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Who makes the most reliable new cars?

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Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#771

Post by Stagnant »

laurencerowe wrote: post #199

Note that these stats only account for reliability in the first three years: > Then the brand reliability score was calculated by averaging results from 2021 to 2023. As someone who usually buys ~10 year old cars and drives them into the ground I'm much more interested in long term reliability. It may correlate but these stats are not that!

The Finnish transport and communications agency publishes yearly statistics about inspected cars and their three most common reasons for failing inspection as well as the percentage of failed inspections by car year and model.[1] The graphs on the site itself aren't that interesting but the provided excel sheets have some neat insight especially on the slightly older cars.

In Finland it is required by law for all cars older than 4 years to be inspected yearly or every two years (depending on the age of the car) so the statistics include quite large selection of different car models.

[1]: https://tieto.traficom.fi/en/statistics/statistics-inspectio...

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#772

Post by namdnay »

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 that were the case it would be a purely US phenomenon. Whereas increasing car size is global (relative to the initial size in each region of course)

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#773

Post by midasz »

bmitc wrote: post #330

Funny how Kia ranks so highly above others. But I'm dubious because Mini is near the top. And are Porsche and BMW known to be reliable? You can't even get your oil changed except at slecialized centers. I assume they're reliable in the same way airplanes are: lots of maintenance intervals.

I've a 2021 Kia Proceed and I've had 0 problems with it. I don't know much about cars but I was advised by a mechanic friend to go for a Kia or Hyundai.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#775

Post by rightbyte »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #490
vondur wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started during the pandemic and hasn’t improved.

Replacing old style headlight bulbs with LEDs in housings not designed for them is an increasing problem too, making driving at night often something that is best done with a pair of sunglasses.

Thank you. I thought my eyes were the problem. But I noticed meeting olders cars is not as bad.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#776

Post by dasv »

smoyer wrote: post #435
_yb2s wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a car nerd, a popular opinion is to avoid cars with computers because they could fail anytime, and can't be macgyvered into a repair roadside.... but after ~50 years of computerized cars, it seems that simple solid state computers, ruggedized and often potted in epoxy essentially never fail. And moreover, they can both give early warnings before you're stranded, and diagnostic data that can be used to pinpoint and…

I have a couple of '71 VWs and you can fix almost anything on the with toothpicks and Scotch tape. They just run because they're so simple ... You can actually count the wires in the harness and read the color codes! Thing thing that drives me nuts are the mechanical voltage regulator - they are finicky and today's hardened solid state devices near them in every way.

If you don't intend to keep them fully stock there are modern solid-state drop-in replacements for reasonable prices! Given that they are fairly simple cars building one yourself from common electronic parts would not be too difficult either.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#777

Post by throwaway914 »

vondur wrote: post #453
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...

People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started during the pandemic and hasn’t improved.

My counterpoint to this is there have always been a ton of bad drivers. The most important skill to have is to be a predictable driver. Bad drivers will always exist. You cannot change them, and the great number of them is not likely to drop to 0 overnight.

The best thing you can do is drive in a way that even bad drivers expect. Be a speed-limited, blinker-indicating, cautious log in the river. They will parkour around you and you will be fine. Greatly limit your reactions to things. If you freak out, others around you will freak out. Bad drivers cause okay drivers to perform worse. Herd mentality.

(Obvious disclaimer: The best defensive driving in the world won't prevent all accidents)

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#778

Post by mkii »

hintymad wrote: post #672
mkii wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing that Japanese did really well is keeping their language identity. In particular, they don’t translate their words. They give us gyoza instead of dumplings. They give us ramen instead of some lame-ass noodle. They give us Sudoku instead of number puzzles. So much so that Japanese words have some kind of zen-like connotation to many people. In contrast, mainland Chinese always translate words to English. Iron…

Oh please. Look and see some example Mandarin and Cantonese words loaned to English. [1] They also have your Japanese examples in there.

Want more counterexamples? Probably literally every Italian food: spaghetti, pizza, ravioli...

To me, this is just more evidence for how strong this meme of Japanese uniqueness, coolness, "sugoi kawaii desune~~ ^-^" is. I'm not bashing people who think Japan is cool. But I do think it's weird how they can't recognize it's just a meme, to the point of fetishization.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Chine...

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#779

Post by kaba0 »

hintymad wrote: post #672
mkii wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing that Japanese did really well is keeping their language identity. In particular, they don’t translate their words. They give us gyoza instead of dumplings. They give us ramen instead of some lame-ass noodle. They give us Sudoku instead of number puzzles. So much so that Japanese words have some kind of zen-like connotation to many people. In contrast, mainland Chinese always translate words to English. Iron…

I mean, those are not new words. Languages more often than not take the foreign name of a new discovery/item/concept, and Japanese is no different. As sibling commenter mentions, they have a huge amount of English words written with katakanas.

Some languages had periods where they tried finding a new, “pure” name for a foreign concept/item, but these have varied success rates, and often sound idiotic to native speakers, and they don’t see the point.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#780

Post by [deleted] »

winrid wrote: post #658

The fact that BMW and Mini are at the top of this list should make you ignore this data. First off, the Mini is just a smaller BMW, second the BMWs are complicated and designed to be maintained a certain way because that is how german cars are designed. You don't accidentally go 10k over an oil change on a higher mileage BMW and expect nothing bad to happen, but that would probably be okay on a Honda/Toyota/some Amer…

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