakers are broken in pretty nonsense ways, and many suspect it's by whoever pays the most. For example, they crowned Buick the most dependable brand, b…

Reliability variation between models > reliability variation between brands.

Generally speaking cheap disposable appliance cars are cheap and disposable. OEMs put much more effort into their flagship products and the products that define their brand image.

Also just a friendly reminder that owner demographics have a large effect on reliability over the kind of 5+yr timeline many commenters here seem to be talking in. The wealthier the owner the better the vehicle is treated (at a statistical level, we all know one or two rich guys who never change their oil). Rich people years vs poor people years is like highway miles vs city miles.

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