I was interested in looking at the post that many cars that are Japanesse are built in the UK and suffer build and reliability problems as a result. I thought it would be nice to know where all cars in the past and present were built, and what engines (if not their own) they use(d) with specific dates.
For example, the Toyota Yaris is being built in france. Or that the Avensis diesel uses a peugeot engine and is built in france (I think).
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I don't think that's the case. Toyota (Derby), Nissan (Sunderland) and Honda (Swindon) all have large operations in Britain, and as far as I'm aware there have been no quality issues. I think the Japanese are able to run a tight ship regardless of where in the world they actually do the building.
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BMW 3 series, Golfs and some Mercs are made is South Africa for export to RHD countries. I don't think you can generalise about QC and different plants - every nation has Monday Car problems. I've heard of some shockers made in Japan, Germany etc ...
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There will always be generalisations and exceptions.
But IMHO it is more likely to get a "good" car that was built in Japan than say France, UK, SA etc.
Why? The Japanese have a work ethic unique to them. Their pride in getting things right is near obsessive. I can't quote figures but just the feel of the place tells you this. The perfectly followed train timetables, the fact that you can leave/lose/forget a wallet/bag on the train/bus and get it back everytime, the fact that there is absolutely no litter on the streets and no graffitti tells me that they are a proud nation.
I am convinced that this attitude to life spills over into car manufacture.
Here's another idea: when a US or British company boss is caught with his fingers in the till or doing some massive fraud he'll naturally (for a westerner) do his best to deny it all, run and hide. In Japan the loss of face and standing in front of his contemporaries may well lead him to suicide.
Yep, I reckon if the chap doing up the wheel nuts on the Honda production line gets it wrong twice in a month he'd be just sooooo ashamed. Can't see this with other nationalities though.
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I have just read a book called: 'The machine that changed the world'. Basically a team of engineers that visit most of the car plants around the world (with the owners blessing)and give an insight into reliablity etc etc. Read it and you will probably buy a Toyota/Lexus.
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>>But IMHO it is more likely to get a "good" car that was built in Japan than say France, UK, SA>>
Cars built at Sunderland, Derby and Swindon - especially Sunderland, which was the first in the UK - have always matched Japan quality standards or even exceeded them.
In fact Nissan UK took considerable pride in reports compiled in Japan that the cars it builds, many of which go to Europe, often better the home grown (i.e Japan) equivalents.
But the same can't be said for some BMWs, VW Golfs/Jettas/Sharan, Ford Galaxy and Mercedes among others built in, for example, in South Africa, the States, Austria and Portugal. Some of the build quality seriously lets down many marques.
Last time I was in South Africa I was surprised at often disappointing build quality of various VW and Honda models - our brand new Honda Civic hire car was one of them.
That's why it's always wise for anyone buying a new car to find out exactly where it was built first and avoid such examples.
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It's easy to find out where some cars are built - all Mondeos, for instance, come from Genk in Belgium, where the Seat Toledo is also manufactured.
The VW Polo is built in Spain, Brazil, China, South Africa and Slovakia; we normally get the Spanish built variants.
However, Audi A4s built in a new factory in China might be difficult to get hold of...:-)
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I keep wondering whether Honda's choice of Swindon as an assembly plant was influenced at all by the proud traditions in the Great Western railway workshop, which, in terms of obsession about quality, could match anything, anywhere, any time. It's probably a daft idea, but these cultural things are deeply rooted, and the old reports of employees in the Swindon works weeping over "missing it by a thou" are a rather resonant echo of the sort of standards the Japanese adhere to and which were once not so scarce in the UK. What happened?
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Ok, so the person at work who looks down their nose at me because they drive a 3-series which they think is German in fact isn't, as opposed to my Omega, which is.
Ha - LOL
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IR Nissan UK beating the Japanese for QC and IIRC they were more productive for a time as well.
M-B C series built in SA have been troubled by QC problems for a while, however this isn't just the quality of the build, it's also the faulty QC check procedures which either don't test the components or allow lemons to get through.
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My dad likes to tell a story about a friend of his who was buying a batch of components for something or other from a Japanese company. His friend told the company that the batch would be accepted only if a maximum of X percent were faulty. The Japanese asked him if he would like the X percent packing separately.
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I can believe that story.
Japanese firms who manufacture various products in the UK, including Sony, Toshiba, Nissan etc brought their Far East maximum reliability and quality factors into the world of its UK component suppliers right from the start.
Sony, for instance, long ago insisted that its UK TV component suppliers achieved a minimum failure of one in a million. That minimum failure rate figure is now even more superior.
What\'s more such Japanese companies not only demand that their UK suppliers match and better such specifications, but also gradually reduce the cost to them of buying such components.
The Just In Time philosophy was another introduced to the UK by such firms. I visited the Nissan factory several times and was fascinated, for example, to learn that seats for individual vehicles are actually made about four hours previously and batches delivered by road from the nearby supplier; they are then taken to the assembly line just before being required for installation.
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>>a minimum failure of one in a million
maximum ?
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>>a minimum failure of one in a million>>
Absolutely correct - you spotted the deliberate mistake..:-)
I've just managed to kick myself up the ---- quite hard but pulled one or two muscles doing so to add to embarrassment.
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A mistake AND a pulled muscle?
Sony would never accept such sloppy standards ;)
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A mistake AND a pulled muscle? Sony would never accept such sloppy standards ;)
Don't worry, I'm sure he'll pack himself separately from the rest of the batch ;-)
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Toyota especially have been world-leaders in manfacturing principles and systems for over 80 years, and the vast majority of factory organisation systems only now being learned by the British manufacturing industry have come from Japan.
An ex-colleague of mine went to see the Toyota plant in Japan, as part of a lean manufacturing conference, and when she came back she was devastated at the comparatively shambolic way in which the major food manufacturing company i worked for was run.
This efficiency not only drives reliability up, but also drives costs down, so increasing profit.
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This efficiency not only drives reliability up, but also drives costs down, so increasing profit.
Only if the overall increase in profits exceeds the cost of the efficiency improvements, which is not always the case, from personal experience!
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