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Hi Steve, I would suggest that your "statistical sample" would not be large enough to gain credibility for your theory in most places other than the News Of The World, but it's a useful start for a discussion :)
VW, BMW & more recently Audi have all done fantastic job in creating a desire in the UK car owning / leasing public to drive one. In the case of VW this has been primarily aimed at reliability - "if only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen".
In practice, they are of average reliability - not as good as Japanese or Korean but better than most European except Ford.
Sadly (IMO) the UK car buying / leasing public crave image above all else; they beam with pride on the admiring glances they get when it's parked in the drive, moan to the dealer when it breaks down, then promptly order another one when it comes to 3 years old - but hey, it's their money & their choice.
What I find is more worrying is the amount of German badged cars (Mercedes excepted) that are driven highly aggresively & dangerously compared to other marques. What is the appeal that VAG, BMW & Porsche have to the nutters on our roads - do they make them feel they are in command of a Panzer division crossing the Polish border?
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What is the appeal that VAG, BMW & Porsche have to the nutters on our roads - do they make them feel they are in command of a Panzer division crossing the Polish border?
No - they feel like Blucher and the Prussians racing to Waterloo just in time to turn the battle against Napoleon.
I see just as many Peugeots, Fords and Vauxhalls driving 6 inches from the bumper of the car in front as I do German badged cars. In fact, if I had to pick a prime offender it would be Range Rover. The Mrs and I often joke that they must pull to the right, because they always seem to be in the outside lane of the motorway and frighteningly close to the car in front of them.
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I see just as many Peugeots, Fords and Vauxhalls driving 6 inches from the bumper of the car in front as I do German badged cars.
This Peugeot. It wasnt a Silver 406 51 plate was it? LOL!
No its an interesting point and an interesting thread. Obviously a handful sample isnt big enough to determine anythingbut if everyone was to note in this thread everytime they see a broken down car, to note what make it was, could end up an interesting survey.
I think if it proves anything its that pretty much all cars are as reliable as each other, the lesser makes have closed the gap on the once superior elite and theres not much generally to pick between any of them, aside from some much publicised faults (Mazda's issues with diesels, for example). The last car i saw broken down which was saturday, on a slip road no less (now thats just awful luck) was a Renault Megane.
I think when a reputation gets around, like BMW Driver or something, a Vauxhall doing the same thing wont stick in your mind so much, reputation can preceed you somewhat. I must say ive noticed on more than one occasion glancing in my rear view mirror doing the legal speed for the road and seeing the four rings barreling up behind me doing five times the speed of sound. Also to be fair, only 20 odd years ago Merc and BMW were luxury cars for rich people, they're now common and accessible, meaning you'll see more of them, meaning more chance of finding an idiot in one, and also more chance of seeing one break down.
My standard joke though is how it must be in the Mercedes Benz handbook, a little warning notice with a red box round it saying "Warning. This is a Mercedes Benz. Please use indicators Sparingly."
Edited by jamie745 on 19/07/2011 at 03:10
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Unfortunately some of the Japanese car firms got sucked into the european's reliability issues as many share platforms and components - Mazda's diesel problem, as far as I'm aware, was down to using a PSA/Ford-sourced engine. I know from my own car a 2006/55 Mazda 3, that all the issues (recalls etc) with the model in general were parts that were shared with other makes (diesel engine, stability control/ESP) - see HJ review.
Now that Mazda is effectively "divorced" from Ford, we may see reliability increasing again - I think they, and other Japanese makes, have learnt their lessen, especially after the highly publiced problems at Toyota.
Unfortunately for many of the european makes, a philosophy still appears to exist where they make their cars very complex, with endless options for new gizmos and gadgets, which seem to often go wrong. It's noticeable that the far eastern makes have always tended to offer less variants/options on models, in line with the phase "keep it simple, stupid" (or kiss, for short). Perahps there's a lesson for the europeans there?
Edited by Avant on 20/07/2011 at 01:13
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a philosophy still appears to exist where they make their cars very complex, with endless options for new gizmos and gadgets, which seem to often go wrong. It's noticeable that the far eastern makes have always tended to offer less variants/options on models, in line with the phase "keep it simple, stupid" (or kiss, for short). Perahps there's a lesson for the europeans there?
I'm sorry but this is completely untrue. Japanese car makers offer far more model permutations than Europeam models.. For example, stop/start technology was available in Japan long before Europe , and lots of 4x4 versions of cars we never see.
And Japanese cars have many more electrical gadgets which tend to work perfectly for years. The difference is teh quality of design of electrical fittings, the wiring and the connectors..And - on the whole - far more user friendly layouts. under the bonnet.
Remember the poor reputation French cars had for electrics? That was larley due to bad lavouts and cheap and nasty connectors...
Ford learned that lesson decades ago.. as have BMW. Mercedes and PSA/Renault appear to have to relearn it..
VW? Cost cutting rules at times. (See coils..)
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I would agree with pretty much everything in the post, madf. Especially the bit about cheap connectors and wiring. It's not difficult to see why they cut those corners though since car makers will want to pump their money into components that affect the performance of the car on the measred parameters (fuel economy, power, NVH etc.) and a cheap connector works as well as a good one-when it works.
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Sadly (IMO) the UK car buying / leasing public crave image above all else; they beam with pride on the admiring glances they get when it's parked in the drive, moan to the dealer when it breaks down, then promptly order another one when it comes to 3 years old - but hey, it's their money & their choice.
I remember taking the sister-in-law car shopping, and when it came down to the choice the justification came down to "Yes, I really liked the A and the B, the A was much nicer inside, and the B was actually a much better car to drive. But I want the Polo."
So she's then spent the last couple of years driving around in a car which (unlike brands A and B) didn't have air conditioning, electric front windows, or even doors for the rear passengers!!!
She then has the audacity to look unimpressed at the wife's Fabia, despite that coming with climate control, electric windows, front fog lights, 8 speaker CD/MP3 player, five doors, etc.
She was quite surprised just how similar it looked inside to her Polo, I didn't have the heart to tell her why that might be.
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An interesting observation Steve. My neighbours have an 08 Passat, 07 Clio and a 57 Clio. All diesels and owned from new. They all eat front tyres, but the Clio's have been paragons of reliability( so far). The Passat has been back to the dealership four times for injector, turbo and air con problems. At the moment in their household its France 2-0 Germany.
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Perhaps the Fords and Vauxhalls didn't start that morning, the only breakdowns you would see would be the cars that made it out of the drive.
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Recently on my trips up and down the M1 and M6, I have seen many VW's on the hard shoulder too. I've always been of the opinion that jap cars are the most reliable. in the last 6 months I have only seen 2 jap cars broken down on the hard shoulder. I think i'll stick to the japs
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Very rarely see any American cars on the hard shoulder....think I'll buy a TransAm.
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:)
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In the technical forum a short time ago, of of the first 10 complaints, five were fords, two were VW, are three other brands. That seems to match my experience.
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A snapshot of today's problem page first 10 shows: 5 ford, 2 vw, 1 mini, 1 peugeot and one mazda. Therefore if I buy any make of car, other than those, I should be OK. Scratch the TransAm, get me an Alfa or a Vel Satis (I really would like one of those).
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Very rarely see any American cars on the hard shoulder....think I'll buy a TransAm.
The percentage of American cars sold in the UK market is tiny, go figure
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I think his tongue was being pressed very firmly into his cheek.
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davmal - I like your thinking :-)
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Snobs :)
God love em
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Interesting to see the real-life figures for this subject, in the columns to the right of this forum
www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/tax-insurance-and-warran.../
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But that's only cars registered with a warranty company-perhaps not an accurate cross section of the nation's cars. Also it doesn't differentiate between different types of faults. A short lived wheel bearing or bushes is an irritation but nowhere near as expensive or inconvenient as a failed DMF or unit injector. Sorry, but I think this 'news story' is an advertorial.
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It lacks a huge amount of detail. What does electrical failure mean, as a starter? It certainly sounds serious and expensive, but the lack of any credible data suggests that it's a way of encouraging people into buying a warranty.
In my own experience, having had both a car with electrical gremlins and Warranty Direct warranty, it made very little difference. Several dealers were unable to isolate the "faults" to a particular part, and I kept on paying for diagnostics whilst with no actual parts were replaced the warranty never actually paid out.
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See Reliability Index http://www.reliabilityindex.com/
for costs and volume combined...
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Although this seems a well respected and oft quoted tool, it is only the results from one company, from people who have felt the need to take out an aftermarket warranty, far from conclusive, but maybe better than ignorance.
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and see what the german auto owners association finds in its yearly breakdown statistics by model. The more reliable are not always as one expects. (ADAC, pannenstatistiks)
www.adac.de/infotestrat/unfall-schaeden-und-panne/...9
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Interesting that one...
Unless you drive a Honda, most cars have actually improved their reliability over the last six years. Just be careful which model you buy.
In fact it's interesting that every manufacturer has a problem child - Kia Picanto, Hyundai i30, etc but even brands like Toyota have models with wildly different reliability.
VW actually come out rather well, unless it's a 3+ year old Passat which is just average - still well above the equivalent Ford or Opel...
So, the phrase should now be...
"If only everything was reliable as a 1 series, A3, Golf, B-class or A-class".
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It still doesn't give the full picture.
- It ONLY covers cars with a WD policy.
- It ONLY covers claims where WD actually paid out.
The first is just a sampling issue - although it could cause wildly varying results for niche vehicles due to low sample size.
The second issue is more subtle. Model X from brand Y might have massive problems with parts that simply aren't covered by a WD warranty - but you'll never hear about them because no claim can ever be made.
Our issue with the Picasso was one example - the dealers could only resort to changing electrical parts until the problem went away, something WD would not be prepared to entertain, so we got rid of the car rather than spend 2k on parts which "might" fix the problem.
The car was actually UNreliable - wipers would operate at random, the car would regularly turn itself off at 70mph on the motorway (actually, not the big deal people often make of it), the clock and service indicator would randomly reset to a random number (47486 miles to your next service), the instrument panel would sometimes dim itself to zero when the lights were turned on, the instrument panel would light up all digits at random, the petrol gauge would go down when you filled up with petrol, etc, etc.
It had three radios, two instrument clusters, several COMM 2000 (?) modules, about 15 software patches - all when under the manufacturer's warranty.
We took out a WD warranty when the car was three years old, the problems continued, but since we never made a successful warranty claim, according to WD it was 100% reliable!
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The car was actually UNreliable - wipers would operate at random, the car would regularly turn itself off at 70mph on the motorway (actually, not the big deal people often make of it),
But Sid, your wife and children could have been killed!
Regards
Mr Angry of Tunbridge Wells
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