Are U.S. cars really that bad?

[BOXRPWR]

saw an article with this title on CNN.com it had this interesting chart

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a373/BOXRPWR/jd_power_2005.gif

 

I'm not advocating trading in the Subie for a Lincoln or Buick, but I thought this was an interesting, and somewhat surprising bit of info.

 

comments......

[PhilT]

JD Power is a cusomer satisfaction survey I think, maybe the people who buy Subaru's have higher standards and complain more about insignificant problems (just read some posts on here )

 

Whereas maybe a Lincoln owner is just happy he doesn't have a Ford ?

[legacysteve68]

:lol:

[Subastew]

Does the article define "problems" ? Do you think more non-american cars go in to fix the problems due to lack of available parts and/or knowledge? Either way, I have yet to come across someone who will say a subaru is less reliable than a GM or Pontiac.

[BOXRPWR]

the thing that made this data more meaningful to me was that it says its based on customer-feedback after 3 years of ownership. Sometimes you see JDP survey data that's based on really short ownership period like 90-days or maybe 1 year. But this data has to have some relevance because it comes from "seasoned" owners. I realize that customer opinion data is subjective by definition. But still.......

[drewster]

who is ranked #2? and where are the Germans?

[PhilT]

Surveys like this are terrible, the bosses of all the domestic manufacturers will read that and wonder where they are going wrong. They are lead to believe that their cars are superior to foreign makes, and keep producing the same old crap because they get good scores on this kind of survey.

 

Pah !

[Boostjunkie]

I think the chart posted omitted all the European makes, so as to compare the relative reliabilty of US makes versus Japanese makes. Judging from the skipped numbers, I'd say that those ranking were occupied by Euro makes.

[PGT]

I fail to give any credibility to a chart with such a glaring spelling error.

[HansGT]

JD Power is a cusomer satisfaction survey I think, maybe the people who buy Subaru's have higher standards and complain more about insignificant problems (just read some posts on here )

 

Whereas maybe a Lincoln owner is just happy he doesn't have a Ford ?

 

+1

[BOXRPWR]

Paul is correct. The CNN.com article was specifically about comparing the US-built brands to Japanese auto brands. A footnote in the chart says that European brands were omitted. The rankings that are skipped are surely the European results.

[scubie02]

Besides various foreign cars I have owned quite a number of Fords, and have to say that if anything the Fords were, in general, less problematic than my foreign cars, and wayyyyy cheaper to fix when there WAS a problem, so my own personal experience has not been that foreign cars are more reliable. This is based on the 12-15 or so vehicles I have personally owned over the years. Not a huge sample by any means, but enough to see a trend. I've had some problems with every one of my foreign cars, which were all purchased new and traded by the time they were three years old at the latest, with 43k being the highest mileage I have kept a foreign car to. Whereas I have had several american cars I kept much longer--ones I bought new went as high as 130k miles with pretty much no problems. Used beaters I have had have gone into the 200k mile range.

 

I've actually been thinking I might go back to american cars. If they just had the 4 dr sports sedans I tend to favor, and which the foreign makers all have but the US ones do not...*sigh*...

[gt_ltd]

Whereas maybe a Lincoln owner is just happy he doesn't have a Ford ?

 

+1

[elpete77]

JD Power is a cusomer satisfaction survey I think, maybe the people who buy Subaru's have higher standards and complain more about insignificant problems (just read some posts on here )

 

Whereas maybe a Lincoln owner is just happy he doesn't have a Ford ?

 

Ford owner complaint: "My car exploded while I was idling at a stop light."

 

Subaru owner complaint: "The difference between volume level 9 and 10 is not as uniform as the difference between all other levels."

[raz-0]

well, one thing to keep in mind is this is the number of problems per 100 vehicles.

 

The lincoln owners had 1 problem for every other car. But if they were like my friend who had a lincoln that was essentially undrivable 50% of the time because something was fundamentally screwed up with the drivetrain, that's a BIG problem. Less than three years, was a company car, and the lemon law replacement was later replaced for the same issue.

 

He got his about a year after I got my old eclipse that I didtched. Myself, I had no problems with that car beyond the negative grounding wire formt he battery to the frame going bad, and a downstream O2 sensor that was bad from the factory.

 

Who had the less reliable car? by this poll's metric my car was twice as unreliable as his cars that spent more time off the road than on and were both lemon lawed if "drivetrain being craptastically screwed and unfixable" is counted as one problem since it ceased to be in his ownership. Heck, even if you count it as three each car before it was lemon lawed, and it only happened to one in 6 cars, which is more reliable? There's a 1 in 6 chance this car will be a useless heap of scrap metal in 6 months vs. this car will likely have two minor issues covered under warranty doesn't sound like a great comparison.

[jj808]

So as per that survey there isnt a single car manufacturer in Europe...

[silverfool]

Ford owner complaint: "My car exploded while I was idling at a stop light."

 

Subaru owner complaint: "The difference between volume level 9 and 10 is not as uniform as the difference between all other levels."

 

man, that's priceless...

[rporter]

Besides various foreign cars I have owned quite a number of Fords, and have to say that if anything the Fords were, in general, less problematic than my foreign cars, and wayyyyy cheaper to fix when there WAS a problem, so my own personal experience has not been that foreign cars are more reliable.

 

+1

 

If the LGT does as well as my last few Fords (one sold after 10 years with 182K, has 220K today, another with 191K when sold last December, etc), it will prove itself.

 

WRT to US mfrs, Ford is my first choice of vehicles. The Hemi cars are tempting but I would have to give them a few years to prove themselves to be reliable.

 

The 3-year JD Powers study is a good one, much more meaningful than their 90-day initial ownership survey (which I feel reflects more on the dealer prep....or lack thereof).

[godwhomismike]

who is ranked #2? and where are the Germans?

 

 

They're off the chart :lol:

[Aczwild]

Besides various foreign cars I have owned quite a number of Fords, and have to say that if anything the Fords were, in general, less problematic than my foreign cars, and wayyyyy cheaper to fix when there WAS a problem, so my own personal experience has not been that foreign cars are more reliable. This is based on the 12-15 or so vehicles I have personally owned over the years. Not a huge sample by any means, but enough to see a trend. I've had some problems with every one of my foreign cars, which were all purchased new and traded by the time they were three years old at the latest, with 43k being the highest mileage I have kept a foreign car to. Whereas I have had several american cars I kept much longer--ones I bought new went as high as 130k miles with pretty much no problems. Used beaters I have had have gone into the 200k mile range.

 

I've actually been thinking I might go back to american cars. If they just had the 4 dr sports sedans I tend to favor, and which the foreign makers all have but the US ones do not...*sigh*...

ORLY?

 

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/11/web/455000-455999/455917_20_full.jpg

[msmith]

I rented a Lincoln LS V6 with less than 10,000 miles on the clock and it was a horrible POS.... it vibrated, rattled and was appalling dynamically. The interior is crap, the engine doesn't make power (just noise)... NO THANKS!

[PGT]

I rented a Lincoln LS V6 with less than 10,000 miles on the clock and it was a horrible POS.... it vibrated, rattled and was appalling dynamically. The interior is crap, the engine doesn't make power (just noise)... NO THANKS!

 

but all the car mags said it was the American BMW when it was released!! How could they be so wrong??

[gt_ltd]

the American BMW sucks

[rporter]

I rented a Lincoln LS V6 with less than 10,000 miles on the clock and it was a horrible POS.... it vibrated, rattled and was appalling dynamically. The interior is crap, the engine doesn't make power (just noise)... NO THANKS!

 

Oh c'mon, the V6 rental version? When do you expect a car in the renal fleet to represent what real people by? I know folks wth LS V8s that love the cars.

 

I love BMWs, but the lower-level 5-series cars are boring to me. The LS V8 price-wise and amenity-wise is very comparabe to a lower-level 5-series with an automatic.

 

I have rented cars like Caddy DeVilles and SLSs, which are not representative of what folks would normally buy.

[IwannaSportSedan]

American cars vs Foreign... This debate will go on for ever, and EVERYONE has anecdotal evidence to support their opinion.

 

There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.

 

One thing to think of is volume. There are a few japanese nameplates, like accord and camry that sell a LOT of units. There are many japanese nameplates that sell very few units (like subaru having 1% marketshare... no american car company, or even brand group is that low, that I know of, though some are getting closer.)

 

So, per 100 cars, a few mishaps will knock subaru down bigtime. A few mishaps for chevy doesn't mean as much because they sell MANY times more units. Sometimes more units of a model monthly than most Subaru models sell all year.

 

Law of averages serves to minimize the impact for the company that sells more units.

 

My anecdotal evidence is something that people here mentioned already. Big vs. Small.

 

Ford Mustang 4-cyl Auto - US: Horrible paint and interior quality, slow, and marginal handling. blew 2 transmissions. second time I sold the shell for 300$

 

Ford Probe GT V6 manual - mostly Japan (made by mazda) Nice paint and interior, although wear became apparent later, but considered normal. Nice interior. No major chassis issues, ignition coil failure (hard to get part, took weeks for correct part.) No other major issues with drivetrain.

 

Ford Ranger 4.0 4x4. - US - maybe made in mexico... (All fords will be in the future... after laying off more US workers...) Brake problem, hard to get correct part for. Engine idles VERY roughly, intermittently. changed ignition and fuel system components with no change. craptastic but utilitarian interior. Very resilient paint, but front end is chrome bumper and grille...

 

99 Mazda Miata. - 100% Japan. Interior issues (easily worn upholstery after less than 35k miles.) but nice looking design. Coil pack intermittent cut-out issue, car ran badly. Ignition components replaced, part easy to get and install. lead to 02 sensor failure. Poor OE paint quality, chips easily and not clear coated.

Engine and chassis run fine aside from above mentioned coil failure.

 

 

So... Japanese tends to be nicer looking and have smaller, less critical problems, that are generally easier to solve. American tend to have larger problems, and lower material and design quality. None are truly exemplary.