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

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

#381

Post by refurb »

Luc wrote: post #40
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 think there is something to this, but in my experience they just don't care. Their stuff is optimized for their own cultural values, which you perhaps expect to be more like your own than they are. I have had American visitors marvel at the (German built) windows in my French home, calling them something you'd see on a space station. On the other hand they think I must be having money problems for not having a tumb…

I had to live without a clothes drier and it felt like being a student again.

There is a reason they call them modern conveniences.

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

#382

Post by refurb »

tim333 wrote: post #25
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…

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.

Wait. Your theory as to why there are differences in chocolate between the Us and Europe is paid political influence?

Or you know, it could just be differences in tastes!

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

#383

Post by seem_2211 »

tim333 wrote: post #44

A lot of the issues may come down to whether management prioritize financial engineering / making huge bonuses / pleasing wall street vs making good vehicles. The same with Boeing - they used to be run by engineers who wanted to make great planes and then the shifted control to finance guys in Chicago who wanted to make big profits. You see the effect a bit with Tesla where I'm sure Musk would love to focus on qualit…

> You see the effect a bit with Tesla where I'm sure Musk would love to focus on quality but has to rush things out to make decent quarterly numbers or risk going bust by not getting ongoing financing

"Tesla CEO Elon Musk ordered his employees to stop putting nearly finished Model 3s through a critical test before leaving the company’s factory in Fremont, California, according to an internal document viewed by Business Insider. It’s called the brake-and-roll test, and it ensures the car is correctly aligned. An industry expert told Business Insider that every automaker does this test to ensure quality and function."†

Tesla constantly make short term decisions that cost them massively down the line.

† https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-elon-musk-orders-en...

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

#384

Post by refurb »

beefield wrote: post #41
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…

> Everything is super different and weird and kinda bad, and nobody seems to notice. I have this a bit uneasy impression[1] that a really significant chunk of US is basically a developing country with bigger cars. [1] Based only on visiting a few developing countries as well as a few states of US. Not on any statistics or data whatsoever.

Comparing the US to third world countries makes me think you never really visited a developing country. Maybe just flew through the airport?

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

#385

Post by SahAssar »

robin_reala wrote: post #240
thedaemon wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story? Not a funny story. We are not metric. We would be metric if you bought items in metric. We do not. Doesn't matter what the scientist use. It matters what milk and bread is sold in. We buy drinks in liters and gallons. Those are not metric.

Litres are metric?

Yep, one litre is equal to 1 dm3 or 1 kg of water.

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

#386

Post by hartator »

FussyZeus wrote: post #325
gumby wrote: post #299

I hate it when a vendor replies, as appeared in this article, that the problem was "a supplier-related issue". I purchased the product from you, not the supplier. You're responsible for what you shipped me. By contrast: there are many reasons to criticize pharma companies but they don't take suppliers' word for any materials. Dell doesn't blame Delta when they ship bad power supplies, they take responsibility. But so…

This is one of my favorite aspects of the writing in Outer Worlds: that no one who works for a corporation is ever, ever allowed to speak ill of it, of it's products, or anything even tangentially related to the corporation. It's hilarious the mental gymnastics these fictional people will leap through to avoid earning the ire of their employer, and it's absolutely shocking how true-to-life it often is.

`Outer Worlds` the video game? I want to play it now.

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

#387

Post by wahern »

hnick wrote: post #360
taurath wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of software companies tend to do this too. You had an outage? Oh that was just the vendor. Or failed software projects being blamed on a contractor.

We chose the cheap option but don't blame us! This was entirely unexpected!

It's the meaning of nobody every got fired for choosing IBM/Microsoft/AWS. These were definitely never the cheapest. You paid a premium for being able to pass the buck--"hey, we just did what everybody else did and which was considered 'best practice'".

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

#388

Post by opencl »

ken wrote: post #363

Isn't this just stack ranking? Hasn't that always been a terrible way to measure quality? Every car, especially American makes, are drastically improved from even just a few years ago. Being in the bottom half in 2019 is a completely different story from being in the bottom half in 1999, or 1969.

There have been plenty of drastic improvements in cars in the past 20 years, but I'm not convinced that reliability is one of them. Compared to 1969, definitely. Quality back then was awful. But there were plenty of very reliable cars around in the 90s, I'm still driving one of them.

Those Buicks having major transmission problems within the first year of ownership would have been considered a disaster even in 1969. Same with Ford's powershift transmissions from a few years ago that tended to last ~25K miles.

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

#389

Post by metanoia »

amyjess wrote: post #308
_s wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese manufacturers have found a good balance between simplicity and modern tech (see Mazda, Suzuki). German cars tend to be over-engineered; lots of modern tech in the vehicle + manufacturing, whereas American cars tend to be quite the opposite.

And historically when the Japanese _have_ gone overboard on tech, back in the bubble era, they also tend to back it up with overengineering. Think of the fourth-gen Toyota Supra or any version of the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Or the Toyota Soarer/Lexus SC, which was basically a detuned Supra packed with luxury equipment and unique styling. They were technological marvels whose engines were overengineered beasts that could…

The 2JZ engine was one of the best (as in, most durable) engines that Toyota ever produced.

The sheer number of Supras, Lexus IS300s (1st generation), and GS300s that are still running today, most with over 200k miles, is a testament to the amount of over-engineering that went into that engine.

And then there are the crazies who took the NA version and added turbos...

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

#390

Post by mcny »

geerlingguy wrote: post #320
exhilaration wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the US and Toyota fixed my 2007 Toyota Camry's oil burning problem in 2015 for free !!! The dealership had quoted me something like $8000 to fix it (more than the car was worth) so I'd given up. Then one day I got a letter from Toyota corporate telling me my car was covered by this warranty extension. That made me a Toyota customer for life -- my next car was a Toyota Sienna, I won't buy another brand at this…

I have a 2007 Camry... was there a recall for this? How would I know if I have the problem?

Only if yours was also made in Kentucky and even then Toyota apparently did the bare minimum they were legally obliged to do. From what I understand, mine was not part of the recall.

you should go to https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls and put your VIN anyways just for your peace of mind

here's scotty kilmer explaining the issue: https://youtu.be/B0NwnbVN1cw

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