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Who makes the most reliable new cars?

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Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#501

Post by starcraft2wol »

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…

> tens of thousands of lines in a single file and the lines freely update hundreds of global variables.

It would be a mistake to conclude this means the software doesn’t work well.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#502

Post by lotsofpulp »

kyrra wrote: post #473
yaomtc wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

As a reminder, the increase of vehicle size has little to do with consumer choice but rather fuel efficiency standards. https://www.resources.org/common-resources/how-much-do-regul... Increasing fuel efficiency standards has outsized impact on the price of small cars, so fewer of them are made.

If consumers wanted smaller cars, they would buy more of them. A car is still much less expensive than a larger vehicle. The data clearly indicates people want bigger vehicles.

Anecdotally, I have personally heard many people say they want to sit up higher, or have a bigger vehicle because it is safer for them.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#504

Post by ars »

porphyra wrote: post #481

Do they still count over-the-air software updates as "recalls" that negatively impact the reliability? I don't have the CR subscription so I can't see the detailed breakdown...

Your local library will probably have a subscription and you can read them via your library card number.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#505

Post by julianlam »

simonsarris wrote: post #444
calamari4065 wrote: post #416

I've had a regrettably excellent experience with my 2015 Mazda. Easily the most reliable machine I've owned. Which is unfortunate because it's a soulless, joyless shitbox and I hate it. It just starts every single time, but it's not fun to drive. I see dozens of the exact same model on the road every day and they're all boring. The interior is fine, the handling is pretty good, the power is fine, fuel economy is fine…

huh, my 2014 Mazda 3 (manual 6 speed) I find quite fun to drive. It feels light, it's not some powerhouse but its immensely spritely. It feels like, given the constraints, the engineers were still trying to make something that feels good. Very different from Corollas or Civics that I've owned. I actually bought the 2014 model rather than 2015 because I wanted the last year made in Japan, though I don't know how much…

Having driven a CX-3, a 3, a 6, a CX-5, and a CX-90 (test drive), if you want "spritely", you want the CX-3 (or perhaps the CX-30?)

Mazdas are fantastic to drive, but that CX-3 rental had the real zoom zoom out of all of them.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#506

Post by eru »

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...

I wonder if that's just an American thing, or more global?

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#507

Post by anymouse123456 »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #346
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…

FWIW, the computers don’t tend to break. The things that do break are essentially the same as they were 20 years ago. The bells and whistles are mostly for creatures comfort. The mechanical components haven’t changed much. The only thing that I couldn’t fix on my own in my 2020 vs my 2006 was re-alignment of lane keep system after replacing the windshield.

My 2015 Dodge RAM with a failed ECU begs to differ. Wouldn't be so bad except replacements aren't expected to be available until April 2024.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#508

Post by loeg »

jandrese wrote: post #390

Edit: While I'm still dubious about these metrics I was ranting about an entirely different company here. Sorry. A very similar report has been making the rounds recently from JD Power, probably part of a marketing campaign of some sort. The JD Power list is even more hilarious because it is book-ended by two brands: Dodge and Chrysler. Also it suggests Alfa Romeo for reliability. https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-j…

JD Power is a marketing company. Their placements are pay-to-play. Don't take it seriously.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#509

Post by nebula8804 »

to11mtm wrote: post #294
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.

I think a lot of companies started 'getting it right' during that time. FBOW however, the increasing demands of Fuel Economy and emissions standards led to a lot of poorly-executed moves for various companies from a reliability standpoint; Sometimes it's dual clutch transmissions or CVTs, sometimes it's stuff like cylinder deactivation or a cheaped out Turbo 4 or 3 cylinder design. And then, all the speeds on an auto…

To me it feels like Mazda did it right even though they got a lot of crap for it. Still feels like they are a hidden gem. What they did was focus on fleet average. Their thesis was whats the point of being green if you still are selling gas guzzling hogs and you just sell some garbage EV to offset them.

So what they did was first drop their pickup truck and then develop a smooth and efficient 4 cylinder engine mated to traditional transmission to deploy across the fleet, then slowly migrate all of them to a hybrid drive and then finally move to a fleet wide EV architecture. This keeps the fleet average down while also not compromising in other ways like crummy CVTs. (Im not sure if they use deactivation.)

Will it work? well so far their first EV entry didn't fare so well. But they are still on the move to hybrid phase and they make some pretty darn smooth cars these days.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#510

Post by eru »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #502
kyrra wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a reminder, the increase of vehicle size has little to do with consumer choice but rather fuel efficiency standards. https://www.resources.org/common-resources/how-much-do-regul... Increasing fuel efficiency standards has outsized impact on the price of small cars, so fewer of them are made.

If consumers wanted smaller cars, they would buy more of them. A car is still much less expensive than a larger vehicle. The data clearly indicates people want bigger vehicles. Anecdotally, I have personally heard many people say they want to sit up higher, or have a bigger vehicle because it is safer for them.

> If consumers wanted smaller cars, they would buy more of them. A car is still much less expensive than a larger vehicle. The data clearly indicates people want bigger vehicles.

That's true to a point. In the US there are regulatory loopholes for SUVs, so that's impacting what vehicles people choose.

I agree that fuel efficiency standards are pretty silly. Especially CAFE standards. They should just tax CO2 emissions (or fuel) directly, and let the market sort it out.

Perhaps also have a tax on the weight of the vehicle, because that's a negative externality: heavier cars are worse for other people in a crash.

But the US is a country that has effectively legalised running over cyclists, so I don't have much hope for them. See https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...

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