"Posh trim is more to do with vanity than real quality, a bit of niceness you?d like to surround yourself with. And it?s so easy to fall for. The only real test of build quality is time."
This is part of an interesting article in Car on trying to differentiate between the so called perceived quality that you touch versus the real quality of car that stands the test of time in terms of reliability and durability.
It may come as no surprise but the follow on comments do get into the Jap V German debate that we sometimes have on here. It does focus on the old v new mercs as well and the fact that they never used to try and provide the wow factor but concentrated more on making cars that work for ever (slight exaggeration) without wearing out ala W124's etc.
I do think that the public get sucked into thinking a car is of good quality because of what they can touch inside - which when you think about it is a blinding con trick the manufacturers can actually play on people.
So what car makers and era were cars manufactured that really stood the test of time ?
Sorry forgot to post that I'd changed the subject line - PU
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SAAB and Volvo when they were Swedish owned, MB before the rot set in (literally).
The Americans are bad offenders - Ford and GM are good at making cars which look/feel/smell good when new, but look old and tired in no time.
VAG are a bit of a dark horse. The basics are good, some points excellent (galvanised bodies). The whole ship is ruined by total stupidities like oil spec documentation (PD diesels) cambelt/tensioner failures and rain water leaks etc. One cock up I've just spotted is that some muppet at VAG has mounted a fuse/distribution box on top of the battery of the Golf. Batteries give off acid fumes when they are charging - this fuse box was corroded to bits.
The Japs are cleverer than this. Their cars are not intrinsically as well made as the equivalent German offerings, but are much better detailed with far fewer "silly" failures like the VAG fuse box. Their products are therefore justifyably highly regarded and are presumably profitable to produce.
Good design always wins.
659.
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Of course it's a massive con, and frankly I'm amazed that people fall for it.
Korean cars are absolutely no better made than they were five years ago (they use the same bits in a lot of cases) but you wouldn't think it to look inside. They've simply cottoned on to the fact that you put in a couple of hundred quid's worth of soft plastics and sound deadening material and you'll sell twice as many cars.
I bought a leather chair from Staples for £20. It has soft touch plastics on the arms and generally feels better made than the £15 cloth one they had next to it. But only a madman would consider that the leather chair was better made.
My brother bought an MP3 player from Hong Kong on ebay, it's all made of very nice feeling aluminium and rubberised plastics. £15 delivered.
Good materials are cheaper than good design. Plastic is plastic, and it's cheap. Only a fool equates feel with quality.
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Korean cars are absolutely no better made than they were five years ago (they use the same bits in a lot of cases)
Oh dear! are they still that bad? I thought they had improved.
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< Ex RF, Ex TVM >
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You have to understand what sells new cars to your average new car buyer. In the most part its look and feel. Your quality could be beyond reproach, but if it does not feel it and look it then it wont walk out the showroom.
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< Ex RF, Ex TVM >
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We're in the market for a small 4x4 to tow our caravan. Most of the magazines comment on the reputation of the previous CR-V and Freelander, but then give them both 4 stars out of 5 for quality. I don't know how they can guage real quality!
Heart says Freelander. Pocket says CR-V.
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Brain say's CRV as well - although WHEN the Freelander breaks down you will at least have the caravan to make a cup of tea while waiting for recovery.
Joking apart Marlot the previous generation CRV is not that heavy and may struggle to tow - depending on caravan size - make sure you check out towing weights etc - as I'm sure you will.
The X-trail is supposed be a good cvan tower.
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Japanese cars - real quality with no feel of quality. Flimsey dashboards, horrible plastics, loads of rattles but 20 years from now you just know it'll still work perfectly.
German cars - perceived quality but with less real quality than Japanese cars.
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"20 years from now you just know it'll still work perfectly"
Reminds me of a comment by Tim Hunkin who, when describing an old steam engine, mentioned that he had to correct people who thought that its age must mean it was very reliable. No, he said, it's just been unreliable for a very long time. He went on to say that the ideal machine would function perfectly throughout its life, then all the bits would fail at once. Difficult to arrange with a modern car!
Having two Mazdas with a combined age of 32 means that I tend to agree with your premise, although the Xedos does have a nicely understated interior. My pet hate is 'Mercedes wood' which is presumably real but has so much lacquer on it that it looks fake!
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My pet hate is 'Mercedes wood'
Interesting point that J-B because as you say it looks awful IMO as well but they gaurantee it will not splinter in an accident which also suggests that have gone to great lengths to consider this and "engineer" said wood such that it is safe (if wood can be engineered - I think you know what I mean).
So maybe another example of looks low quality but is in fact very good stuff.
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I have a theory regarding machinery, when buying a new car/van/truck or anything, don't test drive a new one, try one with some work under its belt. It's easy to make a machine feel nice in the show room, lets see how it feels after some use.
There was an article in WHATCAR? about the new Pug 308 or something. They said how they had gone to great lengths to make the cabin feel nice with the soft touch plastics that we are discusing. However no mention of rust, French electrics etc....
My Honda has just turned 9 years old. the only rattle is in the little cubby box on the drivers side. Everything works, it always starts, still doesn't use any oil and after 5 minutes washing it in the rain it still shines, there is no rust either. That to me is a quality product.
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Thing is, even long-term rattles, rust and wear are not necessarily an indicator of poor quality. Well not in a mechanical sense at least.
Yes, an old car that's noisy, rattly and rusty, and has worn seats is a rather unpleasant beast to drive, but a rattly dashboard isn't going to leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere at 3am.
Some cars do get a bit like that as they get older. But a lot of them just don't break -- everything keeps soldiering on even if it looks a little tired. That's real engineering.
However it has to be said that in my experience Honda (or at least 1990s Honda, who knows how the newer cars will fare) are about as close to the ideal car in terms of real quality as you can get. Brands like Toyota and Nissan are mechanically just as good, but the build quality isn't quite there in the way it is with Honda.
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>>> My Honda has just turned 9 years old. the only rattle is in the little cubby box on the drivers side. Everything works, it always starts, still doesn't use any oil and after 5 minutes washing it in the rain it still shines, there is no rust either. That to me is a quality product. >>>
My Astra is 8 years old, the only rattles have always been there. "Everything works, it always starts, still doesn't use any oil and after 5 minutes washing it in the rain it still shines, there is no rust either. That to me is a quality product."
Since I paid a lot less for my Astra than a Honda, surely we need a different yardstick of quality?
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As ever on here, the concepts of quality and specification are being mixed up.
Number_Cruncher
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As ever on here, the concepts of quality and specification are being mixed up.
Oh, where? The posts I've read seem to focus on the true integrity of the product, be it a cheap or expensive car. In fact, I've thought it a very 'grown-up' discussion - viz, the Peugeot & Astra owners not minding the obvious 'frailties' associated with the price band & seeing the long term endurance as more important. The only vague reference has been to fake Mercedes wood - and even that was acknowledged as being designed to be splinter proof in the event of accident, hence good design rather than 'specification'
There is a very sound engineering principle akin to the 'law' of diminishing returns, that is that even very well made, but highly complex machines produce as many failures as simpler, less expensive ones because there are more things or sub-systems to fail. This is as true in 'oily' engineering as in software engineering. This is why, for example Space shuttles are less reliable than Peugeot 306's, on a per-journey basis (or maybe even a passenger-kilometre basis - maybe someone could do the math!)
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I wasn't suggesting that the Astra is a quality car, it simply does what it was bought for, like the Honda.
Quality and reliability aren't the same thing - some cars, aircraft, etc are ultra-reliable because parts are routinely replaced BEFORE they get anywhere near their "mean time to failure"
My vote for quality that's already standing the test of time are the monocoque Rolls-Royce/Bentley cars introduced in the mid-60s, and their successors - I worked for Roll-Royce Ltd and Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd in the '60/70s so I am biased. The pushrod alloy V8, introduced in the '50s is still there, having been continuously developed to meet ever tightening emission regulations - at 500bhp/738lbft giving respectable output.
From press reports of electronic faults / handling debacles in some models/versions, I couldn't include Mercedes-Benz, as a brand, in the same league as Bentley, but some models may be better.
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>>I've thought it a very 'grown-up' discussion
I do agree.
Perhaps I have an unusually narrow idea and definition of quality. For me, quality is about something being a known quantity, whether or not you might think that the known quantity is "good" or not. Of course, the definition of what is "good" may also vary, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, etc, etc!
Suppose, if I set out to build an extremely cheap car, which was designed to last the 3 years of its warranty, and no more. If I set up my designs, my standards, methods and processes and achieve this, then I would say that quality control has been excellent, even though the cars would be being brushed out of their garages at age 37 months! To acheive a longer life would mean upping the specification, not the quality.
As a food example, because they have taken a tight control over all aspects of food delivery, preparation, and customer facing service, McDonalds have excellent quality. Whichever restarant you go into, you know exactly what you will get. I wouldn't choose to eat there myself though!
Number_Cruncher
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My perception of quality is baselined from any 90s Honda Motorcycle against anybody's else's (yes including BMW), As some know I have a very recent top end BMW and a 23 year old Honda in my garage, Comparing the side-stands on these says it all.....The Honda's is a superb bit of engineering, the BMWs is a mere metal stick.....there''s more than that to it, I remember the Tour de Force of quality engineering that was (and probably still is) Honda's VFR...
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Suppose, if I set out to build an extremely cheap car, which was designed to last the 3 years of its warranty, and no more. If I set up my designs, my standards, methods and processes and achieve this, then I would say that quality control has been excellent..
Of course - and this applies to any engineering process or product , in fact it's true to say having any sub-component, assembly or process which exceeds the projected life-cycle of the whole, is a 'bad' quality or poor design, since it increases cost/weight for no advantage The thing about cars though is that maufacturers never say a car is designed to last a finite amount time, the conceit being that your wallet straining investment will last forever.
What I took from this thread was, that the quality that was appreciated was the feeling that a car exceeded expectations, like an 'everlasting' Peugeot 306 (non-turbo) diesel or a 1990's Honda Civic. That the ideal F1 car engine/gearbox should, ideally, be designed to disintegrate just after Park Ferme inspection on its 2nd race after performing perfectly during the races is fine, but is emotionally intolerable to many when applied (or thought to apply) to consumable vehicles.
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>That the ideal F1 car engine/gearbox should, ideally, be designed to disintegrate just after Park >Ferme inspection on its 2nd race
Indeed,, apparently a famous discourse took place between colin chapman and one of his drivers. The driver complained bitterly about a vital part of his Lotus breaking apart on the run down lap after a Grand Prix. Colin rebuked the driver and exclaimed with delight about how the part had been engineered "just right"
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< Ex RF, Ex TVM >
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The thing about cars though is that maufacturers never say a car is designed to last a finite amount time the conceit being that your wallet straining investment will last forever.
Yes, although specifications for components vary widely between companies, data like the loading and number of cycles that parts are designed and developed to is not easily obtainable information. From hearsay evidence, I believe that the development and acceptance test sepecifications that Nissan used to place upon its suppliers were really quite stringent.
What I took from this thread was that the quality that was appreciated was the feeling that a car exceeded expectations like an 'everlasting' Peugeot 306 (non-turbo) diesel or a 1990's Honda Civic.
This exceeding of expectations really doesn't help the manufacturer. Of the people who bought Civics, 306s or W124s new, what proportion held onto them for longer than a few years? Although the secondhand and later buyers during the life of the vehicle gain a good car for little money, this doesn't help the manufacturer sell any new cars.
>>emotionally intolerable to many when applied (or thought to apply) to consumable vehicles.
To take the opposite approach from the 3 year life car, how many people would pay the costs required for, say, a car with a 40 year design life (like railway vehicles)
Number_Cruncher
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"The only vague reference has been to fake Mercedes wood"
I didn't say it was - I said it looked it!
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>>Yes, although specifications for components vary widely between companies,<<
I have seen this specs for Toyota and Honda cars but not any other manufacturers - I suppose the reason is that when benchmarking, most people see these 2 companies as having the best manufacturing systems and some of the highest quality products in the world.
What they do is list the criteria for making a car from the customers perspective (quality being nothing more than a manifestation of customer and regulatory requirements). They then score/record the best in class for each criteria and list everyting they need to do to exceed best in class for each criteria. It's all done using QFD basically.
Then they modify the design to make sure it will stand the test of time in terms of reliability and will sacrifice something accordingly - for example, Toyota know how to produce an Avensis that will handle better than a mondeo but if it means replacing rear sub frames after 3 years or so then they will sacrifice the handling for durability.
And yes JB definitely said it LOOKED fake - not that it was.
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