I will be glad to see the back of the German brands one day. To b******ise a phrase, they're over priced, over complicated and over here.
So what would Jaguar and Land/Range Rovers do without German gearboxes? And Rolls Royce and Bentley without German engines as well?
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Land Rover and Jaguar have both used Jatco gearboxes in the past, and the Borg-Warner 3 speeds of you go back far enough. The best answer? Aisin.
Engines? BMW V12 of any era is hardly a shining beacon of reliability. They would be better off either designing their own engines like they used to, or buying in from a quality engine maker but that will not happen when they are owned by VW and BMW respectively.
I do like the W12 in your Audi. Not going to criticise that one!
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Tell anyone who ended up with a scrap Volvo from the early 2000s Aisin gearboxes can't be total unreliable rubbish!
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I am more than happy to continue buying "German" brands whilst they suit our needs. Since 1986 we have bought 8 in total and covered over 380,000 miles in them. We had an 11 year break in that period where we did not own a VAG car (there were better driving better value cars at the time) so that was 380,000 in 23 years, an average of 16,500 miles a year approx.
What problems have we had.
Break downs - zero
Warranty repairs - one water pump, one fuel pump and one clutch
Repairs out of warranty - one full exhaust, one back box, diff oil seals and a rear caliper. Total cost was about £400.
Also had a BMW. 5 1/2 years, one recovery when a spring broke (on the drive), Cost about £300 for a pair fitted. No other repairs.
So more than happy to carry on with "German" brands.
But I do look at alternatives but late last year none of the others we looked at met our needs like another VAG car. So that is what we bought.
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Glad to hear you have had a good run of them, but why do you keep putting speech marks on the word "German", Volkswagon are as German as they come and were founded by the Nazi party as part of their national socialist agenda in the 1930s, your speech marks suggest you don't think they are really German?
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And BMW is Bavarian Motor Works... and they made very good engines for the Luftwaffe.
Edited by Metropolis. on 30/01/2021 at 11:03
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Colloquially BMW stands for "Bring More Wonga"
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Glad to hear you have had a good run of them, but why do you keep putting speech marks on the word "German", Volkswagon are as German as they come and were founded by the Nazi party as part of their national socialist agenda in the 1930s, your speech marks suggest you don't think they are really German?
Simply because VAG includes Skoda and Seat neither of which are German but come under the main brand. Since they use components designed by and used by all 4 companies it fair to include them. But lets also remember that all the TSI engines regardless of the brand they are used in are manufactured by Skoda as are the batteries used by all the brands.
Most people on the planet consider Kia and Hyundai to be Korean yet many of the cars sold in the UK are made in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia and if you live in the USA many of the cars are actually made there.
Basically I prefer not to think of VAG as German but as simply good cars that are reliable and suit our current needs. I have looked at the Toyotas and Hondas that many on this forum simply love but I have not found one that makes me want to buy one. The Civics we have tried were noisy and had a dreadful ride and the dreadful Toyota dealerships we have visited (3 of them) with the lying unhelpful sales staff have simply made us walk away (not that the cars suited us either).
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Fair enough, I see your point.
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Simply because VAG includes Skoda and Seat neither of which are German but come under the main brand. Since they use components designed by and used by all 4 companies it fair to include them. But lets also remember that all the TSI engines regardless of the brand they are used in are manufactured by Skoda as are the batteries used by all the brands.
Most people on the planet consider Kia and Hyundai to be Korean yet many of the cars sold in the UK are made in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia and if you live in the USA many of the cars are actually made there.
Basically I prefer not to think of VAG as German but as simply good cars that are reliable and suit our current needs. I have looked at the Toyotas and Hondas that many on this forum simply love but I have not found one that makes me want to buy one. The Civics we have tried were noisy and had a dreadful ride and the dreadful Toyota dealerships we have visited (3 of them) with the lying unhelpful sales staff have simply made us walk away (not that the cars suited us either).
Anyone know why the big difference in perception of reliability of VW vs Skoda on HJ and in other motor press? Are Skoda owners more careful...? Are Skodas really better built?
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Glad to hear you have had a good run of them, but why do you keep putting speech marks on the word "German", Volkswagon are as German as they come and were founded by the Nazi party as part of their national socialist agenda in the 1930s, your speech marks suggest you don't think they are really German?
My "German" VW Touareg was built in Slovakia, alongside the Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne - all using a Hungarian-built Audi diesel.
My other car is a "French" Citroen C1 - built in Czech Republic, it's a rebadged Toyota Aygo using a Diahatsu engine.
Nationalism in motoring is so out of date
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Nationalism in motoring is out of date? We must be the only major car producing country with this self-defeating attitude and look where we are. A disaster.
Go to Japan, America, France, Italy, “Germany”, they all back their own brands much more than we do, and their domestic models are what you will see most often on the road, for better or worse.
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True - but we too were in that position in my 50s / 60s childhood. Austins were the best and most reliable mass-produced cars you could buy, and when Rolls-Royce advertised their cars as the best in the world, they could justify the claim.
But the rot set in during the 60s, and by the 70s, through bad management and poor quality factory work, people could hardly be blamed for moving to VWs and Toyotas.
I can remember that was brought home to me when I was doing an audit at a client's premises in the early 70s. The chief accountant had a Toyota Corona, one of the first imported in the mid-60s and totally reliable. One of the other managers had a Morris 1800, which had one problem after another. I had a Maxi then, and realised that I'd been lucky: it had some serious design faults but mine at least was reliable.
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Nationalism in motoring is out of date? We must be the only major car producing country with this self-defeating attitude and look where we are. A disaster. Go to Japan, America, France, Italy, “Germany”, they all back their own brands much more than we do, and their domestic models are what you will see most often on the road, for better or worse.
Chrysler has been in trouble for years, Ford and GM are abandoning cars - without pickups the US makers would have died long ago - imports rule in America, albeit with final assembly in the USA.
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There is also, in my opinion, a great deal of truth in the old saying that bad news travels much faster than good. My own experience after more than four decades of driving multiple vehicles across a wide variety of makes, and many over excessive distances, has not often, in fact extremely rarely, been punctuated by unreliable cars. Only two of them gave me any particular concerns. All the rest, just did what they were supposed to do, and needed only routine servicing and consumables.
It is often argued that cars which are primarily used for longer runs last better, and that may well be true, but my wife, who has a very different usage pattern to me, with mainly urban, short journeys has not suffered any "bad" cars either.
Undoubtedly, some owners get some problems some of the time with some cars, or else we wouldn't get to hear about them. But, I'd be interested to know what that represents as a function of most people's experience.
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Go to Japan, America, France, Italy, “Germany”, they all back their own brands much more than we do, and their domestic models are what you will see most often on the road, for better or worse.
And it isn't just cars - trains, white goods, food, furniture - you name it. I don't know whether we think it's trendy or exotic or what. The long-term problem is that our producers are forced to become importers, until we have little choice. We don't even make all our own electricity.
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If a car is from a German or French brand then wherever it is assembled the profits are funneled back to Germany or France and nourish their economy. Given the behaviour of France and Germany toward the UK I would never wish to support their industries. British made Toyota for me! The recent behaviour of the Germans (trying to steal our vaccine) have caused me to redouble my efforts to boycott EU goods. My wife wanted something from Lidl today but I refused to go there and took her to Morrisons!
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My wife wanted something from Lidl today but I refused to go there and took her to Morrisons!
Did you check that all the Morrisons products you bought were made in the UK by a UK owned company.
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My wife wanted something from Lidl today but I refused to go there and took her to Morrisons!
Did you check that all the Morrisons products you bought were made in the UK by a UK owned company.
I hear your sneer in that comment, but yes I do try to check that I buy British products where possible. I know is fashionable these days in the UK to sneer at anyone who is patriotic, however the French and Germans don't hesitate to support their own industries and their kith and kin. Given the recent abhorrent behaviour of Germany and France (Macron blocking the border and that German woman wanting to steal our vaccines) I feel fully vindicated in buying British wherever possible and as little as possible from our EU 'friends'.
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I detected a hint of sneering as well. For some reason patriotism is still a dirty word to many in this country, which is odd. We abandoned our kith and kin in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Rhodesia, you name it we abandoned it. Alot of places of British descent bought British and the trade agreements between commonwealth nations were very favourable for doing so. Did we really think the Germans, French and Italians were going to buy our cars? We had our own trading bloc that actually liked us, and we left that for one that didn't.
The sheer number of pre-73 cars in New Zealand is quite telling. They have not really forgiven us for abandoning them as we did, they really suffered with tarriffs going up overnight.
Edited by Metropolis. on 31/01/2021 at 20:29
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I detected a hint of sneering as well. For some reason patriotism is still a dirty word to many in this country, which is odd. We abandoned our kith and kin in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Rhodesia, you name it we abandoned it. Alot of places of British descent bought British and the trade agreements between commonwealth nations were very favourable for doing so. Did we really think the Germans, French and Italians were going to buy our cars? We had our own trading bloc that actually liked us, and we left that for one that didn't.
The sheer number of pre-73 cars in New Zealand is quite telling. They have not really forgiven us for abandoning them as we did, they really suffered with tarriffs going up overnight.
But they were still carp cars.
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"But they were still carp cars."
And now they are no cars, almost.
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The sheer number of pre-73 cars in New Zealand is quite telling. They have not really forgiven us for abandoning them as we did, they really suffered with tariffs going up overnight.
We had a great month in NZ about 15 years ago and ran into a rally of Fraser Nashes ....
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! The recent behaviour of the Germans (trying to steal our vaccine) have caused me to redouble my efforts to boycott EU goods.
The EU reflected on its stance and altered their position. Credit to them. Unlike Trump, who took all 3M masks for the US. The US caused a global financial crisis. We still went into a useless war under Blair, which Europe stayed out of. The mess has made the world a less safe place. We are n't saints either selling weapons to countries, which we should n't.
We are too focused on Europe, to see what is going on elsewhere. Everything is made in China.... The US moved their factories overseas and made them rich. CN see the West as hostile nations. Forcing us to buy Huawei and threatening punishment (despite changing in public mood), upset over HK and upset, we did n't give them any national pride, as we did n't buy any of their vaccines.
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...... but we too were in that position in my 50s / 60s childhood. Austins were the best and most reliable mass-produced cars you could buy, and when Rolls-Royce advertised their cars as the best in the world, they could justify the claim.
But back then there was a 30% tariff on foreign cars so most people put up with often unreliable mediocrity. The flood gates were opened by the common market resulting in Brits buying cars from countries which prized engineering excellence above classics and law degrees from Oxbridge.
The best bit of engineering in a 50s /60s Rolls Royce was arguably its American gearbox.
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...... but we too were in that position in my 50s / 60s childhood. Austins were the best and most reliable mass-produced cars you could buy, and when Rolls-Royce advertised their cars as the best in the world, they could justify the claim.
But back then there was a 30% tariff on foreign cars so most people put up with often unreliable mediocrity. The flood gates were opened by the common market resulting in Brits buying cars from countries which prized engineering excellence above classics and law degrees from Oxbridge.
The best bit of engineering in a 50s /60s Rolls Royce was arguably its American gearbox.
The flood gates were opened by BMC/British Leyland/Austin Morris/Rover repeatedly producing sub-standard cars forcing buyers to look elsewhere.
The GM automatic transmission used by Rolls-Royce had no reaL engineering excellence or sophistication, it was used because it could handle the torque that Rolls-Royce engines produced.
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We live in a global society and I'm very glad and happy that we do, with access to a standard of living that our predecessors could only dream of. In terms of motoring, as said, the demise of the UK car and motorbike industry was thoroughly deserved, UK industry had continued to believe it could survive with archaic working practices and management by selling mediocre products to a fading empire, post ww2. No wonder the public leapt to buy European and Japanese products in the 70s and 80s, there was so much more choice and certainly with the German and Japanese makers, far superior build and reliability. Our saving grace for car manufacture was the EU single market, allowing the likes of Honda and Toyota to set up in the UK without barriers and bring modern management techniques with them. So yes, if you want to buy a British car, buy a Honda or a Toyota while they are still here! Personally, I buy the car I fancy, and have had good service from German, French, UK and Japanese makes, they all have their pros and cons and I don't think I could pick a favourite, although my first Skoda Octavia was a great car to own despite a few niggles.
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That transmission has a bombproof reputation and is still popular in the dragster community. I Engineering doesn't have to be sophisticated to be excellent. Arguably any automatic gearbox is sophisticated already by virtue of it being automatic. Reliable, strong and cheap. Can't get much better engineering than that.
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<< The flood gates were opened by BMC/British Leyland/Austin Morris/Rover repeatedly producing sub-standard cars forcing buyers to look elsewhere. >>
We had a series of 5 Maxis from the mid-70s to mid-80s and they were all decent cars - some happily took us to Switzerland on holiday. I was prepared to switch to the replacement model (Maestro) but one test drive changed my mind. A Cavalier estate made a good substitute for a while, then as luck would have it, the press was hyping the 205, which kept us going for about 30 years.
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We had a series of 5 Maxis from the mid-70s to mid-80s and they were all decent cars - some happily took us to Switzerland on holiday.
That's a low bar for 'decency', even in the 70s when 50,000 miles was considered 'old' for a car engine. Switzerland is only 500 miles from Calais. Even 1970s Austins should have been able to do 1000 miles without breaking down!
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We had a series of 5 Maxis from the mid-70s to mid-80s and they were all decent cars - some happily took us to Switzerland on holiday.
That's a low bar for 'decency', even in the 70s when 50,000 miles was considered 'old' for a car engine. Switzerland is only 500 miles from Calais. Even 1970s Austins should have been able to do 1000 miles without breaking down!
We don't all start from Calais, John, or even Dover ....
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We had a series of 5 Maxis from the mid-70s to mid-80s and they were all decent cars - some happily took us to Switzerland on holiday.
That's a low bar for 'decency', even in the 70s when 50,000 miles was considered 'old' for a car engine. Switzerland is only 500 miles from Calais. Even 1970s Austins should have been able to do 1000 miles without breaking down!
We don't all start from Calais, John, or even Dover ....
Fair point. I don't know whether my father's Austins were reliable - I was too young - but I do remember his Rover 105S couldn't make it from Yorkshire home to Cornwall holiday destination (400 miles) without breaking the link from the gear lever, mounted on a curious golf-ball-like thing, to the gearbox. Fortunately a local garage/blacksmith was able to fettle a replacement.
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countries which prized engineering excellence above classics and law degrees from Oxbridge.
Nothing much changes in "good old" Blighty.
Sorry for the thread drift, but it never ceases to amaze me when I have to complete on line forms, when it asks regarding "profession" where you have to select from a list, (I had to do one last week as part of my business for the Data Protection Register). There is invariably every job under the sun, but never any for "engineers" of any description! An engineer to a Brit is someone who fixes your boiler (or not in the case of BG)!
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The best bit of engineering in a 50s /60s Rolls Royce was arguably its American gearbox - or its Citroën suspension units?
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I've had five Mercs over quite a few years and they have been fine, there are many Mercs with huge mileages doing taxi work and taxi drivers wouldn't go for unreliable.
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The Mercedes taxis in Berlin (Deutsche taxis!) many of which are owned by taxi companies, are routinely kept until they reach 600k kms (360k mls). There is a ready private market waiting for them then. They are serviced regularly and as frequently as mileage requires.
I similarly spoke to a taxi/hire car driver who had stopped for a break nearby in the UK. The driver called up the mileage for me to see and the C220dci had done 353K mls and was said to be going great. It was surprisingly serviced every 3 weeks or so because of the mileage done.
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