Car Quality Is Slipping • Hacker News Board

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#31

Post by krnlpnc » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

causi wrote: post #5

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?

Consider the number of revisions to each design, as well as the number of years experience in designing and manufacturing both.

Compared to ICE, EV designs and their manufacturing and supporting processes are new.

Plus some EV makes are playing games with requiring in house repairs, which incentivizes (in the near term) getting cars out the door and fixing them later

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#32

Post by oldstrangers » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

dispatchapp wrote: post #28

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.

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#33

Post by yread » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

iwanttocomment wrote: post #23

abfan1127 wrote: post #7

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…

There is a guy on Kia Niro forum who did like 200k miles on it in a year. He drove as a support vehicle with oversized loads iirc

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#34

Post by ramesh31 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #14

Mo' tech mo' problems. Just give me a car that goes forward, backwards, left and right with a roof, windows, seats with few luxuries: air conditioning, power locks/windows, remote start (winter savior). For safety I will take ABS, maybe ESP. Leave me an industry standard DIN or double DIN opening for a radio and speaker locations; factory options always suck. Transmission can be manual or automatic. The rest is fluff…

This why the late 90's to early 2000s was objectively the greatest era for reliable good cars. You had everything that makes a modern car great; standard ABS, disc brakes, cruise control, power locks/windows, reliable traditional automatic transmissions, ECU/fuel injection, airbags, etc. without all of the unnecessary nonsense that has made cars insanely expensive over the last 20 years

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#35

Post by quartz » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

> EVs Reported More Problems

I think it's important to keep in mind that 1) ICEs are many generations beyond EVs so it's natural to expect more issues but also 2) ICE vehicles came into being in an age where maintenance was assumed to be inherited with the vehicle (and a lot of it if not all of it could be done by the owner or a neighborhood mechanic) while PHEVs were born into the "weld the hood shut" generation of owners and can only really be worked on by dealers and certified professionals.

I'm very handy with cars but when I bought my PHEV for the first time ever I also bought the extended warranty and any time anything happens that car goes straight to the dealer because not only is the process for fixing EV components alien to me, but they're also not built to be user-serviceable in the first place and there's limited to no documentation out there.

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#36

Post by jedberg » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #18

abfan1127 wrote: post #7

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.

The reality is the opposite. People are keeping their vehicles longer now than in the past. The average fleet turnover is now over a decade:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36914

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#37

Post by mikepurvis » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

hijinks wrote: post #9

causi wrote: post #5

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?

i believe it given 2 neighbors own teslas. One neighbor has had his car in the shop longer then he's owned it. The other is on his 5th warranty call. Yes I'm sure they are outliers but with all new tech people that are early adopters will pay the price.

I've seen assertions that it's basically always been like this, but until recently the Musk RDF has helped maintain extremely high reported-satisfaction numbers, despite problems that would never be tolerated on any other vehicle, much less other vehicles in that price point.

But it's definitely changing as they try to go mass market. Some rich cat buying a Model S as their third or fourth vehicle has very different expectations/needs than a middle class family getting a Model 3 to be their only car and a daily driver.

I have a few friends/neighbours interested in going electric who have recognized this and explicitly chosen to go with the offerings from traditional manufacturers over Tesla— the Kia Soul, Polestar, and in one case a Taycan. Maybe there isn't folksy stuff like plaid mode, farting seats, and biohazard protection, but that long-standing design experience does seem lead to more solid basics like safe, functional interiors, doors and windows that work, and no surprise OTA updates that move around important features in the glass cockpit.

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#38

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #21

causi wrote: post #5

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?

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…

[deleted]

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#39

Post by kop316 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #18

abfan1127 wrote: post #7

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.

> Reality is that no one owns a car for 200k miles anymore.

Do you have statistics on that?

I purchased my previous car (a Dodge) when it had 8k miles and had it as my primary car until 240k miles. It only started to have serious maintenance issues at 220k miles. I not only paid it off, but saved enough money to be able to pay for a new car in full. I would recommend to anyone, as it is really nice to not have a car payment.

Re: Car Quality Is Slipping

#40

Post by trebor » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

I think that the base claim that "Car quality is slipping" is generally true. But I think that this is a trend that began a decade ago. Comparing the track records of the vehicles I've owned:

2002 Corolla (used) - rock solid reliability, only cosmetic issues with vinyl and a need for break pads.

2013 Elantra (brand new) - reliable, except for an electrical issue caused by an off-brand Rocket Fish (Best Buy in-house brand) car charger for my phone. The charger would send dirty electrical signals back into the car, and the new 1st generation power system would trip up... and I wouldn't have climate controls, defrost, wipers, stereo, etc for a random amount of time. I eventually reproduced it for the dealership, but was told by Hyundai that they wouldn't do anything since it wasn't a "defect". I traded it in ASAP for the next car, while it still had trade-in value.

2013 Civic (used, current daily driver) - so far rock solid, except for a tendency to burn up the brake's rotors. I had to replace calipers, pads, and rotors shortly after purchase of the vehicle (they were brand new at purchase IIRC). Occasional power system (maybe the battery?) issue where the airbag system shuts off randomly at start up.

I'm definitely cautious about buying a newer car now. I always try to review the lists at CarComplaints.com when considering what I might want to look for.