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Who makes the most reliable new cars?

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Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#331

Post by wredue »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #274
webel0 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I keep on thinking that a premium market will develop for Toyota and Honda cars from roughly ~2006-2010. Those cars were the height of internal combustion technology without all of the electronics.

Yeah. I honestly don't know if I'd trade my 2006 Saab 9-3 Aero for a 2023 anything. No trouble, no nonsense, it's fast enough, it doesn't nag at me if I drive around the block without my seatbelt, and minor repairs are rarely more than $100. A few years back, I had a late model Mercedes GLS, and the damn thing was in the shop almost every other month, and each time it was at least $300-400. Mostly it was electronic c…

Pretty much all cars sell at a loss. The chip issues appreciating car values is not a generally normal thing for vehicle values.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#332

Post by frogpelt »

mulmen wrote: post #246
jansan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need oil and regular oil changes. Slightly OT, but I recently found that here in Germany there is a service where you can go to just like to a car wash without making an appointment. They will do the oil change for you within ten minutes or so and you do not even have to get out of your car during that time. This makes oil changes so much less annoying.

They let you stay in the car? That surprises me. Do they take the keys? No way I would work on a car with a random member of the public behind the wheel.

This is the only way I ever do an oil change.

They sometimes ask me to remove the keys from the ignition.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#333

Post by bmitc »

mkii wrote: post #225
hintymad wrote: post #181

Toyota is amazing for making reliable cars but writing truly shitty code. IIRC, a lawsuit a few years ago about Toyota's faulty brake system revealed that Toyota engineers cramped tens of thousands of lines in a single file and the lines freely update hundreds of global variables. It's also interesting that Japanese companies follow ISO this and CMM that yet they develop slowly and produce shitty software services ev…

Is it truly mysterious though? I find it interesting whenever HN has a strong fascination with all things related to "Japanese-ness". For example, there have been links to wikipedia pages of some Japanese term, and it will make front page with comments. I can't think of any other nation that has this kind of cultural representation on here. And yet, the myth of Japanese "uniqueness" is largely the product of Japanese…

There is a lot of propaganda about Japan's culture, but there is no mistaking that it is indeed different and quite unique, not always in good ways. It is quite common for island or peninsula countries to have strong, unique cultures, and Japan certainly sits at the exceptional end of that in terms of how strong the culture is.

What specifically are you balking at?

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#334

Post by Stratoscope »

sokoloff wrote: post #276
JonathonW wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything on the 12V system essentially is powered from the traction battery (the big one that can power the motors), once the car is turned on. In Toyota, at least, the traction battery is completely disconnected (via a relay) when the car is off. The 12V battery is needed to power anything on the 12V system up until the car starts-- that includes the car's computer, which is what (after doing all its self-checks a…

Some EVs will monitor the 12V battery and periodically connect the traction battery to the DC-DC converter to maintain the 12V battery when the car is parked for an extended period of time. (On the older Smart EVs, this doesn’t have a limit, so the traction battery will kill itself trying to maintain a weak 12V battery. There’s a firmware patch for it.)

My Kia EV6 does that, and when the 800V battery pack is charging the 12V battery while parked, an orange light on top of the dashboard goes on.

This had me worried the first few times it happened. Then I found out it is a warning to mechanics/tow truck drivers/first responders that the high voltage system is energized.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#335

Post by hugh-avherald »

blinding-streak wrote: post #286

What the hell happened to Mercedes? 29th out of 30 on the list. Truly awful. I've never driven one (let alone owned one) but by the marketing (and price) you'd think it was the greatest vehicle on earth.

It's well-known that the better a manufacturer's Formula 1 racecars do, the worse their road cars. And Mercedes were the dominant team from 2014 to 2020.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#337

Post by w0m »

Roark66 wrote: post #298
AmVess wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep the 4Runner and buy something new for a family hauler. New vehicles are much safer from a structural standpoint than older ones. Modern high strength steels form the safety cage of the vehicle, and greatly reduce the risk of injury in offset frontal impacts, side impacts, and rear impacts. And then you have the multitudes of air bags. Finally, the various electronic gizmos that further reduce risk of injury. The…

>New vehicles are much safer from a structural standpoint than older ones. Perhaps if you compare the same model 15 years ago and now that is true, but people rarely buy the same model used as they would new. At least among my aquitances it is common to consider a higher class used car, or a much cheaper lower class new car. I doubt a 6 years old lexus rx350 is less safe than 2023 Toyota Yaris for example. Two cars o…

Depends on the new safety tech; it often comes into the luxury brands and works it's way down. 6 years could be long enough for something significant to be in the Yaris.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#338

Post by selcuka »

yaomtc wrote: post #231
sharkweek wrote: post #213

My 3rd Gen Toyota 4Runner is old enough to drink and outside of routine maintenance requires almost no thought. "It's time to get a new car" given that car safety has drastically improved and I have two younger kids in that thing a few times a week but I'm honestly having a really hard time giving it up, something so reliable and plainly functional. New cars with all their computers and smart technology only look lik…

> car safety has drastically improved Safety between cars, and within cars, has improved. However, due to the increasing size of the average vehicle on the road, among other factors, car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...

Never mind, misread the comment. I somehow assumed that the driver safety has decreased because of the increasing number of vehicles on roads.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#339

Post by bmitc »

resolutebat wrote: post #316
alasdair_ wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Japanese obsession with handwritten resumes and faxes come to mind.

For handwritten resumes, the pain is kind of the point: handwriting hundreds of copies, which must be perfect down to the last stroke, is how new grads demonstrate their diligence and commitment to future employers. (It's still an idiotic relic though.)

This speaks to the idea that a lot of Japanese culture, especially business culture, is performative.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#340

Post by bethekind »

carabiner wrote: post #299
geocrasher wrote: post #233

I'm in the market for a used vehicle, and I am looking at mid 2010's Toyota 4runner's and Tacoma's, maybe even Tundra. It's just hard to go wrong with a Toyota.

There are only 4 cars: Tundra, Tacoma, 4runner, prius. The rest are mere toys. Don't get a Tundra if you live in a big city though. Seriously just get a 4runner unless you regularly need to haul stuff.

Why not a Prius for a city?
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