Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who makes the most reliable new cars?

consumerreports.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#811

Post by Sebb767 »

mortify wrote: post #673
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 always drive, not to within certain parameters of the law, but to within their risk tolerance. As cars become more safe, the risk factor reduces which allow people to increase risky behavior. If you want people to drive better, don't put airbags in their steering wheel, put a 6" metal spike pointed at their chest.

> If you want people to drive better, don't put airbags in their steering wheel, put a 6" metal spike pointed at their chest.

Cars without breakable steering column were pretty much this, so everyone had this before ~1990. Yet, deaths in traffic have steadily decreased since then.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#813

Post by jesterson »

Dah00n wrote: post #716
jesterson wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to import nuances, they do all sorts of shenanigans in TH for cars. The one you have gotten may have very little to do with Mercedes.

The US made models seem to be the worst ones.

Sounds about right. No wonder mb decided to make S klasse only in Germany

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#814

Post by ryanjshaw »

skrebbel wrote: post #766

Years ago http://reliabilityindex.com/ had a fantastic list of the repair costs of used cars, collected by a UK car warranty insurer. They took it down for reasons I’m not aware of but it was basically this but for used cars (and Europe-focused). It let you see repair costs per brand, model and generation . There’d sometimes be mad regressions in quality between the old and newer generations of the exact same car - n…

This is one of the more correct ways to go. The methodology of the article is customer surveys and that is unreliable.

There is also an ODB2 manufacturer that collects stats about ODB2 error code frequencies per model and manufacturer (they have an API their hardware uses for up-to-date info), and they correlated that to repair costs per error code to estimate the reliability and maintenance costs of vehicles. I can't remember who it was, though.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#815

Post by numlock86 »

Racing0461 wrote: post #680
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...

[flagged]

Can you please just stay on Reddit then?

Or in your words: "hurr durr, reddit is that way ->>> smh"

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#816

Post by jesterson »

system2 wrote: post #752
jesterson wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renault is so bad, it's unsurprising it even couldn't make to the list

Renault 9 is a great car. Similar to Nissan Sentra from 90s.

That’s car for 90s. There was lots of good cars in 90s, and quite likely Renault 9 was one of those.

But oh boy, whatever they made after 200s was a complete garbage.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#817

Post by fingerlocks »

sethammons wrote: post #797
matwood wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite as old, but I drive a 2007 Tundra. Does all the things I need it to do. About a year ago I replaced the foggy headlamps and people thought I had gotten a new car lol I was at the Toyota dealership not long ago and the mechanic says, “we’re not supposed to say this, but if you just do basic maintenance these cars will go for 20+ years. No way would I sell this for a new one. They cost too much now.”

I had one of those and it turns out they don't have true four wheel drive, but rather an antilock rear differential. It is controlled by a sensor that can freeze in icy conditions and fail to engage. Living in Montana, we had to sell the otherwise perfect truck for something that could reliably get up our driveway in winter.

It was the TRD package that had the locking differential which was electronically actuated, right? But that’s entirely separate from the “true” 4x4 with the barrel drive shaft synchronizing the front and year diffs. Did you have a pre-runner? Some of those were sold with funky combinations that have the locking diff but a crippled 4x4 that disengages when you hit 10 mph.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#818

Post by fingerlocks »

ghaff wrote: post #494
Lazare wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly the article actually calls out the 4Runner as "among the most reliable models in the survey". Apparently the newer model years are still pretty solid!

On the other hand anecdata, I had a 13ish year old 4Runner with only about 70K miles lose a transmission line on me a couple years back. The dealership shrugged and said maybe it was a chip on the coating from a piece of gravel. Though it may well have been a manufacturing defect. In any case, ended up having to nurse the vehicle home and basically nurse it 2 months until I could get a new Honda. Which I actually lik…

What is a transmission line?

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#819

Post by numlock86 »

thierryzoller wrote: post #812

According to the German ADAC the ranking is somewhat opposite :) https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a... https://car-recalls.eu/reliability/reliability-tuv-report-20...

Notice that with the higher ranked car brands you usually get two years or more of "special service" on purchase. Something along the lines of "for any problem just call this number and we will help you immediately!". That's how they don't show up in the statistics because the brand itself will handle it and not - like in this example - the ADAC. My company even has a compliance form you have to sign before getting a car from the pool to agree to not call ADAC or similar at any circumstance, no matter the problem. Always call the given brand number. Reason is to keep their statistics low (and in exchange our leasing prices ...)

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#820

Post by consp »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #765
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has also become a problem as a cyclist. I live in a bicycles-first city, commute that way almost every day, and over the past decade when LED lights became the norm, almost every day during this time of the year there's at least one person that just mindlessly snapped their headlight onto the handlebar. It might just fully shine into your face. Back in the days of those dim incandescent bulbs powered by whimsy g…

Scooters are worse. They are severely over powered as they put car lights in them.
Post reply on HN