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Who makes the most reliable new cars?

consumerreports.org

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Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#641

Post by aardvarkr »

dahart wrote: post #606
cuu508 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the computer shutdown(s) cause (or fail to prevent) the timing chain failure?

Yes - it was probably more in the failure to prevent category, but I’m not sure because we never got to the bottom of it, the computer would just freak out and refuse to recognize any systems. We were playing a game of pay the dealer to replace something random to see if it worked, and then repeat when it didn’t. Once it asploded, we paid over $5k in repairs, only to have the computer start convulsing again, so we so…

Sounds like you need to stop relying on the dealer and find one of those old guru mechanics that can diagnose a car just by listening to it. Good mechanics are worth their weight in gold and I promise they’re out there if you look for them.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#642

Post by VectorLock »

wahern wrote: post #244
stefan_ wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a curious lawsuit that was, it seems the software bugs were discriminating against the elderly and the otherwise unaware. The darnedest thing. (Ironically you can look at say Bosch ECUs and will find much the same: thousands of global variables and lots of "odd" code, but that's because its generated from a dataflow language).

At the very least, NASA couldn't find any cause in software: https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-t...

I thought floor mats were put up as the most likely cause of the Toyota "spontaneous acceleration" incident?

Anecdotally my late model Camry has very thorough floor mat retention mechanisms.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#643

Post by jansan »

alphager wrote: post #179
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.

What's the name of the company?

MacOil (not a joke). They have 17 shops in Germany.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#645

Post by andromeduck »

NikkiA wrote: post #575
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…

90% of embedded code is horrible global variable messes like that, it's truly horrifying if you value CS and SE sensibilities and get into embedded. Invariably you'll also be expected to interface to and utilitise someone else's code of that style, so you can't even try to make much of a positive impact from within.

Don't confuse static variables with global ones.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#646

Post by tonyarkles »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #527
kyrra wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss my point. When CAFE standards drastically increase the price of small cars, it impacts choice. It's similar to house prices. The more regulations you pile on, the more things cost. While those things are seen as "good", it removes choice and increases cost.

I understand what you are saying, but I predict removing or fixing those regulations will not change anything (other than increased fuel or weight taxes), because the underlying reason remains the same. People (in general) prefer sitting higher up and being in bigger vehicles.

My last two vehicles have been trucks:

- 1991 Ford Ranger 2WD

- 2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD OR (4WD + extra features)

The Tacoma is Toyota's smallest North American truck and is dramatically larger than the Ranger. The Ranger suited my needs perfectly except that it wasn't 4WD and would frequently get stuck in Canadian winter. I couldn't even buy good snow tires for it anymore because the rims were too small.

If there were a recently built 4WD truck available in the North American market that was the size of the 91 Ranger, I would have bought it in a heartbeat. It does not exist.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#647

Post by [deleted] »

emodendroket wrote: post #609
Syonyk wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standard hybrid (of the sort that a range of companies make, handwavingly a parallel hybrid with creep capability, which a PHEV is just a supersized version of) eliminates a huge swath of things that go wrong with ICEs. First and foremost, the transmission replaces the rather staggering pile of complexity of a modern automatic transmission, typically, with "a few motor/generators, some planetary gears, maybe a band…

> I know there's this popular "Hybrids/PHEVs are the most complicated of both worlds, so they must be the most unreliable of all worlds!" thing going around, but the data is quite clear that they're exceedingly reliable in actual use, and the "most complicated of all worlds" things tends to zoom out far enough to avoid looking at the transmission or engine design at any level of detail. The article suggests plug-in h…

[deleted]

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#648

Post by tonyarkles »

idontwantthis wrote: post #251
codazoda wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to admit it, but Kia got this right. I own 3 Kia’s and they all have various problems, including really big problems, but this is an area they got right. On my daily driver, the Kia Niro, it has a battery button that instantly charges the 12v from the HEV battery. I’ve only needed it once, when I left a light on camping, but it was like magic.

What big problems have you had? I’m considering a Niro phev.

Not a Niro PHEV, but they have had... a couple of serious motor issues:

- https://www.kiaenginesettlement.com

- https://www.kiaengineclasssettlement.com

Edit: A friend of mine just got a free engine swap for her... 2012-ish Optima. It threw a CEL on the highway, had the appropriate trouble code, and bam, new engine from the dealership when she told them the code.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#650

Post by VectorLock »

perardi wrote: post #201
rwmj wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I never understood is why hybrids have the 12 volt battery at all. Couldn't the entertainment system etc be powered from the 200V EV battery (after stepping it down obviously)?

Because so much of the real deep-down legacy bits of the car assume a 12-volt battery. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a38537243/electric-car... There's a lot of Tier 3 supplier…stuff…in a car that was architected for 1978 and has never had a thorough re-think, because the profit margin is like nothing.

12v is such a common top-rail voltage for electronics of all kinds, I think its a bit more that than "car makers are too greedy to manufacture 400v headlights."
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