[HN Gopher] Who makes the most reliable new cars?
___________________________________________________________________
Who makes the most reliable new cars?
Author : deletionist
Score : 478 points
Date : 2023-11-29 18:42 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.consumerreports.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.consumerreports.org)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Hard to answer the question because "reliable" means different
| things to different people. Infotainment system keeps dropping
| Bluetooth connections? "Unreliable." Engine seizes at 70 MPH?
| "Unreliable." Car only has minor mechanical problems, but dealers
| can't get parts for months? "Unreliable."
|
| A car is too complex a thing to be characterized with a single
| scalar value.
| qup wrote:
| I prefer the opinions of mechanics.
|
| There was a reddit thread this year where someone asked "what
| brand would you tell everyone to avoid", and it was a pretty
| unanimous "Toyota wins."
|
| Hopefully they'll quit making infotainment systems. I like my
| phone->FM adapter.
|
| Edit: I worded my comment poorly. The mechanics all love
| Toyota. Everything else was on many guys' shit-lists.
| saltymug76 wrote:
| Do you have a link to that thread?
| qup wrote:
| Maybe here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jbw
| 8i7/mechanics...
|
| Older than I thought, but perhaps I just stumbled across it
| this year. That's the only one I could find with a big
| number of comments, like I recall.
| saltymug76 wrote:
| Thank you!
| 10000truths wrote:
| Any details on why? I was under the impression that Camrys
| and Corollas are infamous for lasting a long time.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > There was a reddit thread this year where someone asked
| "what brand would you tell everyone to avoid", and it was a
| pretty unanimous "Toyota wins."
|
| Interesting, as I was under the assumption that Toyota and
| Honda were the cheapest to repair.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Surely Toyota didn't win "most avoided", but rather most
| recommended?
|
| But same re. infotainment. I have a suction cup MagSafe
| charging mount for my 2004 4Runner and I patched a bluetooth
| receiver into the stock head unit. Nothing better than that
| glorious amber glow when driving late at night. LCD's are
| blinding by comparison.
|
| Plus this way I don't ever have to enter the iPhone's
| crippled CarPlay navigation mode, or really deal with CarPlay
| ever. I just use the phone the same as any other time, no new
| UI or "safe driving" features to obstruct me.
| qup wrote:
| Yes, they won most recommended, sorry. I spent a while
| looking for the thread, but can't find it. Here's a very
| similar one, though, which was in AskReddit vs
| AskMechanics.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jbw8i7/mechanic
| s...
|
| Interestingly, on the OP link, they don't list the Tacoma,
| notoriously one of the most reliable vehicles.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Weird that consumer reports would exclude one of the top
| selling Toyota vehicles in the US.
| Vecr wrote:
| "Not technically a car" but I don't think that's the
| correct reason for why the article wouldn't have.
| explaininjs wrote:
| They include Tundra
| dave8088 wrote:
| I have a feeling you're misremembering the details. Toyota's
| have a reputation for being some of the most reliable cars.
| BrentOzar wrote:
| > it was a pretty unanimous "Toyota wins."
|
| Part of the reason is that Toyota uses really conservative,
| classic engineering. They sell things that have worked well
| for decades, and they're hesitant to introduce new features.
|
| That's also why their infotainment systems are notoriously
| terrible and they lagged years behind everyone else on
| selling electric cars. Gotta take the good with the bad.
| davidw wrote:
| > and they lagged years behind everyone else on selling
| electric cars
|
| I thought part of that was that they were big believers in
| hydrogen?
| contact9879 wrote:
| after learning about how conservative Toyota is in
| general, their interest in hydrogen seems blown out of
| proportion solely because every other manufacture was so
| quick to move to electric. Toyota is still in the "figure
| out what works best long term" phase
| davidw wrote:
| I am more of a bike guy, so it was just something I
| recall reading. I don't have any deep insights into the
| car industry. I do have a Toyota though and it seems to
| run pretty well and gets me from place to place when
| needed.
| deng wrote:
| From TFA: "We study 20 trouble areas, from nuisances--such as
| squeaky brakes and broken interior trim--to major bummers, such
| as potentially expensive out-of-warranty engine, transmission,
| EV battery, and EV charging problems. [...] We weigh the
| severity of each type of problem to create a predicted
| reliability score for each vehicle, from 1 to 100."
| crazygringo wrote:
| The article explicitly accounts for the severity of different
| issues, and assigns them different point values.
|
| You absolutely can reduce it to a single scalar value. You
| might personally disagree with the weights, but then your
| calculation is just a little bit different.
|
| And you _have_ to be able to reduce it to a scalar value at the
| end of the day, or else you 'd never be able to make a decision
| about which car to buy, because you'd be entirely paralyzed
| when it came to cost/benefit assessments.
| Vecr wrote:
| Technically a resolute agent can handle a utility function
| that messed up, but I'm not sure if people in general would
| be able to self-commit well enough.
| afjeafaj848 wrote:
| Exactly
|
| Its like counting number of bugs or lines of codes as metrics
| irtefa wrote:
| No way Mini is in the top 3!
| quaffapint wrote:
| I'd love to know what happened there. They used to be on their
| unreliable list for years.
| antod wrote:
| Yeah that is surprising. And if they had enough data for Land
| Rover, pretty sure that would be near the bottom.
| smlacy wrote:
| Very weird how EVs and ICEs are intermixed.
|
| I would expect vastly different results across different
| drivetrains, and probably even more differences across shape/size
| platforms (compact, sedan, truck, van, etc.).
| wyldfire wrote:
| There's a chart "How Electrified Powertrains Compare" which
| shows "Problems compared to gasoline-powered vehicles." You
| might be surprised to see that in fact EVs fare significantly
| worse than ICEs. I'd wager that they're mostly newer designs
| that naturally have bugs but instead of making modest changes
| to the car design in a new model, they're making
| significant/sweeping changes.
| bad_alloc wrote:
| Oddly enough they don't state what the problems are.
| Meanwhile the ADAC (German car club) find that EVs have
| similar defect rates in components they share with ICE while
| having less engine issues. Overall, they conclude there is
| insufficient data for a meaningful statistic at this time:
|
| https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-
| panne/a...
| kipchak wrote:
| For example the Mach-e has had issues with contactors welding
| open during heavy usage and charging as the same part was
| used between the standard and higher performance model.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| I agree with you in principle but I think if you're Consumer
| Reports and you know much of your audience is very nontechnical
| (ie, will only have a very surface-level understanding of
| electric vs hybrid vs ICE) it makes some sense to attempt to
| distill an entire brand down to a single datapoint.
|
| Many readers aren't savvy and just want to know what dealership
| to show up at to start asking what they can afford. If brand
| XYZ has amazing ICE reliability but their EVs are trash, you
| suddenly need to be a more informed consumer when you get to
| that dealership. Easier to just rank the companies with a long
| history of reliability across multiple product segments higher.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| In the end, they're both a type of "car". And they're judged on
| how reliably they "car".
|
| It's especially important to see how they compare given the
| zealous push for EVs to replace ICE completely.
| neogodless wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Cars, including sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons, remain the
| most reliable vehicle type, with an average reliability rating
| of 57 (on a scale of 0 to 100), followed by SUVs (50) and
| minivans (45). "Sedans have fallen out of favor with consumers,
| but as a class they are very reliable," says Jake Fisher,
| senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. "They
| often have less of the latest technology and features that can
| cause problems before the bugs are worked out." Pickup trucks
| come in last, with an average reliability rating of 41.
| afjeafaj848 wrote:
| > Pickup trucks come in last, with an average reliability
| rating of 41
|
| That surprises me because I've browsed a lot of use vehicles
| and it seems to me like pickups can go to way higher miles
| than cars. I see a lot of them still run fine with 150,000+
| miles
|
| Maybe the owners are more willing to pay for major repairs
| though since getting a new one is so expensive?
| opencl wrote:
| This CR report is about the reliability of _new_ cars over
| the first year of ownership. The correlation to how many
| issues there will be 10, 15, 20 years down the line is
| rather tenuous.
| notatoad wrote:
| i don't think it's weird, reputation is one of the whole
| reasons for the existence of brands. If an ICE brand is willing
| to put their reputation on the line to bring an EV to market,
| that means something different than if they were to market
| their EVs under a new brand name.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Well, yes but then also newcomers to car design world make tons
| of design mistakes that seems clever at the start but do bite
| back later.
|
| For most folks buying a car these days, if they choose EV its
| not due to environmental concerns, not primarily or
| secondarily, at least I don't know single one person among EV
| owners. They just want a reliable car, and 130 years of fine
| tuning combustion engines can end up more reliable in say 15
| years than shiny unproven electric design (single case 1 but I
| can provide such - my previous bmw e46 vs tesla model s of my
| colleague, or model 3 of another colleague).
| raajg wrote:
| I don't see how 'Tesla' is not top of the list here. For the
| 'Trouble Areas' I suspected they're normalizing over the 'length
| of ownership' which would bias the scores towards older car
| companies.
| smlacy wrote:
| Often times "Reliability" is calculated as "fraction of cars
| that have a recall or other unscheduled maintenance during the
| initial N months of ownership" and I believe Tesla is actually
| quite high in this regard?
|
| https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehi...
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| My Tesla has been much less costly to own over the last three
| years than my Honda Odyssey: I have had several mobile repair
| visits for cosmetic issues and some OTA "recalls" but I find
| it hard to believe that any ICE car is more "reliable" than a
| Model 3 that didn't gave obvious QC issues at delivery.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| It remains to be seen how an 8 year old Tesla fares against
| an 8 year old Odyssey.
| stonogo wrote:
| The linked article differentiates cost of ownership and
| reliability. An unreliable car can be low-ownership-cost if
| it's under warranty.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I mean, much less maintenance in absolute terms: no oil
| changes, transmission trouble, etc. Mostly just replacing
| windshield wipers and tires. The mobile service issues
| were all basically cosmetic issues that wouldn't really
| impact reliability.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| On the contrary, I'm impressed by how much Tesla has improved.
| They used to be second last, and the effort they've put into
| improving quality - especially on the Model 3 - is clearly
| paying off.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Tesla's reliability scores have always been pure and utter
| trash. This is the best result they have ever had. While other
| companies have a higher failure rate of major drivetrain
| components, Tesla is stuck somewhere between reinventing
| everything (thus lacking legacy knowledge) and not fixing
| things because they don't have the time/manpower for it. A
| great example of this is Model 3 Suspension failures. The Model
| 3 upper control arms are known to fail prematurely and
| seemingly, there is no fix. By all means, this is an extremely
| dangerous failure that can cause loss of vehicle control.
| Germany has a far more serious inspection process than the US
| and the result for Tesla is truly a disaster:
| https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-model-3-is-the-car-...
| ajross wrote:
| > Tesla's reliability scores have always been pure and utter
| trash.
|
| Linked article is _literally_ reliability score that puts
| them dead center in the middle of the pack.
|
| I'm amazed at the investment people have on arguments about
| Tesla, and this particular canard especially. I mean, they're
| cars? Sometimes they break? But not often? Some other brands
| are better. But some are worse!
|
| It's a boring story about boring facts. Why is it so
| important to you (and so many other people) that this be a
| hyperbolic affront to all humanity and not just... a car
| company?
| Vecr wrote:
| > This is the best result they have ever had. If this is
| the best they've ever had for a report it means that all
| the other reports were worse.
| ajross wrote:
| Or... that they're improving rapidly and we should
| celebrate that? Does that spin not work for you?
|
| Look, again: they make cars. Cars are complicated devices
| and sometimes break. There's some, but not a lot, of
| variation between individual manufacturers in the
| frequency with which they break. And _that 's not very
| interesting_, and doesn't justify the kind of outrage I'm
| seeing in threads like this.
|
| Whatever has you guys all puffed up about this, it's not
| genuine concern for poor Tesla owners who spend 15% more
| time in the shop, or whatever.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't see how 'Tesla' is not top of the list here_
|
| Tesla owners love their cars. This means they tend to overlook
| issues others might find unacceptable. If my car just refused
| to drive until I restarted it a few times, that would be a
| catastrophic fuckup. But I've seen Tesla owners shrug that
| away.
|
| Which is fine! There have _always_ been legendary cars with
| notorious maintenance issues. But base reliability matters to
| most, and it matters to track that neutrally.
| mkii wrote:
| Is it fine though? For people to use machines that are known
| to put others in danger? I'm referring to "FSD" doing
| absolutely bullshit things like not detecting objects in the
| way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _referring to "FSD" doing absolutely bullshit things like
| not detecting objects in the way_
|
| Did _Consumer Reports_ look at FSD? I don 't think optional
| features like that factor into reliability.
| mkii wrote:
| I didn't say it did?
| mkii wrote:
| Ah yes, Tesla. The brand where new owners have to consult
| third-party compiled QA checklists because of how poor their
| own controls are
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I don't own a Tesla, but just from observing them on the road
| and in the neighbourhood I can tell there are many reliability
| issues just with the easily observable features:
|
| * Model S third brake light has single LEDs failing one by one
|
| * Model X doors don't open in sub-zero weather, friends of us
| had an ICE rental car for weeks last winter
|
| * All models, automatic activation of rear driving lights at
| night does not work
|
| * All models, cruise control or something will sometimes
| suddenly slam the brakes on wide open road, so you need to keep
| good distance
|
| * Model 3 and Y automatic high beams / matrix LED don't
| function correctly at night if the car is dirty, they blind
| everyone on the road - I will be very surprised if this doesn't
| trigger a recall soon
|
| * Model X front driving light clusters failing, I've seen
| several, all on the passenger side
|
| * Model 3 and Y, rear lights plastic cracking like it's a 1980s
| Hyundai
| ecliptik wrote:
| > Model 3 and Y automatic high beams / matrix LED don't
| function correctly at night if the car is dirty, they blind
| everyone on the road - I will be very surprised if this
| doesn't trigger a recall soon
|
| Is that what that is? I thought it was my eyes getting older
| when thinking car headlights are brighter at night than they
| used to be. We live in an area with a high % of Teslas on the
| road and this could explain a lot.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Well, yes and no. The first development which is more than
| ten years old at this point, was to have projector xenon
| lights that are veery bright below a sharp line. That line
| is supposed to be kept below eye level of oncoming traffic,
| and there is a sensor that adjusts the line height. In
| Europe there is also a requirement to have washers on the
| headlights if you have this. The system kind of works fine,
| except when it doesn't, for instance when driving over a
| curved hill where it cannot work due to geometry, or when a
| sensor fails.
|
| Then in the past 3-4 years, matrix LED lights became
| popular, where you have an array of LEDs with narrow beam
| optics that are aimed in a slight spread, so that each LED
| covers a specific area of the road ahead. Then there is a
| sensor that detects oncoming traffic, and dims the one or
| two LEDs that point towards those cars.
|
| On the Model 3 and Y there seems to be a particularly
| frequent failure mode with the matrix LED where the lights,
| or sometimes just one of them, doesn't detect oncoming
| traffic at all. It also occurs when they are driving behind
| someone.
|
| Couple of weeks ago I was behind such a Tesla at night, and
| I had to just let him get far in front of me, because he
| kept getting blinked at with the ultra-powered high beams
| of every oncoming semi trailer. Of course the poor driver
| couldn't do a thing about it.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > All models, cruise control or something will sometimes
| suddenly slam the brakes on wide open road, so you need to
| keep good distance
|
| You saw this on all models, on the road and/or in your
| neighborhood? (I mean surely not, but I'm curious to know how
| you came to this conclusion.)
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Teslas represent around 25% of all new vehicle sales around
| here, so we get to experience a lot of the "beta testing in
| prod", yes.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Well, - frozen doors, LEDs failing, misaligned headlights,
| radar/camera cruise control suddenly braking for no reason -
| there are all pretty common and happen to all cars, not just
| Teslas.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Lexus is toyota. Accura is honda. So it's really like:
|
| 1. Toyota
|
| 2. Mini
|
| 3. Honda
|
| 4. Subaru
|
| 5. Mazda
|
| Congratulations Japan.
| smlacy wrote:
| Isn't Mini BMW?
| neogodless wrote:
| Yes. But still, 4/5 of the most reliable brands (including
| their luxury division) are Japanese. BMW/Mini is up there,
| though!
| tim333 wrote:
| It's nice and slightly surprising to see something somewhat
| made in Britain up there in reliability. I know BMW own it
| but a lot are still made outside Oxford.
| tirant wrote:
| Yes, but mini cars only cover the lower and cheapest segment
| of the market, that is the UKL platform that BMW only uses
| for the X1, X2, 1 series and 2 series GC.
|
| So probably the highest complexity of the more premium
| platforms and features is bringing the reliability down for
| BMW, unsurprisingly (a v8 engine probably would fail earlier
| than a simple 3-cylinder engine)
| bad_alloc wrote:
| Mini is BMW
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| It's incredible how the Japanese carmakers were able to perfect
| the auto manufacturing process and then proceed to hold that
| advantage for what, 30+ years now? It's not a secret how they
| did it, it's been studied to death, every manner of
| technology/expertise/management transfer has been tried, and
| still no one comes quite close enough to threaten their
| position.
| bena wrote:
| I think it's just commitment to the process at this point.
|
| The hard bit isn't the process per se, it's executing the
| process when it would otherwise be easier not to.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume it's because the other nations' automakers would
| rather compete along other lines. The Japanese already locked
| onto reliability/quality, so rather than try to fight them on
| something they are already good at, they try to optimize for
| style/status/performance/patriotism/etc.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Maybe they are too stubborn to succumb to 'the race to the
| bottom' cost (and correspondingly quality) wise, since these
| things do bite back after longer time than current year exec
| bonuses materialize.
|
| Or maybe they have different approach to beta testing, see
| say Zelda come out basically flawless and how say Betshesda
| or many others can deliver their stuff (beta testing months
| after release with fixes have 1000+ rather basic items).
| ajross wrote:
| To be fair, exactly that level of investment in process and
| conservatism around change is arguably what led them all
| (literally every single Japanese manufacturer) to miss the
| boat on EVs.
|
| Basically, getting to your last sentence: you have the wrong
| threat model. Making "cars better" is great if what a "car"
| is doesn't change. But what the market wants is "better
| cars".
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| I'd hold off on declaring that the EV boat has departed. It
| remains to be seen at what level EV uptake will plateau,
| without _major_ advances in battery tech and EV
| practicality. Coming from a rather nippy Canadian city
| which bought a bunch of electric buses, fucked up badly[0]
| and probably made purchasing more electric buses an
| untenable proposition for (conservatively) 5-7 years, and
| having heard from multiple EV owners about the less
| glamorous aspects of EV ownership in Canada (charging cost
| /duration/convenience, battery performance in cold weather,
| skyrocketing insurance and repair costs)... The boat, far
| from being missed, is still in the dry dock.
|
| [0] https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/more-than-
| half-o...
| ajross wrote:
| Not interested in EV flamery. My point was economic:
| _clearly_ EVs are a very large new market segment, and
| Japanese brands aren 't competing there at all. That's
| bad, if your business is to sell cars.
|
| It's really bad if you have a sub-brand, like "Hybrids",
| which has been completely decimated by the (again very
| real, even if you don't think anyone in Edmonton should
| buy them) move to electric devices in the market.
|
| Basically: 8 years ago Toyota _owned_ the "ecologically
| sensitive car buyer" market. And now you might as well
| flush the Prius brand in the toilet, no one wants them
| and selling them as "green" relative to a Tesla is a
| joke.
| ericmay wrote:
| I think I'm going with this as a car owner and buyer I
| would be very reluctant to switch back from an EV. It's
| just for me so much nicer and more convenient. I have a
| few friends who share the same sentiment. It's a category
| change and the Japanese automakers (to which I have great
| affinity) aren't in the category so there's nothing for
| me to buy from them.
| nradov wrote:
| Hybrid vehicle sales continue to grow. They have hardly
| been "decimated".
| ajross wrote:
| A quick google tells me Prius family sales were down 37%
| YoY in 2022. In point of fact that's a little over three
| "decimations". Not sure what you're citing, but I stand
| by what I wrote. The Prius brand went from market-leading
| to trash in the space of a few years as EVs, and Tesla in
| particular, took over mindshare.
| nradov wrote:
| You're just completely wrong.
|
| "Sales of Toyota's conventional hybrids rose 41% from a
| year ago, to about 888,000, and sales of its plug-in
| hybrids were up nearly 90% year-over-year to roughly
| 39,000."
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/01/toyota-
| tm-q3-2023-earnings-g...
| ajross wrote:
| I said "Prius", and was correct. Toyota as a company is
| doing fine. Toyota is matching up _very_ poorly with
| Tesla (and frankly even VW or Ford) in the markets where
| they compete with EVs.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Now there are many hybrids unlike when Prius sold well.
| Prius is now a brand for something weird cool hatchback
| hybrid car.
| ajross wrote:
| Sure, but none that compete with an EV. Can you name a
| hybrid vehicle from any manufacturer that matches up with
| a Model 3 or Y that isn't shrinking rapidly in market
| share? I'm amazed that people are trying to argue this
| point. It seems extraordinarily clear just anecdotally
| (count all the new Teslas around you!), and the data
| backs it up.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm amazed that you're trying to argue the point contrary
| to actual sales data. The Toyota RAV4 hybrid is growing
| market share for one. You can find plenty of other
| examples if you bother to look.
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/toyota-motor-
| north-...
| EnergyAmy wrote:
| Every single Japanese manufacturer? Nissan has been and is
| doing great with the Leaf. They discontinued recently, but
| only to replace it with a new EV, not because it was doing
| badly.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| No, they're not, not really. At least not in the US
| anyway.
|
| In Q3 this year, Nissan is in 10th place, with 6000 EV's
| sold: https://caredge.com/guides/electric-vehicle-market-
| share-and...
|
| If you look at numbers from a couple years ago compared
| to now, most of the other manufacturers are way up,
| whereas Nissan almost looks like they've already
| plateaued.
|
| Also, apparently the Leaf successor won't go into
| production until _2026_?
| https://electrek.co/2023/05/19/what-we-know-nissan-leaf-
| ev-r...
|
| That's crazy if true. What the hell has Nissan been
| doing?
| EnergyAmy wrote:
| I'll admit that "doing great" is open to interpretation,
| but my point is that Nissan hasn't "missed the boat" due
| to conservatism. They've had a nice, reliable EV
| available for a decade now, and you can go out and buy
| one today. Maybe they'll fall off the boat due to
| mistakes made now, but they've been on the boat for quite
| some time.
| ajross wrote:
| Having a nice reliable product available for sale while
| your competition rolls out superior products and not
| doing anything about it is pretty much the _definition_
| of "missing the boat due to conservatism", no?
| WillAdams wrote:
| The first time the U.S. tried to study this, they asked for a
| sample of parts, specifying a precision range, noting that it
| was acceptable for up to 10% of the parts to be at the
| extremes of said range.
|
| The Japanese company sent them 3 bags of parts noting: The
| bag with the full quantity is made to match the provided
| blueprint, the other two bags contain 1/10th as many parts
| which are either larger or smaller as requested. May we ask
| what the purpose of these other parts is?
|
| When they started measuring the parts, they were all
| identical --- part-way through, they decided that their
| micrometer must be broken and sent for another --- it
| revealed that all parts where _exactly_ the right size per
| the specifications of the drawing.
| asalahli wrote:
| I've heard this story ever since I was a kid, but never
| been able to find a credible source. I'm compelled to
| believe it's no more than a story, at this point.
| WillAdams wrote:
| It was in an audiobook narrated by Pat Morita that I
| heard it.
|
| The context was auto transmissions --- it was found that
| one source of premature failures was when all parts in a
| transmission were at the extreme of too small or too
| large --- on average, the large/small would balance out,
| but when it didn't that was when there were early (and
| catastrophic) failures.
| gridder wrote:
| It's thanks to their culture and mentality. You cannot
| replicate that.
| pictureofabear wrote:
| Yes... a lot of people (Americans I guess since I'm
| American and that's where my anecdotal evidence comes from)
| think the Japanese are very efficient. They might be in
| somethings, but their true love is perfection. They love
| doing things right. Big things, little things... it's a
| country-wide obsession.
| pezezin wrote:
| I live in Japan and let me tell you that the Japanese
| being perfectionists is also a myth. What Japanese people
| are really good at is following instructions and
| procedures, to the point that you see their minds
| crashing when something goes out of script. Now, whether
| the procedure makes sense and will result in a good
| outcome or not is a completely different matter...
| Racing0461 wrote:
| <bad timing to post this given the current thing> but
| isreal seems to match japan's singlethreadedness in a
| single area. Some very high tech startups came out of
| isreal (waze etc) especially along the maps/routing domain.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Because it requires a populace who culturally fixates on
| quality.
|
| It doesn't mean a thing to have a "stop everything" lever if
| your workforce doesn't want to pull it because they don't
| give a flying fuck if they ship a shoddy car.
|
| It's a story told again and again with tons of Japanese
| products.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I just don't like any model of Japanese cars... they don't
| drive, look, or feel as good as a high end European car. But
| man do I wish European cars were half as reliable as Japanese
| cars. Driving European cars is a hobby for me, but spending
| every weekend to keep them working gets old sometimes.
|
| What's especially annoying is that the high end European cars
| are ostensibly better made... much more expensive materials,
| more attention to detail (better rustproofing, cable
| organization, etc.). They probably actually last longer on
| average if you maintain them well, but they just have
| unexpected parts failures extremely often.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Looking at how big a problem with rust Mercedes have I'm
| not sure the "better rust proofing" is based in reality.
| Definitely doubt it when compared to a Toyota.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Mercedes are not, but many high end European cars dip
| galvanize the entire chassis, making them virtually
| rustproof. Volvo started doing this on the 700 series in
| the 80s and those cars are still driving around in the
| rust belt fully functional 40 years later! VW, Audi, and
| Porsche also fully galvanized a lot of cars, but you need
| to research to figure out what specific years and models.
|
| Mercedes was a global leader in quality until about the
| early 90s, but the quality really dropped off, and is
| markedly lower than other German cars nowadays. Drive and
| inspect an expensive early 2000s Mercedes, and then a
| cheap VW Jetta from the same time period... there is no
| doubt about it, the cheap VW is a higher quality car in
| every way. Every bolt and fastener is high grade steel,
| plated with a corrosion preventative , and then also
| coated with threadlocker that also protects from
| corrosion. VW then cut quality also around 2011 or so.
|
| So it's not really cut and dry, you have to look at how
| each specific car was actually made.
| 404mm wrote:
| I'd love to see a comparison / breakdown of models made in
| Japan vs made in USA/Mexico/Canada (for the NA market). Some of
| the most common Lexus models are not made in Japan
| 535188B17C93743 wrote:
| Isn't Subaru also Toyota?
| mkii wrote:
| No, but they do have some collabs together
| kipchak wrote:
| They have partnerships like on the FRS/BRZ and Toyota owns I
| think a 20% stake but separate companies.
| neogodless wrote:
| No. They certainly have partnerships on specific models
| (Subaru BRZ / Scion FR-S / Toyota 86, Subaru Solterra EV /
| Toyota bZ4X), but they are not exclusive, and each have their
| own platforms and powertrains for most of their models.
|
| Toyota has partnered with Mazda as well - for example, there
| was Mazda 2 rebadged as a Toyota Yaris for a few years.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Subaru is a subsidiary of Fujitsi Heavy Industries.
| hawski wrote:
| I wonder if Renault is on the same level as Nissan. I
| understand they share a lot, but are not present on the
| American market.
| is_true wrote:
| Just one data point, someone I know sells cars and told me
| that the old Renault duster was based on a Nissan car but the
| new model is based on a Dacia car and it sucks.
| LMY wrote:
| In Europe it has always been known as Dacia Duster. Dacia
| in Europe is the "low cost brand" of Renault and to keep
| cost low they reuse components and parts already developed
| for previous Nissan and Renault models. Other manufacturers
| do the same or share components, for example the 1500cc
| Renault diesel engine used in the previous generation of
| Dacia Duster was also the same used in the Mercedes Class
| A.
| keb_ wrote:
| Been driving the same car for almost 17 years now (2005 Honda
| Civic LX) and still going strong. Fine piece of engineering.
| Thanks Honda!
|
| My family has sworn by Japanese cars since I was a kid, with
| most of us buying exclusively Honda or Toyota (incl their
| luxury lines, Acura/Lexus).
| tzs wrote:
| As a person who is both tall and fat, I've been astounded by
| Japanese cars. By "tall" I don't mean basketball player tall.
| I just mean around maybe 85 or 90th percentile tall for US
| men, about 6'1" (73 inches or 185 cm).
|
| When my Nissan Sentra got totaled by a drunk driver I looked
| at all the similar cars from both American and Japanese
| companies. The first thing I noticed was that the Japanese
| cars were comfortable--I had plenty of leg room, by head
| didn't hit the roof, the seats weren't too narrow, and the
| steering wheel wasn't too close.
|
| The American cars were all more cramped. And I don't mean
| cramped just in ways that I could fix if I would have just
| got my act together and lost weight. No, they were also
| cramped because I was too tall for them.
|
| I even took a look at American mid-sized cars and they too
| were apparently not meant for people over 6 ft.
|
| It was kind of funny. The Japanese are a relatively small
| people. I'd be around 97th percentile on height there. So how
| come they are so much better at making cars that accommodate
| tall people?
|
| Anyway, I ended up with a Honda Civic. 11 years later it
| developed a problem that my local dealer (Seattle Honda) just
| could not reproduce or diagnose from my description and it
| was again time for a new car. (From later discussion on a car
| forum on the net, it seems like the problem was a bad ECU).
|
| That was around when SUVs were getting really popular, and I
| decided to have a look. Again, Japan for the win. Even though
| the American SUVs I looked at were overall much bigger cars
| than the Honda CR-V, only the CR-V had the head and leg room
| I needed.
|
| I ended up with a CR-V. That worked so well that when that
| lease was up I leased another, and then another when that
| lease was up. Then I remembered that I had only leased that
| first one so that if I didn't like the form factor it would
| be easy to switch back to a sedan, and so when that third
| lease was up bought a new 2006 CR-V and still drive that now.
| me_smith wrote:
| I've been driving my Toyota Tacoma for 22 years now and
| currently at 245k miles (with some off-roading thrown in
| there). With regular upkeep, it's amazing how much abuse these
| can take and still run fine. I haven't had any major problems.
| My next car will definitely be a Toyota.
| black6 wrote:
| I'll be disappointed if I don't get half-a-million miles out
| of my '01 Tacoma. The major-est piece of equipment I've had
| to replace was the power steering pump, and the biggest PITA
| was the timing belt, which didn't need to be replaced at the
| time, but I did it for preventative maintenance. 326k miles.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Anecdotally, my wife has owned her Toyota Celica since new in
| 2002. In that time, other than oil changes / tires / brake
| pads, the only thing that has failed is an air conditioning
| relay, twice. The second time around there was a new improved
| replacement part number, which has worked fine for 10 years
| now.
|
| I also have an Audi A4 and S4. Something is always breaking
| on them, but they are very enjoyable to drive compared to the
| Celica. It has such terrible torque steer that we avoid
| driving it in any kind of rain. With an open diff, it's
| essentially a one wheel drive vehicle on any kind of low
| traction surface. Specifically, the front left wheel.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Mini = BMW.
|
| Subaru: depending on which model can have a lot of Toyota
| parts.
| allengeorge wrote:
| I do not think that Subaru models outside of the BRZ or
| Solterra have Toyota parts.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is also the Crosstrek and there are talks to
| intensify the collaboration even further. The obvious
| difference in size is possibly going to cause some
| problems, and Daihatsu, another one of those collaborations
| is a guide to how that could play out.
|
| Subaru has a ton of engine and 4WD knowledge that would
| benefit Toyota, the other way around, Toyota has economies
| of scale and hybrid knowledge that Subaru will likely never
| have so both come out ahead of a partnership like this and
| the signs are that they are drawing closer to each other.
| Toyota has steadily expanded their stake in Subaru which
| today stands at 20%, and Subaru is now officially a part of
| the Toyota group.
|
| https://www.torquenews.com/1084/subaru-officially-joins-
| toyo...
| bluedino wrote:
| Mini's used to be terrible. What did they change?
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/10/29/consume...
| discobean wrote:
| Mini only has small problems :)
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| It's absolutely incredible how Subaru can be so high on this
| list with their choice of engine style and transmission.
|
| With that sort of handicap it's either a testament to how great
| Subaru is or how terrible every other automaker is.
| e-_pusher wrote:
| What do you mean by this? What is wrong with the engine and
| transmission choice of Subaru that makes it a handicap?
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| Horizontally opposed engines are inherently less reliable
| due to the increase in components, an H-4 has two heads and
| all that entails, an I-4 has one.
|
| CVTs are inherently more fragile than a geared
| transmission, they simply cannot hold as much torque.
|
| Almost all Subarus sold in the last 3 years have these
| engines and transmissions and they still hang.
| dheera wrote:
| There's also whether people ignore warning signs or not. I
| previously had a long-term rented Ford Focus via Canvas (which is
| no longer around). There were lots of issues with it. A bumper
| valence that had some screw holes that had expanded and would
| fall off if only 1 additional screw failed. They were unwilling
| to fix it, and it did in fact fall off on the highway later due
| to their unwillingness. Tire treads had almost worn bald, they
| were also unwilling to fix it until a flat actually happened. Car
| idled at high RPM, I told them about it, they were unwilling to
| do anything about it, and the engine started stalling on the
| highway a few months later.
|
| Almost every single problem with the car had a warning sign that
| I had told them well in advance, but they were always unwilling
| to do anything about it.
|
| If you do your due diligence by taking action at every warning
| sign (strange noise, RPMs not the usual value, etc.) a LOT of
| "reliability" issues would not happen in the first place. A car
| is a fast-moving piece of mechanical equipment and needs regular
| servicing.
|
| Don't do what doctors do and "wait till shit happens" to diagnose
| you so that they can make a buck off of you in the hospital.
| Prevent shit.
| injb wrote:
| True, but the people who ignore warnings on VWs also ignore
| them on Toyotas, and yet Toyota still consistently comes in
| ahead.
|
| I do think there are cultural issues though with the US vs
| Europe. It's very common that cars that are known for quality
| and reliability in Europe are regarded as exceptionally
| temperamental in the US. When I first moved to the US I
| couldn't understand why German cars had such a bad reputation
| for reliability here. Most of them are traditionally considered
| more or less bulletproof in Europe.
|
| But after while I noticed that many American owners don't pay
| any attention to maintenance schedules, and just wait until
| something breaks. Some cars are forgiving of that, and some
| aren't.
|
| Nowadays I rank cars into roughly 3 categories: those that
| hardly ever break no matter what you do, those that are fine if
| you do what you're told, and those that break no matter what
| you do.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| My girlfriend bought her Toyota corolla for 5000 bucks some
| time ago, old, used, and soon started showing engine warn
| sign. Pretty bad if you ask me. Yet that light never
| manifested into anything real, 80k+ km down the road, still
| works reliably (technician couldn't find anything and just
| resetting it soon brought it back).
| sottol wrote:
| I always wondered how "self-fulfilling" that is with
| Toyotas/Lexus. If you buy a Toyota for reliability, and intend
| to keep it, you're probably taking better care of it (both in
| terms of service and driving habits) than if you were to lease
| a "fun vehicle" for 3 years.
|
| That said, Toyota does often decide to go for reliability over
| other measures like fuel economy or power in eg their engines.
| Some of the older Toyota engines used twice as many bearings as
| other engines for example, downside being extra drag and lower
| fuel economy.
| sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
| Shocking that Tesla is middle of the table.
| jansan wrote:
| Would you expect them on higher or lower rank?
| sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
| Given the media reports about the cars quality, I would
| expect them to be much lower. Then again, I don't know
| anything about cars.
| UberFly wrote:
| Media reports are sadly about as reliable as that story
| from uncle Bob.
| sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
| To pick a random example, I just saw one saying tesla
| touch screens overheat, leading glue to leak inwards into
| the screen and making them unresponsive. Are you saying
| this isn't true then?
| UberFly wrote:
| Even Uncle Bob is correct some of the time. My point
| being that media over sensationalizes issues and that
| basing your view on reality through their port window is
| risky.
| 303uru wrote:
| As a Tesla owner I was surprised they're that low. I know
| probably 30 owners and haven't heard of any maintenance outside
| of tires and a few panel gaps at delivery.
| ronnier wrote:
| A lot of it is likely software update that they call
| "recalls" etc. But just guessing. I have two and they are
| very reliable.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| I'm perennially baffled by CR's ratings. They are a lagging
| indicator at best, and skewed/biased at worst. Does anyone
| actually use this information any more?
| twelve40 wrote:
| I really don't know much about the topic, but if you call this
| article essentially useless biased trash, it might be useful to
| explain why?
| mlhpdx wrote:
| It's a lagging indicator - based on past manufacturing, past
| purchases, past support practices. This is unescapable, but
| when I buy cars (and stocks) the past is not a reliable
| indicator of future performance.
|
| It's flawed/biased - the rankings are based on "member"
| surveys, which makes the sample biased (likely not
| representative of all car buyers, CR has never attempted to
| prove it is as far as I know), which is a flaw if you're
| using it to make (large financial) decisions. Using surveys
| rather than evidence is perhaps a more fundamental problem.
| Essentially this "ranking" is of the perception of quality
| among a subset of people rather than a serious, quantitative
| ranking.
| Exoristos wrote:
| They're still widely used and highly regarded -- outside of
| Silicon Valley, anyway.
| tehnub wrote:
| What do Silicon Valley people use? Just this
| https://www.tesla.com/compare ?
| mrtron wrote:
| That is the current wise choice.
| FlyingBears wrote:
| Mini is hot garbage on wheels comparable to VW. I am really
| surprised to see this.
| hilux wrote:
| Indeed. I'm so surprised that it's hard to believe.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| No idea on Mini but independent Volkswagen service centers are
| never short on work.
| omginternets wrote:
| Maybe something changed? Subarus used to suffer head gasket
| failures, and still suffer from this reputation despite the
| fact that it's been fixed for nearly two decades.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I don't know about Mini, but I hope the new VWs are better than
| my experience.
|
| My VW is admittedly 10 years old, and still under the
| Dieselgate warranty, but I've averaged 2 warranty repairs per
| oil change interval for 3 years now.
|
| They haven't been able to figure out the cranks forever but
| does not start for those 3 years, two dealerships have tried
| now.
|
| They are fairly expensive trips I'm glad to have warranty on.
| EGR, DPF, 4 sensors in one trip, etc. I'm almost to a new
| exhaust system and the CEL is on again.
|
| Wish me luck! I went back and forth to the dealership 7 times
| before they put it back together right last time.
|
| If that's the experience, count me out. It's the last one.
| tbeseda wrote:
| It's almost like the methodology is borderline pseudo-science.
| Many choices are irrational and unexplained. Several key models
| are missing from each brand's lineup. Tacoma? Ranger? They have
| Tundra and F-150...
| allengeorge wrote:
| My understanding is that the initial Mini models were made with
| Peugeot engines, which were underpowered and pretty unreliable.
| At some point BMW switched Minis over to use a Beemer engine,
| at which point quality improved dramatically. Mini has been on
| an upward trend since (as has BMW).
|
| Anecdotally, someone in my family has a Mini with the BMW
| engine, and it's been ticking along just fine. Maintenance is
| expensive though.
| jansan wrote:
| From my years at a major car supplier I know that Toyota was
| never interested in our latest developments, even if we offered
| them at a cheaper prize. They only purchased components that had
| been in use for other cars.
|
| I own a Toyota Avensis. It is the most boring car in the world,
| but I never ever had any issues with it. Mine is the second
| facelift, built in 2015, based on a chassis that had been in
| production since 2009. So any early problems have been resolved
| long time ago.
|
| Maybe this explains a bit why Toyota is on top in the reliability
| ranking. They are very reasonable cars. Would I buy one if I had
| more money? Hell, no!
| toast0 wrote:
| > Maybe this explains a bit why Toyota is on top in the
| reliability ranking. They are very reasonable cars. Would I buy
| one if I had more money? Hell, no!
|
| Maybe if you pay enough for the car that dealer service drops
| off a loaner, picks up your car, then drops off your car and
| picks up the loaner with minimal interaction, a less reliable
| car is fine. Or if you have a useful car and a fun car, the fun
| car doesn't have to work all the time. Otherwise, having a car
| that just works is worth a lot.
| doubled112 wrote:
| > They are very reasonable cars
|
| I've been asked a few times "what car would you buy?" and my
| answer is always something along the lines of "if you need to
| ask, you shouldn't buy a car that I'd buy".
|
| Why don't I own a Toyota? Because they're boring. Boring is
| actually what most people are looking for in a car.
|
| I need a little excitement in my commute. Maybe something
| starts spraying. Maybe something starts smoking. Maybe
| something falls off.
| omginternets wrote:
| Does this account for driving habits? I've just purchased a
| Subaru WRX, and I can't fight the feeling that the reliability
| score is in some way influenced by the hoards of idiots that
| flock to this car for its tuning and hooning potential.
| aalimov_ wrote:
| Yeah there's certainly a temptation there if you're into
| working in cars. Alongside your tuning/hooning remark - some
| cars certainly attract a particular kind of audience, although
| if it was really hoards, they would have probably released an
| STI variant for the new body :(
| omginternets wrote:
| > they would have probably released an STI variant for the
| new body :(
|
| Pow, right in the feels :')
|
| But in reality, I suspect this has more to do with the
| following two things:
|
| 1. The STi package has always had abysmal fuel economy, and I
| believe there are regulations that enforce an average fuel
| economy across an entire manufacturers fleet
|
| 2. Many (most?) of the modders and hooners are put off by the
| price. In fact, most aren't really interested in a track car,
| but rather in a cheap, fast box to drag race between traffic
| lights.
|
| P.s. the new BRZ might also be stealing a bit of the market,
| despite the reverse-Zoolander issue it faces with oil
| pressure...
| aalimov_ wrote:
| Yeah the fuel economy is definitely not a selling point
| even on the standard WRX. Couple that with a strange urge
| to engage in spirited driving and you'll be getting your
| mpgs down to the teens or low twenties.
|
| Re 1: I really hope they bring out a refreshed version, but
| I have a feeling that may not happen for a while... at
| least while batteries weigh what they do. Maybe a full EV
| version some day?
|
| Re 2: yeah the STi was hardly affordable to (my guess) the
| majority of the crowd that's into them.
|
| I should have snagged an STi instead of the standard WRX
| when I had the chance. I love my wrx though, so much fun to
| drive.
| omginternets wrote:
| Are you modded or tuned at all? I've admittedly fallen
| into that rabbit hole, and been steadily getting drawn
| into mechanical engineering. The WRX is such an easy
| platform to hack on, it's crazy. It's right up there with
| the Miata, it seems.
| aalimov_ wrote:
| I haven't added any mods to this car just yet. Wanted to
| pay it off and not worry about voiding any warranties,
| but I'm itching to get to it. My previous car was an '86
| e28 (528e) and I spent many hours working on restoring
| it, I even chipped it haha. I also had a 2016 fiesta st
| (fwd isn't all that bad after all!) I can't tell you how
| many hours I spent looking for a good 70s 2002, for a
| nice e30, for a clean Miata, before deciding to get the
| WRX. I just wish factory FA20F had the same purr as the
| EJ models did.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| (hordes)
| omginternets wrote:
| Whoops. Semantic collision with Tony Hoare ^^
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| I figured it was a homonym confusion with eg "dragon's
| hoard". Still a bulk noun, just not the one anyone was
| reaching for.
| TheCleric wrote:
| I feel that would get balanced by Subaru's other models, which
| are mostly not known for such things.
| omginternets wrote:
| Very possibly. Still not sure what to make of these rankings
| though...
| willis936 wrote:
| The message is clear: steer clear of Subaru if you want a
| reliable engine.
| unfocused wrote:
| Would you say this is still true? I'm about to receive
| the 2023 Subaru Forester. It seems like it has good
| reliability from all the reviews.
| solardev wrote:
| After they fixed the head gasket issues of the 2000s or
| so, they seem to be fine? My partner, myself, most of my
| friends, and may of my coworkers, and much of my town
| drives them. They're insanely popular in outdoorsy and
| snowy areas. The article scores them decently high in
| reliability too.
|
| I'd never get a WRX though.
|
| Build quality and ride comfort though, not so much.
| They're rough and tumble machines, not luxury sedans
| (well, the Legacy is nice enough, not seems silly to get
| that over a Toyota).
|
| Speaking of Toyota, they own part of Subaru anyway and
| have collaborated with them on a few dual-branded
| vehicles.
| msisk6 wrote:
| I've had a half dozen or so Subaru's and have had little
| trouble with any of them. Currently we have a '17
| Forester we bought new currently with 120k miles on it
| and just last week I picked up a used '21 Ascent.
|
| The Forester has been though two batteries and just last
| week I had a wheel bearing in the rear replaced. No other
| trouble and still runs fine.
|
| I got the Ascent to keep out in Seattle and that'll be my
| car there -- it'll fit right in -- Subaru seems to make
| up about 30% of cars in the Seattle area.
| unfocused wrote:
| Thank you both for the replies!
|
| I'll be driving it in snowy conditions in Canada. Ontario
| , Quebec, and New Brunswick in the dead of winter trips
| :)
| omginternets wrote:
| It's worth noting that as of 2020, Subaru is running an
| entirely new platform for their cars, and it has been
| remarkably solid. The FA24 engine, in particular, appears
| to be running unusually generous tolerances for things
| like cylinder pressure, oil pressure, manifold
| pressure/temps, etc.
|
| For tuners it's been a box of wonders. For ordinary
| consumers, that maps directly to reliability.
|
| If you google around, you'll see mention of head gasket
| problems in association with Subaru. This issue has been
| resolved for the better part of 20 years. Today, the
| intersection of people who blow up Subaru engines and
| people who drive like drunk, teenage morons is
| effectively a perfect circle.
| thedaly wrote:
| I suspect it is caused by the numerous models with a faulty
| engine, like my 2010 Forester.
| willis936 wrote:
| My spouse had a 2010s Outback that went through two engines
| in three years. Bye bye Subaru.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I had a WRX into the late 2000s before it got totaled parked in
| front of the house. At the time, it had 130,000+ miles (mostly
| highway miles) and it felt like it had *at least* 2 or 3 more
| solid years in it. Even the clutch feel fine. What I got from
| the insurance company didn't come close to the value of that
| car to me.
|
| I replaced it with a KIA Soul. At the time, the price / value
| made sense. It was an unplanned expense and I just didn't have
| time to shop around. It's was buy or die! :) The Soul is still
| going but it's been it the shop for various issues much more
| than the WRX ever was.
| rufius wrote:
| It's certainly related when you consider Pickup Trucks and the
| more "sporty" or "outdoorsy" SUV's. People that drive pickups,
| at least a substantial lot, do manual labor for a living.
| They're rough on their vehicles. And people doing outdoorsy
| stuff with SUV's are putting them in harsher conditions than
| just driving to work and the grocery store.
|
| That said - if my assertion is true, the Tacoma is truly a
| wonder with its reliability and so on. No surprise given it is
| the mobility platform of choice in Mid-East and Africa for
| militias and local armies (i.e. Toyota Hilux).
| darod wrote:
| Not understanding the haterade with Minis. I've owned mine since
| 2015 and I've had no major issues. The engine is snappy, it
| handles great in cornering, easy to park, etc etc.
| deng wrote:
| What a disaster for VW and Mercedes, but it pretty much confirms
| what everyone here in Germany is saying: reliability has gone
| downhill, with exception of BMW and Porsche (but it'll cost you),
| whereas Japan is at the top for ages, with South Korea (Kia,
| Hyundai) providing a good, cheaper alternative.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| What do they say about Audi, since it is so related in parts
| with Porsche via VW parent group?
| deng wrote:
| Audi usually scores pretty well (but again, it'll cost you,
| the Audi A1 is extremely reliable, but you don't get much car
| for your money...).
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Also, you go for Audi (standard models) mainly for how
| chassis is modeled (aka looks), internals of VW
| conglomerate are almost identical to cheaper VW or
| sometimes also Skoda or Seat.
|
| Interestingly, one of my colleague's worst car experience
| was Audi, not sure if A1 or A2, but he was very
| disappointed how unreliable it was. Case point 1.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| 5 year old A5 here and it's an excellent car. didn't go
| for any bigger engine etc. Close friends have a Q5 and
| it's got bugs galore. Seems kind of random.
| defrim wrote:
| Something that not a lot of people are mentioning is that north
| american made VAG (vw, audi, etc) cars are made in factories
| that have shown much less reliability. Everybody in Europe
| praises VW for how affordable and reliable they are (since
| they're made in-house in Germany for the most part) - excluding
| the 2009-2014 years since they had quite a bad Golf line in
| terms of reliability
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| So how come American-made Toyotas and Hondas top the list?
| defrim wrote:
| Because they care more about north american consumers,
| seemingly
| tirant wrote:
| After your 3/5-year warranty at BMW you can maintain your BMW
| at your local workshop, and the costs are similar to other
| cars. They are not expensive cars to maintain, specially the
| latest models (F-series, G-series).
| davidthewatson wrote:
| The paradox is that hybrids have MORE potential trouble areas
| than ICE but less reported trouble.
|
| All hail McLuhan.
| tqi wrote:
| I think this is more likely to be the case that Hybrids are
| dominated by Toyota/Lexus. See:
|
| > Overall, hybrids have 26 percent fewer problems than cars
| powered by internal combustion engines (ICE). Some standouts
| include the Lexus UX and NX Hybrid and the Toyota Camry Hybrid,
| Highlander Hybrid, and RAV4 Hybrid.
|
| and:
|
| > Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)... have 146 percent
| more problems than ICE vehicles. Still, there are PHEVs that
| buck that trend, including standouts such as the Toyota RAV4
| Prime
| furyofantares wrote:
| > The paradox is that hybrids have MORE potential trouble areas
| than ICE but less reported trouble.
|
| > All hail McLuhan.
|
| That doesn't seem paradoxical, I'd never expect that just
| counting potential trouble areas is the right thing, things can
| be made more reliable by addition. Make a laptop without a
| battery and I'm gonna report a lot of problems stemming from
| sudden power loss. Put a battery in, that's a new potential
| trouble area, but even if I still use it plugged in
| exclusively, I'm gonna report fewer problems since I'll never
| have sudden power loss and have no problems downstream of that.
|
| Maybe that's not the case with hybrids? I don't know, but it
| seems like it could be - any time some of the load is taken off
| some of the most physical components, the ICE and the brakes,
| it could improve reliability even though the systems taking the
| load off can then also have problems.
| clove wrote:
| What do you think about this?
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/us-electric-vehicles-...
| hedgehog wrote:
| I spent some time looking at this and it depends which hybrid,
| there is quite a bit of variation in drivetrains even within
| manufacturers. As sibling comment [1] describes the planetary
| gear arrangement in most Toyotas is quite simple compared to a
| normal automatic transmission, and the traction motor/generator
| replaces both the starter motor and alternator that a plain ICE
| engine would have. At the same time the hybrid system makes
| gentler use of the gas engine and brakes so even though they
| are mechanically near identical to the ICE model they will
| probably last a lot longer.
| Tactical45 wrote:
| I wonder if hybrid being more reliable than gasoline cars is
| simply a function of most of those being Toyota, versus any
| effect stemming from the car being Hybrid.
| janalsncm wrote:
| To test that you could compare the hybrid versions against
| their ICE counterparts. For example hybrid Corolla.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| Fwiw eCVTs are not at all like normal ones, frankly they are
| more simple than most other transmission types
| stouset wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if that's a component. But I would be
| surprised if that's a primary reason.
|
| There's just a lot more to go wrong with an ICE vehicle. You
| need oil and regular oil changes. A radiator, tubing, and
| antifreeze. An alternator. A carburetor and a catalytic
| converter. Timing belts. A exhaust system. None of this (as far
| as I know, IANAM) is needed for an electric vehicle.
|
| A disproportionate amount of what's under the hood of an ICE
| has to do with managing the consequences of the "C" component
| of that acronym (heat, combustion gases, electricity
| generation, lubrication, carbon deposits).
| neogodless wrote:
| You may have misread the parent comment, which talked about
| HYBRID vehicles being more reliable than ICE-only vehicles.
| Hybrid vehicles include all of the comments of an ICE
| vehicle, plus they have electric batteries and motors, and
| may have a system of transferring power from either system to
| the wheels. Overall they have _higher_ complexity than either
| ICE or electric-only vehicles.
| c22 wrote:
| They have higher complexity, but also more redundancy.
| Likely neither of the powertrains experiences the same rate
| of wear and tear as either would experience on ther own.
| stouset wrote:
| Apologies I did misread that.
| hedgehog wrote:
| This is not true, at least for the most popular Toyota
| hybrid drive train. It's probably got fewer moving parts
| than the ICE counterpart by virtue of dispensing with the
| automatic transmission. See sibling comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38466406
| zik wrote:
| Check this diagram and tell me it's simpler than an
| engine and transmission.
|
| https://automotorpad.com/toyota/83449-funcionamiento-
| sistema...
|
| It's essentially an engine, a transmission, another
| transmission (power split device), a drive motor and a
| generator.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Most of the images there are broken, all I see are some
| conceptual block diagram type things. Find a teardown of
| the hybrid unit and compare to a teardown of any
| automatic, look at the actual internal complexity and
| moving parts. I was surprised. Here's a video of the
| P710: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O61WihMRdjM
| TheCleric wrote:
| Yes, but wouldn't a hybrid be a worst of both worlds? All the
| problems of an ICE engine AND the potential electric issues?
| 303uru wrote:
| I don't think so. You're using two low load, low power
| systems combined. The least reliable ICE systems almost
| always correlate to the more powerful ones.
| jansan wrote:
| > You need oil and regular oil changes.
|
| Slightly OT, but I recently found that here in Germany there
| is a service where you can go to just like to a car wash
| without making an appointment. They will do the oil change
| for you within ten minutes or so and you do not even have to
| get out of your car during that time. This makes oil changes
| so much less annoying.
| sumthinprofound wrote:
| This has been common in the US for at least a decade now.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Jiffy Lube had 1,000 locations in the U.S. in 1989.
| According to my experience in the 1990s (limited mostly
| to the Midwest), quick oil change shops were ubiquitous
| even in small towns.
| Riseed wrote:
| I've never seen a shop that will let anyone stay in the
| vehicle while it was being worked on, even for something
| so simple as an oil change. Where did you find one?
| solardev wrote:
| In the US, this is really common. There a few big chains,
| like Jiffy Lube and Valvoline, but also a lot of local
| places. Just look for "drive thru oil change" on Google
| Maps
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Four decades ago where I lived then. I used them here
| 30yr ago.
| alphager wrote:
| What's the name of the company?
| jansan wrote:
| MacOil (not a joke). They have 17 shops in Germany.
| mulmen wrote:
| They let you stay in the car? That surprises me. Do they
| take the keys?
|
| No way I would work on a car with a random member of the
| public behind the wheel.
| frogpelt wrote:
| This is the only way I ever do an oil change.
|
| They sometimes ask me to remove the keys from the
| ignition.
| jansan wrote:
| Hybrid motors take a lot of stress from the ICE during load
| changes. This makes the ICEs potentially live much longer. A
| lot of taxis areound here are older hybrid Toyotas. They must
| have at least 400,000km mileage already.
| timbit42 wrote:
| A taxi driver in Vancouver had a 2004 Prius and drove it 1
| million kilometres with only regular maintenance and no
| failures. Toyota bought it back from him and took it to Japan
| to study it.
| imrehg wrote:
| This sounded interesting, so looked it up, some more
| details in https://www.vanmag.com/city/people/vancouver-
| taxi-driver-wor...
|
| It looks like it wasn't the 1+M km version that they bought
| back, but the chap was an early adopter of Prius in that
| taxi role, and they bought back (exchanged?) his first one
| from 2001:
|
| > For those working on the next generation Prius 2004
| model, Grant's taxi held invaluable information about wear
| and tear.They struck a deal: Grant sent his 2001 model back
| to Japan for testing and had a brand new 2003 model
| delivered.
|
| Still excellent story, and good on him!
| timbit42 wrote:
| I must have read 1 million miles, which would be 1.6
| million kilometres.
| bluemax wrote:
| My Toyota hybrid reliably does not start after 4 weeks not
| driving. The 12 volt (1 year old) battery is drained too much
| after such a period of inactivity. I was not expecting this
| from Toyota, pretty disappointing.
| woleium wrote:
| to the fusebox with a multimeter batman!
| baking wrote:
| Unplug the USB chargers first.
| taylodl wrote:
| Welcome to the motorcycling world! Today's cars continually
| start the engine - that's a huge draw. If you're going to
| leave your car sit more than a couple weeks then you should
| put your battery on a tender. Motorcyclists have been doing
| that for _decades._
| pcl wrote:
| Why is that an issue for motorcycles?
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Tiny batteries have less headroom against phantom drains.
| Also, most motorcycles aren't daily riders, so the
| problem is exacerbated.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Yeah, I (not really) joke that everything on the hill gets
| plugged in. It makes life a lot easier.
|
| Even with no idle draw, lead acid batteries self discharge
| over time. Life got way easier when I just accepted it, and
| now I've got a pile of 6V/12V battery tenders that go into
| just about everything (I have no shortage of 6V vehicles
| out here too). That and block heaters. The tractor and
| truck both appreciate them.
| amluto wrote:
| Maybe they hired whoever designed the original Tesla Model S
| 12V battery management system. Or the original Tesla low-
| power sleep system.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Oh man, that was a train wreck!
|
| I did some analysis of the Tesla 12V system back in 2016,
| and I'm amazed the batteries lasted as long as they did
| with how badly they abused the lead acid battery!
|
| https://www.sevarg.net/2016/10/30/tesla-
| model-s-12v-battery-...
| rwmj wrote:
| One thing I never understood is why hybrids have the 12 volt
| battery at all. Couldn't the entertainment system etc be
| powered from the 200V EV battery (after stepping it down
| obviously)?
| JonathonW wrote:
| Everything on the 12V system essentially _is_ powered from
| the traction battery (the big one that can power the
| motors), once the car is turned on.
|
| In Toyota, at least, the traction battery is completely
| disconnected (via a relay) when the car is off. The 12V
| battery is needed to power anything on the 12V system up
| until the car starts-- that includes the car's computer,
| which is what (after doing all its self-checks and whatnot)
| activates that relay and connects the traction battery to
| everything else in the car.
|
| The traction battery isn't always connected probably mostly
| for safety reasons (having 400-someodd volts energized
| across the whole car even when it doesn't need it isn't
| great), but that also keeps it from getting excessively
| drained if something in the car malfunctions. It's pretty
| cheap to replace a 12V lead-acid battery if it's
| overdischarged after you left the lights on... the big
| hybrid battery, not so much.
| rwmj wrote:
| Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Some EVs will monitor the 12V battery and periodically
| connect the traction battery to the DC-DC converter to
| maintain the 12V battery when the car is parked for an
| extended period of time. (On the older Smart EVs, this
| doesn't have a limit, so the traction battery will kill
| itself trying to maintain a weak 12V battery. There's a
| firmware patch for it.)
| Stratoscope wrote:
| My Kia EV6 does that, and when the 800V battery pack is
| charging the 12V battery while parked, an orange light on
| top of the dashboard goes on.
|
| This had me worried the first few times it happened. Then
| I found out it is a warning to mechanics/tow truck
| drivers/first responders that the high voltage system is
| energized.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Thats interesting; do they put the light somewhere that
| it isn't a nuisance to look at when you're inside the
| car?
| Stratoscope wrote:
| The light is on top of the dashboard, right in the
| middle. It's intended to be very visible, especially from
| outside the car.
|
| It is only on if the car is turned off and parked and the
| high voltage system has turned on to charge the 12V
| battery. When you're driving or just have turned on the
| car while parked, the light goes off.
|
| So the only occasion the light might be annoying is if
| you're taking a nap in the car at night. And then you
| could just throw a towel on top of it.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Because they want to completely disconnected the big
| battery when not in use to prevent phantom drain, and you
| need a little power to run passive systems that need to be
| on still (like remote keys etc).
|
| Some EVs like Tesla now use a separate lithium ion 12v
| battery that should last forever, instead of a lead acid
| 12v battery with a limited life span.
| Syonyk wrote:
| No. Or, at least, not easily. The high voltage battery
| isn't generally connected until "the computers are happy"
| with the state of things, for various hybrids/EVs/etc.
|
| There's also a legal requirement that "marker lights and
| such" still work (presumably, also power locks and such)
| after a prime mover failure. Basically, if the engine
| quits, you should still be able to signal, get over, turn
| your 4-ways on, etc.
|
| The easiest solution is to just put a lead acid 12V battery
| in the car for that. Lithium, in particular, is a problem
| below freezing because you can't safely charge it, whereas
| lead doesn't have that problem.
| perardi wrote:
| Because so much of the real deep-down legacy bits of the
| car assume a 12-volt battery.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a38537243/electric-
| car...
|
| There's a lot of Tier 3 supplier...stuff...in a car that
| was architected for 1978 and has never had a thorough re-
| think, because the profit margin is like nothing.
| VectorLock wrote:
| 12v is such a common top-rail voltage for electronics of
| all kinds, I think its a bit more that than "car makers
| are too greedy to manufacture 400v headlights."
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Even if they don't have a 12v battery they still have to
| have a 12v system for reasons others mentioned and because
| it's a requirement to sell cars in the USA. My Porsche
| Taycan has jump start lugs for the benefit of other cars
| and so I can have my low voltage systems operate with some
| help from another car.
|
| My mild hybrid Audi is the same way. Gas engine, 48v
| accessory belt run battery, and that 48v battery works in
| tandem with a small 12v battery for the low voltage system.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Happened to my wife's ex-Toyota CHR hybrid (not plug-in
| hybrid) after 5 weeks of vacation. I hooked a CTEK charger to
| it for 8 to 12 hours and all was good again. I didn't leave
| the car on the CTEK charger for five weeks because it was
| parked outside and not at our place.
|
| Otherwise CTEK chargers are really nice. Certain car brands
| like Porsche while sell you a "Porsche charger" for two or
| three times the price but it's just a CTEK charger re-branded
| with the Porsche logo on it.
|
| If you've got a garage with electricity, it's an option. If
| you don't want to let the car on the charger during 5 weeks,
| just connect it as soon as you come back and in a few hours
| the car is ready.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I have a VW bus that doesn't see a lot of use and with a
| bit of fiddling it was easy enough to run a (fused)
| connector to just behind the grill with a little rubber lid
| to make it waterproof. That allows me to plug in a trickle
| charger without having to open the hood. That little trick
| has saved me multiple batteries already.
| ct0 wrote:
| I can use the cigerette lighter on my tt roadster's
| trickle charger. Does the bus have one?
| jacquesm wrote:
| I could have gone that route but it would require the
| cable to go into the interior from the outside so that's
| why I hardwired it to the front. It also helps that I
| park it with its nose to the garage so the wire is very
| short and I just let it dangle down when it isn't in use.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| My Honda Hybrid is the same way, sometimes I go weeks between
| drives and if I park it for more than a couple weeks, I plug
| it into a 12V battery charger to keep the 12V battery topped
| up.
|
| But I blame the car's smart features (that use the cell modem
| to allow remote start, etc) rather than it being a hybrid. I
| suspect that the non-hybrid model would be the same.
| mulmen wrote:
| My 1991 Honda motorcycle does this too. I can promise you
| that it has no smart features. It doesn't even have a fuel
| pump. Lead acid batteries just don't have long shelf lives.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Well I get that lead acid batteries experience self
| discharge, my 2003 era car will go for over a month with
| around 20% discharge (it'll be around 12.4V), but after 2
| or 3 weeks, my 2020 Honda will be at 50% discharge
| (around 12.0V).
|
| I'd like to think that at some point the parasitic drain
| devices will shut down before they drain the battery
| completely, but I've never tested it beyond that point, I
| always plug in the charger if the car's going to be
| parked for more than a couple weeks. I installed a
| charger plug that comes out the front grill so I can plug
| it into the battery maintainer without even opening the
| hood.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Lead acid gel batteries hold their charge MUCH better
| than standard lead acid batteries. The difference is gel
| lead acid often self-discharge around 1% per month but
| standard lead acid batteries self-discharge on the order
| of 10% per month. I only use gel batteries on my small
| engine equipment like snowmobiles, motorcycles, and
| snowblower.
| defrost wrote:
| > I always plug in the charger if the car's going to be
| parked for more than a couple weeks.
|
| To this day, since ~1980, I disconnect the +ve battery
| lead if the cars not going to be used for a few days or
| parked up in the bush waiting for when we get back from a
| walk.
|
| Stops parasitic drains and Heisenbug discharges when
| thermal expansion during a very hot day causes a hard to
| track short.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| My 2019 vehicle's manual explicitly says not to do this,
| and that if the battery fully discharges you should make
| a follow-up service appointment to frobnicate the
| computers. I miss older cars.
| mulmen wrote:
| This is true of basically every car ever. Lead acid batteries
| can't maintain a charge forever. Get a battery tender if you
| aren't going to drive for long periods of time. If you only
| drive once a month do you even need to own a car? Just
| rent/uber when you occasionally need a car.
| codazoda wrote:
| I hate to admit it, but Kia got this right.
|
| I own 3 Kia's and they all have various problems, including
| really big problems, but this is an area they got right. On
| my daily driver, the Kia Niro, it has a battery button that
| instantly charges the 12v from the HEV battery. I've only
| needed it once, when I left a light on camping, but it was
| like magic.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| What big problems have you had? I'm considering a Niro
| phev.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Not a Niro PHEV, but they have had... a couple of serious
| motor issues:
|
| - https://www.kiaenginesettlement.com
|
| - https://www.kiaengineclasssettlement.com
|
| Edit: A friend of mine just got a free engine swap for
| her... 2012-ish Optima. It threw a CEL on the highway,
| had the appropriate trouble code, and bam, new engine
| from the dealership when she told them the code.
| S201 wrote:
| Is it the stock battery or after-market? Even if you bought
| it one year ago, when was it filled with acid? Many auto
| parts stores sell sealed lead-acid batteries as "new" when
| they've been sitting on the shelf for a year and the clock
| starts ticking when the acid goes in. You can get higher
| quality AGM batteries that will last far longer, but know
| they are quite expensive. Alternatively, you have a parasitic
| battery drain going on with your car.
| shrubble wrote:
| I had something like this happen on my non-hybrid vehicle.
| The battery was replaced under warranty, for free since it
| was less than 18 months old.
| Syonyk wrote:
| A standard hybrid (of the sort that a range of companies make,
| handwavingly a parallel hybrid with creep capability, which a
| PHEV is just a supersized version of) eliminates a huge swath
| of things that go wrong with ICEs.
|
| First and foremost, the transmission replaces the rather
| staggering pile of complexity of a modern automatic
| transmission, typically, with "a few motor/generators, some
| planetary gears, maybe a band that only engages when a motor is
| already stopped, and some power electronics." Compared to the
| 9+ speed automatics, this is _dramatically_ simpler. Quite a
| few hybrids don 't even have a mechanical reverse gear, it's
| just using the electronics for that brief period.
|
| But, beyond that, you generally aren't asking the engine to
| idle, or to provide "starting torque" for the car - the hybrid
| system handles that sort of thing well. On at least the Gen 1
| Volts, the motor "idles" at about 1200-1300 RPM, vs the ~750
| RPM in most other vehicles, because it's almost never needed at
| low speed (heating in the dead of winter is the one time I
| notice it). But you don't have low speed, high load operation
| on the engines (which is a hard regime to operate in), and you
| don't have rapid speed changes with gear shifts (which is
| certainly more stressful than smooth speed changes or
| continuous speed operation).
|
| You have less brake system wear, and... it goes on.
|
| I know there's this popular "Hybrids/PHEVs are the most
| complicated of both worlds, so they _must_ be the most
| unreliable of all worlds! " thing going around, but the data is
| quite clear that they're exceedingly reliable in actual use,
| and the "most complicated of all worlds" things tends to zoom
| out far enough to avoid looking at the transmission or engine
| design at any level of detail.
| giobox wrote:
| > "First and foremost, the transmission replaces the rather
| staggering pile of complexity of a modern automatic
| transmission, typically, with "a few motor/generators, some
| planetary gears, maybe a band that only engages when a motor
| is already stopped, and some power electronics." Compared to
| the 9+ speed automatics, this is dramatically simpler. Quite
| a few hybrids don't even have a mechanical reverse gear, it's
| just using the electronics for that brief period."
|
| There are very few PHEVs that aren't using the same automatic
| gearbox as the plain-ole ICE model. You are describing the
| architecture the Prius uses I guess? In almost all cases the
| manufacturer just wraps a small electric motor around the
| output shaft of the same automatic gearbox connected to a
| small battery.
|
| Mazda PHEVs - same auto gearboxes
|
| BMW PHEVs - same auto gearboxes
|
| Volvo PHEVs - same auto gearboxes
|
| Mercedes PHEVs - same auto gearboxes
|
| etc
|
| There are probably some other exceptions i'm missing, but few
| PHEVs have a custom gearbox. While they may be just as
| reliable in many cases, they are almost always more complex
| designs than their ICE variants.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV uses a GKN 'multi-mode dedicated
| hybrid' transmission with some notable differences than a
| standard auto gearbox.
|
| Some Lexus & Toyota hybrids and PHEVs use the eCVT
| transmission, which uses 2-3 electric motors inside to
| adjust torque rather than a belt.
|
| The Subaru Crosstrek PHEV (internationally also called the
| e-boxer platform for the Forester hybrid) uses a Toyota
| eCVT variant that also still facilitates symmetrical AWD
| instead of a separate electrical motor driving the rear
| axle.
| giobox wrote:
| As I said, there are exceptions, but broadly its just
| slap motors on output shafts. The motor is usually
| designed to bolt onto an existing automatic transmission
| housing.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Are you using PHEV as "Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle" in
| the sense of "Has a long range on battery only"?
|
| The ones I'm familiar with (which, admittedly, don't cover
| the ones you use) are all "parallel drivetrain" sorts of
| things, with a Prius-type transmission. Though I'm really
| only familiar with the Prius and Volt type drivetrains.
| giobox wrote:
| No - I'm using it in the exact same sense Consumer
| Reports did here and the car industry at large does -
| Hybrid cars that have a CCS charging port or similar and
| can run on electric only propulsion for some period of
| time. There are far more PHEV models on sale than just
| the Volt and Prius. If I recall correctly, the Volt isn't
| even sold anymore.
|
| This is the same definition wikipedia uses too:
|
| "A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid
| electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by
| plugging a charging cable into an external electric power
| source, in addition to internally by its on-board
| internal combustion engine-powered generator."
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid
| thsksbd wrote:
| "There are very few PHEVs that aren't using the same
| automatic gearbox as the plain-ole ICE model."
|
| Except the most popular hybrid, the prius, which admittedly
| does t have a non/hybrid counterpart because it was done
| from the ground up to avoid unnecessary legacy technology
| fomine3 wrote:
| Toyota and US brands tend to adopt Series-Parallel hybrid
| system. European tend to adopt Parallel hybrid system like
| you listed, and Mazda/Hyundai want to be like an European.
| Japanese tend to adopt Series hybrid system.
|
| Series-Parallel and Series hybrid remove transmission so
| possibly there's an reliability advantage. For Parallel
| hybrid, it's electric addon so I don't know there are
| reliability advantage.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > I know there's this popular "Hybrids/PHEVs are the most
| complicated of both worlds, so they must be the most
| unreliable of all worlds!" thing going around, but the data
| is quite clear that they're exceedingly reliable in actual
| use, and the "most complicated of all worlds" things tends to
| zoom out far enough to avoid looking at the transmission or
| engine design at any level of detail.
|
| The article suggests plug-in hybrids are nearly 150% more
| prone to issues than regular cars though? I mean, I have one,
| and it seems good so far, but it contradicts your assertions.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Hmm, I don't have the numbers to compare and draw any
| conclusions, but aren't many (most?) Toyota hybrids using CVT
| transmissions? The newest Yaris doesn't have a "real" CVT
| (eCVT with planetary gears instead) but the old one does.
| Those are not used in the none hybrid Toyotas at all as far
| as I know. Also CVTs have huge reliability problems, at least
| in some cars (Honda comes to mind).
| piperswe wrote:
| AFAIK the Prius, for example, has never had a CVT, only an
| "eCVT". The core of the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive system
| is that "eCVT".
|
| Toyota CVTs are decently reliable, but other automakers
| tend to have trouble implementing them well.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I thought maybe it was from mostly keeping the ICE engine in a
| comfortable power-rpm band, rarely making it lug at low RPM's
| to get the car going, rarely reving up to high RPM's, and never
| idling the engine, it's either running under load to charge the
| battery (or drive the car), or turned off.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| This is a great question!
| michalf6 wrote:
| BMW got much better since the switch to B series engines, N
| series era was horrible. Timing chains between the engine and
| gearbox are a pain point though, they need to be replaced with
| mileage.
| tricky wrote:
| Not all N series engines are awful. The N52, while not as
| amazing as the previous M52/M54 engines, is a fantastic,
| reliable engine. However, the 4 cylinder N20 used between
| 2011-2017 is the worst. Faulty timing chain guides often fail
| and immediately grenade the engine. They were so bad there was
| even a class action lawsuit
| avar wrote:
| The N53 is even better, BMW phased out the N52 in favor of
| it, except in developing economies with subpar fuel
| standards.
| tom_ wrote:
| The N53 is notably one of bmw's less reliable engines.
| Everything that goes wrong with it is tedious to debug and
| ends up hugely expensive to fix because you always end up
| needing to replace several pricey injectors. Then it breaks
| again later.
|
| The N52 seems rather better, as all its common faults are
| relatively cheap to fix.
| michalf6 wrote:
| Yup, they switched to piezoelectric injectors in N53
| which are crazy expensive and regularly fail.
| jankyxenon wrote:
| The B58 is such a great all around engine. Performance,
| reliability, efficiency, upgradeability. Heck, even Toyota used
| it in their sports car (Supra)
| wizee wrote:
| The B58 and B48 are quite impeccably good engines, both in
| terms of reliability and also performance/response. I had an
| excellent experience with my B58-powered M240i. I've also never
| heard anyone needing to do anything in practice with timing
| chains on these engines, even at high mileage. It seems the
| whole car would be worn out before the timing chain wears out,
| provided you use decent quality oil and don't neglect oil
| changes.
|
| The older N52 engine is also very solid and reliable, my high
| mileage 2006 330i (E90) has been rock solid reliable in its
| powertrain.
|
| My mechanic told me the N20 engine is terrible though, he has
| encountered an absurd number of them failing. The N54 is solid
| enough mechanically, though they get HPFP issues and need
| occasional cleaning of soot/gunk from valves.
| michalf6 wrote:
| I'm shopping around for a B48 powered car, and there have
| been instances of stretched chains at like 180000km.
|
| It's worse in B47, which carries over the same timing parts
| as N47 and it's generally acknowledged it's best to replace
| the chain at 120000km there.
|
| 6cyls seem to fare better, my guess is the pulling forces on
| the chain are spaced more evenly.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I'd read that hybrids had better reliability than ICE cars, but
| from a glance at this data it might just be an artefact of high
| reliability manufacturers being overrepresented in this market.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Would love to see this scattered against maintenance cost.
|
| Having to take my Subaru in for an oil change every six months is
| annoying, even if it means I've only ever had one serious issue.
| (Computer flipped out because someone didn't close the gas cap
| tightly enough, leading to a service visit requirement, which is
| absurd.)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do my own oil change, but how much can it cost? Surely not
| more than $50 and 20min I hope.
| TheCleric wrote:
| Oh it's definitely more than $50.
|
| I have done my oil changes in the past, and for the
| recommended oil and filter on my 8 year old Toyota, $50 would
| cover 5 quarts of oil and a cheap filter. Add in disposal +
| labor, it's sometimes just easier to pay my local mechanic
| the $75 for the oil change.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I always get my oil at Costco at 6 quarts for less than
| $30. I figured mechanic shops are surely buying for less.
| And oil filters are usually less than $10 for the cheap
| ones, and maybe $15 for the high end ones. I assume auto
| shops probably use the cheaper ones. Actually, the reason I
| do my own oil change is because I can trust Costco/Autozone
| to sell me good quality oil and oil filter, whereas I don't
| know what a mechanic would put in, and it only takes me
| 30min.
|
| https://www.costco.com/mobil-1-advanced-fuel-economy-full-
| sy...
|
| I just looked up a local mechanic's website, and they
| advertise $35 for synthetic blend oil change, and $65 for
| full synthetic blend oil change (most non european cars). I
| wonder if they price it to be at cost or even a loss
| leader.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Modern Subarus require premium grade oil. Mechanics typically
| charge over $80. I haven't checked how much the actual oil
| costs.
| dvh wrote:
| Tristan disagrees with you:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM4ZOJk1Btc
| jerlam wrote:
| This article seems quite similar to the one posted two days ago
| on HN about Brother printers - they're great because they have
| very low innovation.
|
| The top car brands - Lexus/Toyota, Acura/Honda, Subaru, and Mazda
| - have been widely scolded for not trying very hard to build EVs
| and would rather refine the same exact ICE cars for decades.
| eweise wrote:
| Subaru and Mazda are fairly small so I wouldn't expect a lot of
| R&D from them. Toyota has been really successful with hybrid
| which to me, seem like the best solution until EV range cost,
| and infrastructure improve.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Those two are weird; they use to have a lot of out-there
| designs (boxers & rotaries respectively) but seem to have
| slowed down on the innovation since then.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Not much similar. Mazda is known for new engine
| architecture since 2010s. Subaru is known for stucked at
| boxer architecture.
| kyle_grove wrote:
| Mazda engine R&D is seemingly quite impressive: the SkyActive
| X engine is an unusual ICE gasoline engine that takes ideas
| from diesel, with greater fuel efficiency and horsepower.
| solardev wrote:
| Subaru finally made an EV (the Solterra). I love the way it
| drives, but it's more expensive (at least at my dealer) than an
| entry level Tesla. I'd trust Subaru way more than Tesla though.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The Solterra is actually manufactured by Toyota
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_bZ4X
| solardev wrote:
| But it's jointly developed by both Toyota and Subaru
| (similar to how they did the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_86):
|
| https://ts2.space/en/is-solterra-toyota-or-
| subaru/#gsc.tab=0
|
| https://www.torquenews.com/1084/why-subaru-takes-credit-
| new-...
|
| And Subaru might pull away from that partnership after
| early models had wheels falling off:
|
| https://www.torquenews.com/1084/why-it-s-smart-subaru-
| pull-a...
|
| It's all kinda incestuous anyway. Toyota owns 20% of Subaru
| already: https://www.torquenews.com/1084/subaru-officially-
| joins-toyo...
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| > I'd trust Subaru way more than Tesla though.
|
| Is it because "Elon bad" or you have some technical reasons?
| solardev wrote:
| Mostly because they have a history of dishonesty (like with
| self driving) and poor build quality. Also I hate their UX,
| especially that touch screen (I'm old and prefer physical
| dials and buttons and doorknobs). Don't really want a cool
| car, just a stable (mechanical) platform for an everyday
| electric driver with AWD and good clearance.
|
| But Musk doesn't help matters either. I used to really
| respect him (and still grudingly do, mostly for SpaceX and
| Starlink), but he seems more and more unhinged over the
| years. Maybe if he were more hands off Tesla like he was
| with Starlink? To me Tesla just feels like an edgy image
| company rather than an old fashioned car company like
| Subaru. I don't want that whole baggage or culture, I just
| want a car.
|
| Kudos to Tesla for jumpstarting EVs, but I'd much rather go
| with the stale Japanese option.
| standardUser wrote:
| I appreciate data like this because it helps counter the super
| strongly held opinions most car enthusiasts have about car
| brands, which generally seem to be based on hearsay and
| conjecture.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| This pretty much lines up with my bias (OK not Mini or
| Porsche). I still don't hold consumer reports in high regard
| though.
| alex_c wrote:
| >We weigh the severity of each type of problem to create a
| predicted reliability score for each vehicle, from 1 to 100.
|
| It bothers me to see a 1 to 100 scale for this - what does the
| number actually mean in practice? Comparing a score of 80 and a
| score of 20, does that mean the lower score is likely to need 4x
| as many trips to the mechanic? 4x as much spent on repairs in a
| year?
|
| In other words - how big is the gap between first and last place
| in real-world terms? Presenting the scores this way suggests a
| huge difference, is that actually the case?
|
| Either way, surprised to see Mini near the top and Mercedes-Benz
| all the way at the bottom!
| thedaly wrote:
| > ...what does the number actually mean in practice?
|
| Seemingly very little:
|
| _We study 20 trouble areas, from nuisances--such as squeaky
| brakes and broken interior trim--to major bummers, such as
| potentially expensive out-of-warranty engine, transmission, EV
| battery, and EV charging problems. We use that information to
| give reliability ratings for every major mainstream model._
|
| _We weigh the severity of each type of problem to create a
| predicted reliability score for each vehicle, from 1 to 100. We
| use that information to give reliability ratings for every
| major mainstream vehicle. (The reliability rating is then
| combined with data collected from our track testing, as well as
| our owner satisfaction survey results and safety data, to
| calculate each test vehicle's Overall Score.)_
| asicsarecool wrote:
| You can't buy an 'average' Mazda, or an 'average' Mercedes. Each
| manufacturer has models up and down the reliability curve.
|
| I guess this is interesting, but only actionable info is if you
| pay for a subscription and look up not just a particular model,
| but of a particular year and trim
| brookside wrote:
| I have never understood how the Consumer Reports model of
| self(reader)-reported reliability can produce can statistically
| valid results.
|
| There are many biases build in to self-reporting surveys.
| Longtime Consumer Reports readers who buy a Toyota because they
| believe it is the most reliable make _want_ their choice to have
| been correct. Their answers about problems with their car will
| reflect that.
| prepend wrote:
| CR also uses their own tests and maintenance records.
|
| There are definitely flaws with self reporting but it's just a
| data source with its limitations.
|
| Statistical validity is based on what is done with the data,
| not whether it's self reported or measured accurately. What you
| may be thinking of is whether their study or logic is sound.
| 93po wrote:
| Data around cars is notoriously complete bullshit. One example
| is that one of the main metrics used by a very big name, maybe
| CR, is "reliability compared to * _expectations*_ ". Obviously
| cars that people have high expectations for (Teslas) are going
| to score horribly here even if they are objectively more
| reliable than other brands. And of course they bury this little
| fact way down in the info and everyone walks away with "welp
| teslas just fucking break all the time"
| Lazare wrote:
| The linked article is pretty explicit about how they
| calculate it. A detailed explanation is literally the first
| section.
|
| And as they explain, they ask people about the actual
| problems they've had in the last 12 months with their car;
| nothing soft or fuzzy or relative to expectations at all.
| 93po wrote:
| If I ask you about your experience with a Rolls Royce you'd
| probably mention in the door rattles a little bit between
| the speeds of 55 and 60mph. If I ask the same question
| about an entry level Toyota I doubt people would think
| anything of it or mention it. This is especially impacted
| if you're used to buying cars that cost $75k (a lot of
| Tesla owners) versus used to owning preowned cars bought
| for $10k
| johngossman wrote:
| There was a time when CR regularly rated Buick at the top of
| the charts. At that time, my mom and all her little old lady
| friends (I'm not using those adjectives lightly) had Buicks and
| literally used them to drive to Church on Sundays (and
| occasionally the grocery store, which was about five blocks
| away). The cars were terrible, but they were treated well.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I wish there was something more objective used like to quantify
| how many vehicles are still on the road after X number years. I
| guarantee Toyota/Lexus/Honda/Acura would be at the top if you
| compared how many vehicles would still be daily drivers after
| 25+ years and 250,000+ miles.
| Dah00n wrote:
| That, in my opinion, best describes a BMW owner. Is it a more
| reliable car than Alfa? Well, if you service it at the higher
| requirement and price that a BMW is most often services at then
| maybe it is.
| algidagreen wrote:
| Very weird that Volvo Cars, from the land of Spotify and all the
| other unicorns, has such huge problems with reliability (they
| consistently rank one of the lowest in the reliability due to
| infotainment/computer problems). They must be doing something
| really wrong. All that talent in Sweden and they can't make it
| stable? The stock has been tanking massively for a while now.
| Anyone knows whats up? Did they outsource their software/platform
| to third world countries?
| jansan wrote:
| Not sure if this plays a role, but they are owned by a Chinese
| holding company, so no longer 100% Scandinavian.
| manishsharan wrote:
| I owned a Volvo when it was afully Scandinavian company . It
| was always having issues. My regret was paying BMW like
| repair costs for a boxy Volvo.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| It takes 1 lead architect to make bad long term decisions and
| you have easily 10+ years of clusterfucks in that area, and we
| know infotainment was at the bottom of priorities list of
| conservative manufacturers for a very long time.
|
| I have BMW 5 series F11, not the newest model but TBH given
| current design I am better off that way. It has tons of tiny or
| bigger than tiny software bugs in behavior. Seems like some
| sensors in the car also start to die, giving some rather crazy
| warnings (ie chassis integrity check when a _very_ good car
| mechanic went through and didn 't find any sign of damage,
| sometimes big collision flash on screen that is never going to
| happen, 10+C temperature change and I get tire pressure
| warnings and so on). The stuff that should be helping you ends
| up annoying much more and is often disabled, which is outright
| fail of engineering.
|
| With that software quality, going to newer more integrated and
| stupidly designed (less physical buttons) version would be a
| step back, and I very confident they just made it shinier, not
| better tested. Maybe my next car will be one model earlier than
| our current one, the problem is with old enough cars even basic
| things like wires and tubes start to fail.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I really like Volvo's for their safety record (XC90 has never
| had a fatal crash I believe), but the reliability scares me
| away... I wish car companies just offered a "dumb" version
| without the infotainment package.
| 303uru wrote:
| So reviewing this more closely. This is a joke. What is
| reliability? I would say, that the car starts in the morning,
| that it gets you from point A to B, that it isn't in the shop.
| But that only appears to be half the equation here. While
| annoying is a panel gap or interior trim issue affect
| reliability? That's rather weird.
|
| Looking at the data, in terms of true reliability EVs appear to
| be about on par with ICE cars which is quite the feat considering
| they have a 120+ year lead. Hammer out the manufacturing defects
| and the lead seems easy to achieve.
|
| It's also a little weird to not give any nod to the almost
| complete lack of maintenance for EVs. Is it not a reliability win
| that you are able to gas up at home and have no maintenance to do
| other than tires?
| whatever1 wrote:
| No way BMW is that high. I literally saw the past 2-3 weeks two
| X7s and an X5 stranded on the highway, on my way to work.
|
| I remember because I was joking yesterday with my partner that we
| should never buy a Beamer.
| Already__Taken wrote:
| That's not counting just how many working X7 and X5's you
| passed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, by how many working X7's and X5's they were passed.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Anecdata.
|
| But as a long time BMW fan I too feel the cars have really
| taken a nosedive in just about every metric. Reliability,
| design, quality, you name it.
|
| Very surprised to also see Mini as high as it is.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What I've seen with friends who drive BMW and with the Mini
| that the business leased for an employee: the engines are
| reliable, bodywork and interior is ok, electronics gizmos are
| unreliable and required multiple updates for various
| problems. One friend's very fancy 5 series was more in the
| shop than that he drove it to the point that he got attached
| to the loaner.
| leetcrew wrote:
| BMWs are actually pretty reliable these days. the b58 is very
| solid and used all across their lineup.
|
| of course, they are still expensive to maintain.
| Bhilai wrote:
| You have the data in front of you. As someone else too
| mentioned, the B58 engine is considered pretty reliable by BMW
| mechanics and on various Reddit forums where car enthusiasts
| hangout.
| paxys wrote:
| You are right, research involving millions of data points
| gathered from 330K vehicles over the course of a year is
| completely wrong because you saw a couple of broken BMWs on the
| road on your way to work.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Think of how terrible life would be if we couldn't share our
| anecdotes, if we couldn't talk about things we've seen that
| go against what the experts have told us to believe.
| whatever1 wrote:
| I mean you can tell me that the dice is fair but if I get 100
| times in a row 6, I will start having some doubt.
| paxys wrote:
| People doing the research are the ones rolling the dice
| millions of times. The above commenter rolled it twice, got
| 6 both times, and concluded that it was flawed.
| emodendroket wrote:
| You can do research but I will reject it out of hand if it
| contradicts my preconceptions. Ok, why bother with the
| research then?
| soganess wrote:
| Yet, you didn't bat at eye at Mini... the wholly owned Bavarian
| budget brand.
|
| That said, as an owner of all three German fancy-pants brands
| and a meh shade-tree mechanic, I'm also really surprised by how
| high the BMW family is.
|
| Times they are a changing I guess.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > No way BMW is that high.
|
| AFAICT certain models have been highly problematic but overall
| they're very reliable things as shown by these numbers in TFA!?
|
| Wife's BMW 3-series: it only started having electrical issues
| once it got very old and it was nothing too bad (heck, some I
| even fixed myself). Then she got a Toyota CHR hybrid: great
| car, but not for highway driving (at least not at speeds on
| european highways). She now bought a 4-series, used, five years
| old. One year and absolutely zero issue. A friend of mine at
| the same time bought a used 5-series (24 months old): zero
| issues.
|
| I don't hear many people around me complaining about
| reliability issues on their BMWs (in the country where I used
| to live, Belgium, it's literally the brand the most sold,
| before Volkswagen and then Mercedes [1] and in the country
| where I live now it's the 3rd most sold brand).
|
| > I remember because I was joking yesterday with my partner
| that we should never buy a Beamer.
|
| They're good cars however I'm not sure I'd buy a german car if
| I was living in the US again. I did it and, well, it's my
| experience that german cars are easier to service/fix in europe
| (especially when you live in germany or close to germany) than
| in the US.
|
| I'd probably go for a japanese car.
|
| [1] Numbers for 2023: https://www.focus2move.com/belgium-auto-
| sales
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| There's no IQ test to afford a Beemer. The things I did to my
| 323i I would never dream of doing to my Toyota (and guess which
| one has lasted 20 years).
| kelipso wrote:
| They only measure 3 year reliability, and BMWs are well known
| to reliably go to shit after 3 years.
| tirant wrote:
| They are probably suffering of user abuse more than any other
| brand in the market.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| Agree, but I wonder if it has something to do with BMW's
| maintenance program for the first few years that covers most
| issues? So maybe certain issues aren't really being reported in
| the stats.
| freecodyx wrote:
| French cars not included, i would say Renault is pretty reliable
| as well
| jefftk wrote:
| ConsumerReports just covers the American market, so in addition
| to Renault (which doesn't sell in the US [1]) it excludes all
| cars that the listed makes sell outside the US.
|
| [1] https://www.hemmings.com/stories/renault-returning-to-us-
| mar...
| hintymad wrote:
| Toyota is amazing for making reliable cars but writing truly
| shitty code. IIRC, a lawsuit a few years ago about Toyota's
| faulty brake system revealed that Toyota engineers cramped tens
| of thousands of lines in a single file and the lines freely
| update hundreds of global variables. It's also interesting that
| Japanese companies follow ISO this and CMM that yet they develop
| slowly and produce shitty software services everywhere. On the
| other hand, they have amazing engineers who wrote amazing books
| about deep technical topics and optimize the hell out of esoteric
| mathematical software that is probably used by millions of
| people. Truly mysterious country
| okl wrote:
| This? From almost 20 years ago.
| https://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRU...
| rngname22 wrote:
| I think you could perhaps say that Japanese are extremely
| highly sensitive to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_barriers in indusrial
| and administrative processes relative to other cultures.
|
| If something causes friction or pain, but switching away /
| updating to a new system would incur a high cost or retraining
| time or break institutional knowledge, there seems to be an
| extreme bias to adapting to the pain rather than suffering the
| switching cost temporarily to improve the situation. There does
| seem to be a benefit though of extreme adaptation that occurs
| when a process remains unchanged for a very, very long time and
| actors in the system can develop extreme levels of experience.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| The Japanese obsession with handwritten resumes and faxes
| come to mind.
| resolutebat wrote:
| For handwritten resumes, the pain is kind of the point:
| handwriting hundreds of copies, which must be perfect down
| to the last stroke, is how new grads demonstrate their
| diligence and commitment to future employers. (It's still
| an idiotic relic though.)
| bmitc wrote:
| This speaks to the idea that a lot of Japanese culture,
| especially business culture, is performative.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Hardly unique, but I think it's easy to be blind to one's
| own cultural bias.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Having posted open job reqs online in the past couple
| years and seen the absolute deluge of fraudulent resumes
| you get, I'd welcome this culture.
| pezezin wrote:
| Things are changed though. I work for a Japanese company,
| and when I applied for my current job the whole process
| was fully online.
|
| The website was crap though, as most Japanese web
| services are, but that is another topic...
| mkii wrote:
| Is it truly mysterious though? I find it interesting whenever
| HN has a strong fascination with all things related to
| "Japanese-ness". For example, there have been links to
| wikipedia pages of some Japanese term, and it will make front
| page with comments. I can't think of any other nation that has
| this kind of cultural representation on here.
|
| And yet, the myth of Japanese "uniqueness" is largely the
| product of Japanese national propaganda, serving many useful
| purposes for the state, for example increasing tourism and
| limiting permanent immigration. I find it quite fascinating in
| modern times this propaganda still lives on strongly throughout
| the world, as people say "things are so different in Japan."
| booleandilemma wrote:
| It's not just HN.
|
| You'd probably enjoy this meme:
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thing-japan
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2554429-thing-japan
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, that's a funny meme. But the main picture sort of is
| different, no? In Tokyo, you'd wander through the streets
| and see all sorts of interesting things in that melange of
| billboards: model train stores, little book stores, an
| indoor hydroponics farm, a teppanyaki place. I've got
| nothing against truck stop off-ramps looking like they do
| (they provide great utility on road trips) but it's
| qualitatively different and I can see someone liking the
| former and not the latter.
| mkii wrote:
| It's kind of the same to me. There's videos on YouTube of
| Japanese tourist or exchange students in America, gawking
| and having fun over the most mundane American things.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Huh, I suppose we're different. I wasn't born American,
| and both the truck stop stuff and the Japanese city are
| wondrous to me. But they're obviously different
| experiences because of how many novel things I can
| experience in a short amount of time.
| baby wrote:
| As a non-American the skyscrapers in NYC as well as the
| architecture in LV were mind blowing to me. I guess the
| US also has good nature.
|
| But Japan is a condensed WTF/sqm if you ever visit you
| will see that it's truly a special country.
| mplewis wrote:
| Indeed! I recently learned about an aspect of this which is
| named and tied to national brand strategy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
| nickpeterson wrote:
| I feel like China could really gain by taking a page or two
| from this playbook.
| mkii wrote:
| Not arguing against your point, but there's an active
| element in America media that's very anti-Chinese. When's
| the last time you saw a story that was cool or innocent
| related to China in HN (because MSM's totally out of the
| question)?
| nickpeterson wrote:
| The MSM had a far more negative view of Japan not too
| many years ago.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you fed Americans Chinese news stories from Chinese
| media directly, they would have an even lower opinion of
| China. Give an American a copy of global times or China
| daily (you can find them at the airport) and watch them
| wonder if this is satire or real!
|
| There were a lot of pro-China articles and comments on HN
| about 5 or so years ago, China's popularity has just
| taken a huge nosedive since then. Sexy Cyborg makes China
| look cool until the government shuts her down, making
| China look very uncool.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Definitely. Unfortunaly, the people who are currently
| enjoying the benefits of being China's leaders would only
| lose. So they have decided to take a different path, esp.
| in the recent years.
| bmitc wrote:
| There is a lot of propaganda about Japan's culture, but there
| is no mistaking that it is indeed different and quite unique,
| not always in good ways. It is quite common for island or
| peninsula countries to have strong, unique cultures, and
| Japan certainly sits at the exceptional end of that in terms
| of how strong the culture is.
|
| What specifically are you balking at?
| tessierashpool wrote:
| not the person you're replying to, but seemed pretty
| obvious they were rejecting the idea that Japanese
| programmers are somehow unique in being good in some cases
| and bad in other cases
| Jensson wrote:
| Japanese organizations are different, and that makes the
| skills and behavior of their programmers different.
| tumdum_ wrote:
| They reward tenure and respecting the hierarchy. Wonder
| what kind of positive (from western pov) skills and
| behaviours are fostered in that environment.
| pnt12 wrote:
| Regarding hierarchy, I have an anecdote about India. A
| manager told me that western teams are more likely to
| challenge a ticket than Indian teams, who hesitate to do
| that and are more likely to power through. His theory is
| that the culture makes it disrespectful to question the
| upper hierarchy, given its caste system, and causes a
| clash with western culture.
|
| His solution was to communicate much more actively with
| the Indian team, to try to squeeze more feedback that
| they would hesitate to give at first.
| xeromal wrote:
| Tenure could induce creating respectable code that one
| has to deal with for a lifetime of work. Just a guess.
| soneca wrote:
| I never met a Brazilian who went to Japan and didn't
| spontaneously say that things there are so different. I don't
| think it's solely propaganda (if any at all).
| emodendroket wrote:
| They'd probably have the same reaction to America or much
| of Europe considering you're talking about two countries
| with quite different levels of development and standards of
| living.
| soneca wrote:
| No, that's not it. These people are used to go to the US
| and Europe and it's not the same reaction.
|
| It is a mix of development, very different culture
| (Brazil has a lot of European and US cultural influence),
| but also safety, institutional efficiency, traditions.
| Idk, there is a lot of different aspects and things.
| kaba0 wrote:
| > Brazil has a lot of European and US cultural influence
|
| That's the core point. Of course Asian culture is more
| different. Probably a better example would be for a
| Brazilian to visit some African tribe.
| soneca wrote:
| African culture also has a lot of influence in Brazilian
| culture. But anyway, there is another uniqueness aspect
| aspect, which is the urban development of Japan.
|
| I visited African tribes, and of course it is different
| than a big city in Brazil, it is just as different as an
| indigenous tribe here in Brazil, or a more rural village.
|
| Japan uniqueness, I believe, comes from its urban
| development. Rich, clean, polite, functional big cities
| is the uniqueness that I see in Japan that it's not
| common in any other place in the world. I didn't find
| that in LA, NY, Paris, London, Dakar.
|
| Maybe Copenhagen (from the ones I visited) would match
| some aspects of it, but then it's not as big as Tokyo,
| nor it is blended with the tradition as in Japan (or I am
| used to Nordic traditions more than Japanese)
|
| I am convinced that Japan has some unmatched uniqueness
| which make it more different of other countries than
| other countries are among them.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I hear you. Having studied Japanese seriously it takes a lot
| of the magic out of jargon that's just common Japanese nouns.
| But it is still alien to most of our ways of working (though
| I think that has more to do with nonprogrammers programming
| than anything about the Yamatodamashii).
| golergka wrote:
| > the myth of Japanese "uniqueness" is largely the product of
| Japanese national propaganda, serving many useful purposes
| for the state
|
| Is the Consumer Reports that we're commenting on also
| Japanese propaganda?
| kaba0 wrote:
| Japan definitely has their own business culture, which has
| pros and cons (e.g. it is very seniority-aware, but that's
| also a negative).
|
| It seems to fit well engineering, but it is not that good
| of a fit for software development - as they are generally
| not too great at the latter. I have only heard these
| things, so not even first-hand experience, but due to a
| senior people basically "have to be" at a higher position,
| there are software companies where the higher ups don't
| know shit about what is even a computer.
| hintymad wrote:
| One thing that Japanese did really well is keeping their
| language identity. In particular, they don't translate their
| words. They give us gyoza instead of dumplings. They give us
| ramen instead of some lame-ass noodle. They give us Sudoku
| instead of number puzzles. So much so that Japanese words
| have some kind of zen-like connotation to many people. In
| contrast, mainland Chinese always translate words to English.
| Ironically, gyoza is literally Chinese word Jiao Zi ,and
| Ramen is really the Chinese word La Mian .
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Japanese has a lot of loan words from Chinese, which isn't
| surprising. They aren't even written in katakana. Japanese
| are more likely to adopt phonetic translation of new things
| (like computer) whereas Chinese will make a new word
| diannao (electric brain). Of course Chinese not having an
| auxiliary phonetic writing system (unlike Japanese or
| Korean) makes this necessary, although that's probably by
| design (not completely true, some non-Chinese languages use
| Chinese as a phonetic writing system!).
| kaba0 wrote:
| Electric brain sounds cool! In Hungarian we say
| 'szamitogep', which is literally computing/calculating
| machine.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Is this something that's happening because of something
| Japanese people are doing or because of the perception of
| Japanese culture where foreigners like Japanese words and
| thus don't translate it?
| tayo42 wrote:
| To me names of things are like pronouns, why would you
| change it? Feels weird to me.
|
| Though I guess it's weird we didn't do that a lot of
| Chinese dishes. Soup dumplings instead of Xiao long bao.
| Idk how to even properly pronounce that.
| imp0cat wrote:
| > Idk how to even properly pronounce that.
|
| And there's your reason why we say dumplings and not xiao
| long bao! :)
| hnick wrote:
| I think a big part is that Japanese is a lot easier to
| pronounce for westerners. We won't get it fully right but
| there are no tones and it transliterates to English
| pretty well, compared to pretty much every other Asian
| country.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The "X" in general is like a "chi" with a lisp.
| yongjik wrote:
| Sounds like you're describing how English speakers treat
| Japanese loanwords, which sounds more relevant to the
| identity of English rather than Japanese.
|
| From what I've heard, the Japanese has no qualms about
| importing English words or just making up "nonsensical" new
| English words to suit their needs.
| hintymad wrote:
| Yes, but I thought it was Japanese culture that drives
| such adoption. Otherwise, it's hard to explain why
| English vocabulary does not include many modern Chinese
| words in similar fashion, but does include a number of
| Cantonese words.
| dgunay wrote:
| Mainland China is behind on cultural exports in the last
| few decades, but Hong Kong is not.
| tumdum_ wrote:
| On the other hand, the amount of foreign (english) words
| 'katakanized' and used everyday is astounding.
| mkii wrote:
| Oh please. Look and see some example Mandarin and Cantonese
| words loaned to English. [1] They also have your Japanese
| examples in there.
|
| Want more counterexamples? Probably literally every Italian
| food: spaghetti, pizza, ravioli...
|
| To me, this is just more evidence for how strong this meme
| of Japanese uniqueness, coolness, "sugoi kawaii desune~~
| ^-^" is. I'm not bashing people who think Japan is cool.
| But I do think it's weird how they can't recognize it's
| just a meme, to the point of fetishization.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_
| Chine...
| kaba0 wrote:
| I mean, those are not new words. Languages more often than
| not take the foreign name of a _new_ discovery
| /item/concept, and Japanese is no different. As sibling
| commenter mentions, they have a huge amount of English
| words written with katakanas.
|
| _Some_ languages had periods where they tried finding a
| new, "pure" name for a foreign concept /item, but these
| have varied success rates, and often sound idiotic to
| native speakers, and they don't see the point.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Yes, a curious lawsuit that was, it seems the software bugs
| were discriminating against the elderly and the otherwise
| unaware. The darnedest thing.
|
| (Ironically you can look at say Bosch ECUs and will find much
| the same: thousands of global variables and lots of "odd" code,
| but that's because its generated from a dataflow language).
| wahern wrote:
| At the very least, NASA couldn't find any cause in software:
| https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-
| department-t...
| VectorLock wrote:
| I thought floor mats were put up as the most likely cause
| of the Toyota "spontaneous acceleration" incident?
|
| Anecdotally my late model Camry has very thorough floor mat
| retention mechanisms.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Is it bad though? One giant loop and conditional forward jumps
| is not that bad for control systems. I think Cormack had a take
| similar to that.
| starcraft2wol wrote:
| > tens of thousands of lines in a single file and the lines
| freely update hundreds of global variables.
|
| It would be a mistake to conclude this means the software
| doesn't work well.
| NikkiA wrote:
| 90% of embedded code is horrible global variable messes like
| that, it's truly horrifying if you value CS and SE
| sensibilities and get into embedded. Invariably you'll also be
| expected to interface to and utilitise someone else's code of
| that style, so you can't even try to make much of a positive
| impact from within.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Don't confuse static variables with global ones.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Toyota engineers cramped tens of thousands of lines in a
| single file and the lines freely update hundreds of global
| variables.
|
| While the "single file" part is not great, using all global
| variables in an embedded system can be a good thing. I've
| worked on a critical piece of software for aircraft that did
| this deliberately, for safety reasons.
|
| One of the most important criteria for that software is
| determinism, which means no dynamic allocation since it is hard
| to predict how the allocator would behave. The stack can also
| be very limited in size, so what remains are global variables.
|
| It also makes debugging easier. You know exactly which variable
| corresponds to which address in memory. And with a probe, you
| can know the full state of the program at any time. That's also
| how we tested "impossible" conditions (for coverage): by
| overwriting specific memory addresses.
|
| Many of the reasons why globals are bad didn't apply there. We
| had no concurrency, no resources to share with other processes,
| in fact, we didn't even have an OS at first, Nothing was
| dynamic, all arrays were of fixed size, including strings,
| which were array of characters padded with spaces to the
| appropriate length.
|
| Of course, we documented usage of these variables, proper up-
| to-date documentation was not an option as it was certified
| software. It was one of the most boring job I ever had, and it
| is probably for the best.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| As an embedded engineer I've never heard of this and it
| seems... unwise.
|
| Yes, we avoid dynamic memory allocation but using globals for
| everything?
|
| Assuming C:
|
| For inter-file access static variables with getters/setters
| achieves the same thing and makes it easier to split/test
|
| I've never went as far as not using local variables in
| functions but you could use static here too to avoid the
| possibility of two functions sharing the same variable.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| We still had local variables, for internal calculations and
| the likes of course, but most of the interface was done
| through globals. (btw, it was indeed C)
|
| Perhaps what is missing is that the way we did testing was
| a bit unconventional. That is, we didn't have unit tests.
| Instead, we did it all through integration testing on the
| real hardware. And setting these globals was how we got
| coverage. We also had a particularly good traceability, so
| we knew exactly which tests to run after each code change
| and get our coverage back, which made up for the fact that
| we couldn't tests the functions independently.
|
| It was a rather successful project, we got audited a couple
| of times with only minor issues. It certainly made testing
| more difficult, but we in exchange, it was much closer to
| real life conditions.
|
| Note that it was a while ago, newer project use a more
| modern approach with a continuous integration platform,
| unit tests with an emulator, etc... We also use less C,
| instead using industry specific tools and certified code
| generators, multitasking RTOSes, etc... With C and ADA for
| the inner and legacy parts.
| giarc wrote:
| I've been considering newer Toyota Tacoma's recently and their
| interiors are still stuck in 2010. I believe they are releasing
| a new redesign, but I still can't believe how outdated even
| 2022's are.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| NTSB says unintended acceleration was not electronic:
| https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-t...
| Shocka1 wrote:
| As someone who wrote code for one of the bigger auto
| manufacturers that wasn't Toyota, but one of the most respected
| auto manufacturer's for quality... Everyone here would be
| buying 15+ year old cars if they got a peek at that codebase.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Note that these stats only account for reliability in the first
| three years:
|
| > Then the brand reliability score was calculated by averaging
| results from 2021 to 2023.
|
| As someone who usually buys ~10 year old cars and drives them
| into the ground I'm much more interested in long term
| reliability. It may correlate but these stats are not that!
| brewtide wrote:
| 100% share the method. If you are patient, somewhat
| knowledgeable, and frankly lucky you can pick up some nice
| things for real cheap at that point. Sometimes they can turn
| into money puts, but oftentimes with some preventative
| maintenance, things just keep going smooth.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| I'm finding that the limiting factor is the catalytic
| converter. They just seem to wear out around ~200k miles.
| Replacement is about $4000 and California has a scheme offers
| $1000 to scrap it so at that point it is usually more
| economical to replace it with another ~10 year old car.
| rascul wrote:
| Just checked and for my 24 year old truck in Mississippi I
| can get a new one for under $200 and it takes maybe 30
| minutes to change. $4000 seems quite crazy to me.
| paxys wrote:
| > Who Makes the Most Reliable New Cars?
|
| > CR ranks the brands and reveals how their new models are
| likely to hold up
|
| Literally the title and subtitle of the article, as well as the
| HN submission.
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| The parent commenter is calling out a bias inherit to the
| study.
| paxys wrote:
| What is the bias?
| thephyber wrote:
| The first 3 years of a new car are almost always covered
| under manufacturer warranty, hence manufacturers have a
| strong financial incentive to minimize issues in that
| time interval.
|
| A less biased review would also include years 3-7 at
| least, but perhaps up to 10.
| paxys wrote:
| That's not what bias means. If I'm in the market for a
| new car I want to know how the 2022 model is expected to
| perform. Whether the car was reliable 10-15 years ago
| isn't all that relevant to me considering how quickly
| lines are refreshed.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| But the company's culture around quality likely hasn't
| changed much, so long-term reliability is a useful
| secondary metric for those who want to keep their new car
| for a long time.
| smeej wrote:
| I see absolutely no reason to assume company culture is
| unlikely to change much over 10-15 years.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| 0 reason?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This does not match with reality. When a company is on
| the chopping block there are many instances of them
| finding a way to make things works. (eg. Big three after
| the bailouts, Ford running up the launch of the Taurus,
| Kia in the 70s, Nissan when Carlos Gohsn joined etc)
| laurencerowe wrote:
| I thought it was worth pointing out since so many of the
| comments were from people with older cars that were still
| running well!
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It's chronologically impossible to rank the best long-term
| reliability of new cars. At best, you can rank who made the
| most reliable new cars 10 years ago, which isn't helping anyone
| trying to buy new cars now. As someone who usually buys 10 year
| old cars, an article about the reliability of new cars is
| clearly not aimed at you.
| randerson wrote:
| It would have to be from the small list of cars you can still
| buy new that haven't changed much in the last decade. The
| Chrysler 300 and Dodge Challenger come to mind.
| jancsika wrote:
| > As someone who usually buys ~10 year old cars and drives them
| into the ground I'm much more interested in long term
| reliability.
|
| That's a much simpler list:
|
| 1: Toyota Corolla
|
| 2 to end: you're not really serious about running it into the
| ground. :)
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| When I worked in a tire shop, the highest mileage vehicle I
| saw was a 500k mile Corolla, driven by the original owners.
| It was a mid 90s model IIRC. This was in 2018 or so.
| jancsika wrote:
| Ha! I just posted this above:
|
| > With the Corolla you just might just have to decide when
| you've had enough of driving the damned thing.
|
| I've got a 95 Honda Civic with a bit over 200k. And the
| prospect of having to finally change out the belts is
| making me decide it's probably time to call it quits.
|
| But honestly, I don't think I'd go for Corolla because it
| has too much longevity at this point. It'd be like buying a
| gas-powered parrot.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Timing belt change isn't _that_ bad on 90s Hondas, and
| pretty affordable to pay someone to do.
| rascul wrote:
| I have over 600k on my '99 Silverado.
| riku_iki wrote:
| I thought hybrid powertrains are simpler and more reliable in
| long run, so prius should be #1.
| connicpu wrote:
| Definitely not, at least in systems where both the engine
| and motor-generator mechanically connect. You only reduce
| complexity when it's basically just an EV where the ICE can
| recharge the battery, such as the Chevy Volt or Mazda's new
| rotary engine vehicle.
| starkparker wrote:
| Oddly enough, then:
|
| > There are interesting insights with the reliability of
| electrified models this year. Overall, hybrids have 26
| percent fewer problems than cars powered by internal
| combustion engines (ICE). Some standouts include the
| Lexus UX and NX Hybrid and the Toyota Camry Hybrid,
| Highlander Hybrid, and RAV4 Hybrid.
|
| > Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are more of a
| mixed bag. As a category, they have 146 percent more
| problems than ICE vehicles. Several PHEVs are even less
| reliable than their conventional counterparts, such as
| the below-average Audi Q5 and Chrysler Pacifica. The
| latter has the lowest score in our survey, at 14.
|
| > Electric cars and electric SUVs don't fare much better,
| with average reliability scores of 44 and 43,
| respectively. At the bottom of our vehicle-type rankings
| are electric pickup trucks, with an average score of 30.
| morepork wrote:
| I think the data is a bit skewed as Lexus/Toyota are the
| most reliable, and make many hybrid models.
|
| The question should be, for a particular make, are
| hybrids more reliable than ICEs?
| jancsika wrote:
| From what I've heard the hybrid powertrains are way more
| complex and prone to extra problems on top of ICE problems.
| But it's a testament to Toyota's engineering that the Prius
| makes it seem that this isn't the case.
|
| In any case, on the much higher bar of running a car into
| the ground I think the Prius would get priced out on
| repairs for the last 20% of the run time. You've got both
| the regular battery and the hybrid battery, the
| regenerative braking system, and probably a lot more little
| dingles and dangles that would cause arguments with a
| spouse if you dug your heels in and kept paying for them
| just to run the car all the way to the finish line.
|
| With the Corolla you just might just have to decide when
| you've had enough of driving the damned thing.
| zik wrote:
| The Prius powertrain is the most complex one I've seen in
| any vehicle. It's amazing that they can make that thing
| reliable.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Can a Prius keep going if one of its ICE or EV motors
| dies? Then its not complexity, its redundancy!
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Depends what, but mostly yes. If the battery fails then
| the engine is used permanently. If the engine fails then
| the battery can be used for its limited range.
| bestham wrote:
| No, the 12V battery, the hybrid battery and the
| combustion engine all need to work for the vehicle to
| function.
| red369 wrote:
| I also think this is correct. Apart from the fact that
| any reasonably modern cars will usually go into limp-home
| modes, or even stop driving, if errors are detected, I
| seem to remember something about an electric drive motor
| needing to spin backwards when driving using the
| combustion engine. That feels wrong as I write it, but I
| remember it being something fundamental to the planetary
| "Power Split Device".
| willis936 wrote:
| The extra complexity spreads out the load. All of the
| things that often fail in an engine are less likely to
| when the engine only operates for a limited duty cycle,
| for extended durations, and for a fixed optimal load. You
| have the more robust motor system smooth over all of the
| transients. So while there are more single point failures
| the system might be overall more reliable.
|
| If simplicity was the only way to make something reliable
| we would have rickshaws rather than cars.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious how that would be true. Doesn't a
| hybrid have ~all of the parts of an ICE vehicle and ~all of
| the parts of an EV? Wouldn't that mean it can fail in far
| more ways?
| riku_iki wrote:
| I am not expert at all, but my belief before this
| discussion was that hybrid is:
|
| - ICE, which charges battery in stable cycle
|
| - E-motor do all torque
|
| So, you don't need transmission, and ICE has way less
| stress, plus regenerative breaks puts way less mechanical
| stress on the system
| dublinben wrote:
| What you're describing would be an EV with a range
| extender, like the BMW i3.
|
| Hybrid vehicles have a transmission to drive the wheels
| from both ICE and electric.
| dwaite wrote:
| There are 3-4 types of hybrids:
|
| 1. Series, where it is fuel -> engine -> battery ->
| e-motor -> wheels , with regenerative breaking as a
| second power source to the batteries. These are range-
| extended vehicles, where a small generator allows both
| for more range than the small batteries could supply, and
| the ability to run without electric charging.
|
| 2. Parallel, where both systems are driving the wheels
| through a clutch system. Both systems would be expected
| to operate at the same rate if both are engaged. This is
| a motor-assist system, and the majority of road power is
| supplied by the gasoline engine.
|
| 3. Series/Parallel (or Split) where the two systems are
| mixed using a planetary gear system. Among other things,
| this allows for gasoline motors to be optimized for
| efficiency with a specific set of operating conditions,
| knowing the electric motor can smooth out operation.
|
| 4. Plug ins, very similar to series/parallel but where
| the wheels are now being driven primarily by the electric
| motor. The e-motor is more powerful and there is
| significantly more battery, which now can be charged
| independently. The batteries are still far below a full
| EV, having only 5-10% of the range available as a "full
| EV" mode.
|
| All of these systems effectively have a single point of
| interaction between the gasoline and electric systems -
| for series it is the batteries, for parallel it is the
| clutch, for split systems and plug-ins it is the
| planetary gear system. The difference I suppose is that
| the series system has a wire connection to the gasoline
| engine rather than a physical drive connection, so
| conceptually it seems easier to swap out.
|
| I heard that the Chevy Volt as an example was originally
| planned to be a series system, but the electric motor
| simply wasn't capable of providing the highway
| performance they wanted - so it ultimately shipped as a
| series-parallel system.
| crazyjncsu wrote:
| That's what I thought too, but it's not the case.
|
| The transmission of a traditional ICE vehicle is a
| component commonly prone to failure due to reliance on
| clutches, friction couplings, gear engagements, etc.
|
| Hybrids replace this transmission with one composed of
| two electric motors and planetary gear sets. One or both
| of the motors also act as generators. It's complex, but
| the highly variable speed of the output shaft is managed
| almost purely by torque splitting of the planetary gear
| sets along with routing of electrical energy within the
| system-- no clutches or gear disengaging/reengaging.
|
| And the ICE engine itself has an easier time (often
| Atkinson cycle) because the electric motors can provide
| much of the responsiveness to immediate power demands,
| allowing the ICE to operate in a much less stressful
| power band.
| masklinn wrote:
| It reads like you're describing a series hybrid where the
| ICE feeds into an electric generator which feeds into a
| battery or electric motors.
|
| That is not how most hybrids work. That's how almost none
| of them works in fact, although it is how diesel electric
| works on large vehicles (an electric transmission
| essentially).
| pbmonster wrote:
| No, he's right. If you're interested, read about the
| Prius e-CVT transmission. It's pretty amazing.
|
| Essentially, it connects the ICE and two different
| electric motors to the same drive shaft. By spinning the
| electric motor forwards, backwards or using it as a
| generator, it can regulate torque going to the wheels for
| a wide band of RPM. At the same time, torque and RPM
| coming out of the ICE are kept in a much smaller band.
|
| But yes, the ICE is still directly connected to the
| wheels.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| In a planetary gear setup, there's three different
| rotating planes you can hook onto. Traditionally one is
| free, two are rotating. But if instead, one is the
| output, another one the ICE engine (with electric boost)
| and the third one is another electric engine, the
| electric plane can change the influence of the output
| plane on the ICE plane, effectively intermediating the
| RPM and torque it sees.
| esperent wrote:
| My mother is still driving a 1999 Corolla hatchback. She
| bought it around 2005, has driven it every day since.
|
| When her friend passed away, she inherited his 1998 version
| of the same and has been using it for spares.
|
| Now she's considering selling both, they are classics now so
| they are actually increasing in value. I'm a bit sad, as I
| live on the other side of the world and I feel like in my
| trips home that car is one of the constants in my life. I
| half expected to inherit it and pass it on to my own children
| someday.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| So buy it from her.
| esperent wrote:
| So far in my life I've never felt the desire to own a
| car. Also, I live on the other side of the world from
| her.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| > 2 to end: you're not really serious about running it into
| the ground. :)
|
| It's more that the ground is much closer for other makes!
|
| I think Toyotas may make more sense as new buys though since
| they hold their value so well.
| emodendroket wrote:
| In the current market buying a late-model, used economy car
| makes zero sense. The savings are still pretty juicy for
| luxury models though.
| tim333 wrote:
| My 1990 Corolla rusted rather. I think the newer ones may
| have better rust proofing.
| balderdash wrote:
| Totally agree, I want to know what or of warranty cost of
| ownership is.
|
| Especially since most auto manufacturers only design for say
| ~10 year reliability. Sure we could make a a part that would
| last forever, but it'd be heavy (bad for fuel economy) and
| expensive, so let's make the lightest and cheapest part that
| will last about x years (we still want all that spare part
| revenue too!)
| marricks wrote:
| The article title is "most reliable new cars," so it's fair
| advertising of what it is.
|
| Most reliable old cars would certainly be a good read though.
| beAbU wrote:
| I agree. 3 year reliability is not 10 year reliability. After 3
| years the car should be "broken in" and should then be good to
| go for another decade. Something that is deemed unreliable
| after 3 years is total and utter shit.
|
| I think it's easier to get the answer you are looking for
| yourself: Just look outside and tally the number of old cars
| you see, and which models they are. That's your answer.
|
| If you are considering buying an older car, but you rarely see
| it on the road, you have your answer as to whether it'll be a
| reliable car or not.
| Stagnant wrote:
| The Finnish transport and communications agency publishes
| yearly statistics about inspected cars and their three most
| common reasons for failing inspection as well as the percentage
| of failed inspections by car year and model.[1] The graphs on
| the site itself aren't that interesting but the provided excel
| sheets have some neat insight especially on the slightly older
| cars.
|
| In Finland it is required by law for all cars older than 4
| years to be inspected yearly or every two years (depending on
| the age of the car) so the statistics include quite large
| selection of different car models.
|
| [1]: https://tieto.traficom.fi/en/statistics/statistics-
| inspectio...
| d99kris wrote:
| This is a very interesting data source. So let's say for
| "Model-specific statistics on faults detected in passenger
| cars during inspection in 2022 by year of entry into service
| (in Finnish)", I should be looking at column "Hylkays-%"
| sorted in ascending order to find the models with least
| failed inspections?
|
| (I don't know Finnish, used Google Translate)
| sharkweek wrote:
| My 3rd Gen Toyota 4Runner is old enough to drink and outside of
| routine maintenance requires almost no thought.
|
| "It's time to get a new car" given that car safety has
| drastically improved and I have two younger kids in that thing a
| few times a week but I'm honestly having a really hard time
| giving it up, something so reliable and plainly functional.
|
| New cars with all their computers and smart technology only look
| like expensive repairs to me, whereas if something breaks (again,
| rare!) on my extremely mechanical 4Runner, it's almost always
| something simple and relatively cheap.
|
| Glad to see Yodas at the top of this list though, when mine
| finally kicks the bucket, will confidently get another one I
| suppose.
|
| One of my favorite Onion articles: "Toyota Recalls 1993 Camry Due
| To Fact That Owners Really Should Have Bought Something New By
| Now"
|
| https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...
| rvbissell wrote:
| 3rd gen is best gen
| sharkweek wrote:
| It's just a fact, can't argue with it.
| vwcx wrote:
| Biggest material regret of my last 5 years was getting rid
| of my 99 Limited. I worried about some of the pillar rust
| compromising safety with my kid in the car, but you
| couldn't beat the 3.4, rear locker, etc. Take my vote to
| not sell yours.
| AmVess wrote:
| Keep the 4Runner and buy something new for a family hauler.
|
| New vehicles are much safer from a structural standpoint than
| older ones. Modern high strength steels form the safety cage of
| the vehicle, and greatly reduce the risk of injury in offset
| frontal impacts, side impacts, and rear impacts.
|
| And then you have the multitudes of air bags.
|
| Finally, the various electronic gizmos that further reduce risk
| of injury.
|
| The presence of high strength steels alone warrants a new
| vehicle purchase. Vehicles are disposable, people are not.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Finally, the various electronic gizmos that further reduce
| risk of injury.
|
| Combined with the various electronic gizmos and infotainment
| systems that further increase the risk of injury. :)
| saulrh wrote:
| To expand... - Improved FEM makes modern
| crumple zones deeper and smoother - Heavy use of
| composites dramatically improve the raw amount of energy
| absorbed by the car instead of the passengers -
| Better manufacturing methods mean parts can be shaped/placed
| to be less likely to enter the cabin - Better
| placement of more airbags means you're more likely to hit
| something soft - Better seats and better placements
| of better seat belts means you're less likely to snap
| something due to whiplash - Better brakes and
| steering geometry reduces your chance of losing control
| - Better brakes and steering geometry improves your ability
| to avoid other vehicles - Electronic stability
| control _massively_ reduces chances of rollovers -
| Electronic stability control _massively_ improves your
| ability to dodge other cars in emergency maneuvers -
| Electronic stability control _massively_ improves your
| ability to handle bumps and potholes and waves and black ice
| and other disruptions - Electronic stability control
| _massively_ improves the car's ability to go where you point
| the wheels regardless of speed or condition
|
| Seriously, especially if you're driving a truck or SUV, you
| _need_ electronic stability control.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control:
| > According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic >
| Safety Administration and the Insurance > Institute
| for Highway Safety in 2004 and 2006 > respectively,
| one-third of fatal accidents > could be prevented by
| the use of the technology > Additionally, SUVs
| with stability control are > involved in 67% fewer
| accidents than SUVs > without the system
| > The IIHS study concluded that ESC reduces > the
| likelihood of all fatal crashes by > 43%, fatal
| single-vehicle crashes by 56%, and > fatal single-
| vehicle rollovers by 77-80%. > ESC is described
| as the most important advance > in auto safety
|
| Not "the most important since seat belts", not "the most
| important since air bags", not "the most important current
| advance". Electronic stability control is THE most important
| safety feature in modern automotive vehicles, the single
| biggest factor in whether you will die because you got in a
| car _period_, more than air bags, more than seat belts, more
| than crumple zones, more than _headlights_ or _tire
| compounds_ or _safety glass_. Preventing an accident entirely
| is better than any mitigation and ESC is incredibly good at
| preventing a huge class of accidents.
|
| And those numbers are from 2005-ish. Modern active rollover
| prevention and traction control systems and anti-
| understeer/oversteer controls are _even better_.
| whartung wrote:
| Electronic stability control is pure wizardry. It's useful
| to dig up some videos on YouTube watching it in action, or,
| even better, when it's not in action. Look up the "Moose
| maneuver".
| dekhn wrote:
| I've disabled ESC and it's pretty amazing how much of a
| difference it makes in my car. But I can still make it go
| crazy by driving over a small bump while turning and
| accelerating (like, out of a driveway onto a busy street)
| VectorLock wrote:
| You're slipping your wheels, that 'going crazy' is the
| ESC trying to regain traction.
| mike_hock wrote:
| I'm guessing you sell ESC systems.
| saulrh wrote:
| Not even slightly. I wouldn't touch a human-safety-
| critical system like that if you paid me twice what I'm
| currently making. No, I just would really like it if
| people didn't die in car accidents, I think that modern
| controls theory is Really Neat, and I'm entirely willing
| to evangelize for modern safety technology when it has
| the potential to prevent ONE THIRD of all deaths in
| automotive accidents in the US.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I remember when ABS braking was introduced, with all the
| fanfare of your enthusiasm. ABS braking was supposed to
| reduce accidents but actual statistics said it didn't. It
| made people write articles that said "it's almost as if
| humans have a built-in riskiness gauge, and as we make
| cars safer, they drive more recklessly" (and not
| "wreck"lessly haha).
|
| I just checked wikipedia and there is a paucity of info
| showing actual effectiveness, and some showing what I
| just mentioned. It's a little suspicious that there is
| not overwhelmingly positive data
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
| lock_braking_system#Effec...
| saulrh wrote:
| It's interesting that motorcycles show a flat and
| unambiguous 30% fewer fatal crashes when riding bikes
| equipped with ABS. Which does somewhat support the theory
| that it's down to a Jevons-paradox-alike effect, given
| that AFAICT motorcyclists tend to be reckless enough
| drivers that there's no physical way for them to become
| more reckless in response to improved safety technology.
| cwaffles wrote:
| I believe motorcycles are in a different category than
| cars for a few reasons:
|
| 1. If you are too fast to squeeze the brake lever, the
| tire carcass will not deform properly, giving you the the
| maximum braking potential. There's a large difference in
| braking performance just grabbing vs. applying in a
| controlled manner. You can look up motorcycling racing
| brake application for more info on this.
|
| 2. Breaking too hard can cause a stoppie (a wheelie using
| your front wheel). Done improperly, that creates a lot of
| fear in the rider.
|
| 3.If you lock the brakes and steer, you are likely to
| have the front end of the motorcycle dip, causing it to
| lowside.
|
| ABS helps mitigate all 3 of these issues.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Or maybe he was just saved by one?
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| Well considering that SUVs have a higher CG and people tend
| to drive them like they are small cars I'm not surprised
| ESC is so effective for SUV drivers.
|
| ESC in a car for me can be helpful or detrimental depending
| on the vehicle and the implementation.
| hedgehog wrote:
| I haven't looked at the data but I'd expect the automatic
| emergency braking is helping reduce accident severity
| significantly as well.
| tim333 wrote:
| Having watched some youtube of most dramatic webcam
| recorded crashes, I can believe that. They often start with
| some car losing stability and going sideways.
| StillBored wrote:
| Traction and stability control, are one of those things I
| wonder if they aren't negated by human factors.
|
| I have an old 90's tachoma that doesn't even have antilock
| brakes. It drives a bit like a car when compared with a
| modern truck, but the rear will slide out even on gentle
| curves, in the rain it can slide hundreds of feet when
| stopping (yah pulse the breaks manually), and its narrow
| and high meaning they roll over if you look at it wrong.
| One doesn't feel "safe" in it, and you know to maintain a
| lot of stopping distance, slow down before curves, and
| generally drive like a 90 year old. I have a much newer
| tundra. It is a brick on wheels with magic traction
| control, and it feels glued to the road because of it.
| Except it is easy to fail to respect it and discover one is
| simply going too fast into a turn, or a stoplight/whatever,
| and the antilock and traction control aren't going to save
| you. The one significant advantage is that you can steer it
| into a ditch while panicking rather than ramming it
| straight into oncoming traffic when that happens.
|
| So, i'm betting in the end, the more aggressive driving the
| turndra encourages by giving people more of a feeling of
| being in control negates some of the additional safety.
| It's like power steering lets tiny women (and men) drive
| massive trucks/SUVs they wouldn't otherwise drive if they
| had to crank those huge tires holding all that weight
| manually.
| Roark66 wrote:
| >New vehicles are much safer from a structural standpoint
| than older ones.
|
| Perhaps if you compare the same model 15 years ago and now
| that is true, but people rarely buy the same model used as
| they would new. At least among my aquitances it is common to
| consider a higher class used car, or a much cheaper lower
| class new car. I doubt a 6 years old lexus rx350 is less safe
| than 2023 Toyota Yaris for example. Two cars of comparable
| price around here in Central EU.
| w0m wrote:
| Depends on the new safety tech; it often comes into the
| luxury brands and works it's way down. 6 years could be
| long enough for something significant to be in the Yaris.
| usefulcat wrote:
| > I doubt a 6 years old lexus rx350 is less safe than 2023
| Toyota Yaris for example.
|
| Ok, but those two vehicles are significantly different
| sizes regardless of year, are they not? And that's usually
| very relevant where safety is concerned.
| fsckboy wrote:
| that may be true of these two cars, but I don't think he
| was cherry-picking those just to make his general
| argument. are you making the general argument that this
| larger vs smaller car issue will always be the
| difference? what happens to the difference in safety
| improvements over time, always overshadowed by size in
| the used market?
| usefulcat wrote:
| My point was that, depending on the type of collision, a
| 6 year old rx350 could easily be a lot safer than a Yaris
| due its much larger size.
|
| Maybe there would be less of a difference in a single
| vehicle collision, but AIUI in a multi vehicle collision
| size (and relative height) usually matters a lot. So it
| didn't seem to make their point very well.
| tim333 wrote:
| I can believe that. I've currently got an oldish Merc E
| class which is statistically one of the safest cars and
| didn't cost so much to buy. Servicing and petrol are a fair
| bit more than a small new car though.
| kube-system wrote:
| > The presence of high strength steels alone warrants a new
| vehicle purchase. Vehicles are disposable, people are not.
|
| Agreed. Although the steels used for safety critical parts of
| new vehicles are now "ultra-high-strength steels", with
| tensile strengths exceeding a gigapascal. These can be 4x
| stronger than "high strength steel", and 6x stronger than
| steel from the "good ol' days"
|
| e.g.: https://cdn-
| fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/2022/07/19/92...
| yaomtc wrote:
| > car safety has drastically improved
|
| Safety between cars, and within cars, has improved. However,
| due to the increasing size of the average vehicle on the road,
| among other factors, car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has
| decreased.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...
| selcuka wrote:
| Never mind, misread the comment. I somehow assumed that the
| driver safety has decreased because of the increasing number
| of vehicles on roads.
| doubled112 wrote:
| "I'd like to hurt people worse if I hit them with my car"
| is a strange and brutal take.
| selcuka wrote:
| Absolutely right. Sorry, that wasn't my intention. I
| misread the comment.
| hackernewds wrote:
| you're very kind for apologizing
| Racing0461 wrote:
| don't apologise. this thread is filled with urbanists
| that aren't "debating" in good faith. Do not give an inch
| on the car debate because that won't be all they will
| take.
| vondur wrote:
| People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane
| changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started
| during the pandemic and hasn't improved.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Replacing old style headlight bulbs with LEDs in housings
| not designed for them is an increasing problem too, making
| driving at night often something that is best done with a
| pair of sunglasses.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Also headlights are simply higher on average than they
| used to be (larger vehicles). Very noticeable if you
| drive a low car. Yet another "arms race" dynamic.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| 99% of it is people not adjusting the pitch of their
| headlights or turning on their brights and leaving them
| on. I had a truck and it was fine, because I cared enough
| to watch a 5 minute video on how to adjust the angle
| after a new install of bulbs
| twothamendment wrote:
| We have a newer Subaru and were getting flashed like it
| was Mardi Gras. I started looking into adjusting the
| lights and found several places talking about how the
| Subarus are to high right from the dealer and their
| service department. That was enough to convince me to
| just do it.
|
| I don't have a level spot with the recommended distance
| so we went with some tape on the garage door as a
| reference. We got them a tad low the first time and
| raised them up a bit. I can still see and apparently
| everyone else can too because nobody is flashing their
| lights at us.
|
| Our other vehicle is a 2014 3/4 ton Ram pickup. Nobody
| ever flashes me in it.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Not sure if it's still a thing, but the STI in the
| mid-00s had a physical slider wheel on the driver side
| console that changed the pitch of headlights. It was
| probably a geeky race thing, adjust the pitch when you
| add weight to the rear maybe?
|
| Either way, it's genius. I don't know why that isn't
| offered in more vehicles.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Interesting, every single car I've ever driven over here
| (Europe) has had that slider/knob, I'm pretty sure it's
| required by law. Newer cars with xenon headlights above a
| certain wattage must have self-leveling + headlight
| washers to be road legal.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| I have family in Europe and visit quite often, never
| noticed that. Most of the time I get stuck with a Renault
| even when I try to reserve a nicer rental. I don't know
| how those cars are legal. It's like someone put a car
| engine in a broken shopping cart.
| seszett wrote:
| Well I don't know which Renault you have had, but the
| Austral and Arkana have a button instead that cycles
| between 5 different levels.
|
| I wouldn't call them shopping carts either but if you
| come from the US you might have different size
| expectations.
| consp wrote:
| > adjust the pitch when you add weight to the rear maybe?
|
| That is exactly the purpose and required (or via
| dashboard electronics) in most vehicles in the EU after a
| certain date (don't know which exactly and also I do not
| know the exact rules but every car i've ever owned had
| those). Automatic is also fine. They are not meant for
| "Alternative High beam" as what some people use them for.
|
| The "clip" on the rear view mirror is also not meant for
| looking at your kids in the rear. It's meant to flip the
| mirror up so the reflection is not by the mirror but by
| the refractive index of the glass any you see a "dimmed"
| image of the high beams behind you.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Yeah they're all automatic over here. I've just never
| seen a physical, mechanical wheel that controls it. And
| I've never met anyone that dimmed their rear view mirror
| for the purpose of child monitoring. That's.. odd.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is not a race or geeky thing. It's there so that when
| you are towing a trailer you can lower the headlights.
|
| Usually it is supposed to be calibrated so that the
| highest position is the default no load in the back
| position, but you can recalibrate so that it is in the
| middle if you want.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Nobody is towing a trailer with an STI.
| dsego wrote:
| In my country I get them adjusted at the yearly technical
| inspection, don't they do that over there?
| vvillena wrote:
| This is indeed a regulation failure. Vehicle lights
| should have a height limit, but instead, their placement
| is dictated by aesthetics. SUVs and pickups should have
| their front lights placed at the bottom front corners,
| but instead, it's the top front corners.
| gizajob wrote:
| I often think that the need for superbright headlights
| could be avoided if the owners just realised they could
| drive with "full beam" on all the time.
| katbyte wrote:
| Some new vehicles come way to bright too, the absolute
| worst for this seem to be teslas and I wouldn't be
| surprised if it was poor qa on bulb alignment
| borissk wrote:
| Hmmm, the worst I've seen are german cars with laser and
| matrix LED lights. Followed by cars fitted with chinese
| lights off ebay, whose manufacturers don't care about any
| local regulations.
| twothamendment wrote:
| Subaru has theirs adjusted too high from the factory.
| They are nice, bright lights, but now that I adjusted
| them down nobody flashes their brights at me.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would pay for some moon glasses just for this, don't
| need to be as dark as sun glasses but something you can
| grab in an emergency with the super brights where the
| owner didn't know (or didn't care) to adjust the angle of
| the headlights to something sane. I'ver had to literally
| grab my rearview at times and angle it completely and the
| shit was still reflecting partially on the window and
| chrome components in my car annoyingly
| quacksilver wrote:
| i wonder if some adapted cheap 'automatic welding
| goggles' would work...
| wimp wrote:
| I cannot see the road safely at night anymore, so I avoid
| driving at night entirely.
|
| Complete failure of government to regulate and enforce
| headlight position and brightness.
|
| Since I don't drive an 8ft tall truck with permanent high
| beams, I eventually got forced off the road.
| gabeio wrote:
| > Complete failure of government to regulate and enforce
| headlight position and brightness.
|
| In my state the only thing they check is the diagnostics
| to make sure your car isn't polluting too much otherwise
| you can drive around just about anything that starts...
| rectang wrote:
| I flash my headlights at cars whose lights are too
| blinding, under the assumption that the driver
| accidentally left their brights on.
|
| If I'm wrong and their lights are always like that, my
| assumption is that they would appreciate someone letting
| them know anyway. If it happens a lot, maybe they'll
| figure it out and correct their embarrassing problem.
|
| And if they've jerks who know they're blinding others but
| just don't care (or savor it) oh well they should still
| hear about it.
| dsego wrote:
| The way I do it is not flashing, which can be
| misinterpreted as police ahead or something else. I just
| turn on my high beams until they lower theirs and it
| works most of the time.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| In my experience this leads to the realization they don't
| have meaningful low beams at all. Just high beams and
| higher beams.
| broguinn wrote:
| Someone flashed their lights at me this very morning at
| around 5:00 am. At first I thought it was because my
| lights were off, then realized they thought my brights
| were on. They weren't, it's just that my new car has LEDs
| that are - apparently - quite bright.
| deepGem wrote:
| I cannot upvote this comment enough. I can't stand these
| blue/white LED headlights. What an abomination in the
| night. To top this, in India highways are littered with
| white LED street lights. I really miss cruising at 65-70
| mph on a dark highway, with just the reflectors to guide
| my path, lit by the the pleasant yellow headlights.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| This has also become a problem as a cyclist. I live in a
| bicycles-first city, commute that way almost every day,
| and over the past decade when LED lights became the norm,
| almost every day during this time of the year there's at
| least one person that just mindlessly snapped their
| headlight onto the handlebar. It might just fully shine
| into your face. Back in the days of those dim
| incandescent bulbs powered by whimsy generators, it
| basically didn't matter which direction the light
| pointed, but with super efficient battery-powered lights,
| this is annoying. And if both of you are traveling at
| even just moderate speeds, you don't even have time to
| communicate the issue in a proper way, except for maybe
| shouting "it's blinding" and hoping the other person can
| put two and two together.
| consp wrote:
| Scooters are worse. They are severely over powered as
| they put car lights in them.
| Paianni wrote:
| Maybe 'dip your light'?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Thank you. I thought my eyes were the problem. But I
| noticed meeting olders cars is not as bad.
| paganel wrote:
| Often times I think it's just me and my eyesight getting
| older, which is certainly the case, but it kind of
| reassures me to see that there are other people noticing
| this insane phenomenon, too.
|
| And I say it is insane because in many, many cases I just
| have to slow down when encountering those lights coming
| from the opposite direction, for the sole reason that I
| get blinded by them and I can't see the road for one,
| two, God knows how many seconds. It's insane, from a
| safety perspective, that we're allowing blinding devices
| out there on the road.
| wimp wrote:
| It also gets worse year over year, as more and more of
| these vehicles accumulate.
|
| Which is the same pattern as your eyesight gradually
| degrading. But no, the lights really are blinding
| everyone. It's utterly stupid.
| verisimi wrote:
| I totally agree.
|
| What exactly are government safety agencies for exactly,
| if they can't even sort this obvious problem out?
| uoaei wrote:
| I've been driving a drinking-age Jeep Cherokee and the
| acceleration and top speed make me remember how it felt to
| drive 20 years ago. The street and road design makes a lot
| more sense at those speeds. We've gotten used to faster and
| peppier cars over the years but meanwhile the roads haven't
| changed to accommodate that.
| MalcolmDwyer wrote:
| Well please let's _not_ just rebuild all our roads to
| accommodate the fastest and stupidest drivers. (See above
| about pedestrian and cyclist safety).
|
| I guess that's just always happening anyway. Except in a
| few cities doing proper bike lanes, roads are always
| getting widened, intersections expanded.
| xmcqdpt2 wrote:
| I drive what is basically the slowest new car you can
| currently buy in North America (0-100 kph in 11 seconds,
| vroooom). I just have to floor it on highway ramps. Most
| cars accelerate much quicker, so people get used to never
| depressing the pedal more than like 1/3 and end up doing
| 0-100 kph in more than 10 seconds anyway.
|
| IMO the faster acceleration and heavier weight of
| electric cars will just lead to much more disastrous
| accident when people (for example) press on the wrong
| pedal. Long term the extra deaths are probably balanced
| out if the more dangerous cars displace enough fuel cars
| and lower carbon emissions and air pollution... but I
| wish we regulated acceleration (maybe with a different
| license category, like we do with trucks?)
|
| It shouldn't be possible to kill someone 10 m in front of
| your car when leaving from a stop because the
| manufacturer wants to impress professional car reviewers.
| pockybum522 wrote:
| Started during the pandemic? My friend, I think you just
| might not remember how terribly people drove pre-pandemic
| as well.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| FWIW there's some insurance claims data to suggest that
| driving got worse in 2020 on average in the US.
| mint2 wrote:
| No, it's true. People started driving like they were
| fleeing zombies during the pandemic, and the behaviors
| stuck.
|
| With the roads deserted people went faster and more
| carelessly. When things recovered and roads got crowded
| they didn't tone their driving back down.
|
| I do insurance things. It's well known in the field.
| paiute wrote:
| I suspect vision zero policy and phones are also major
| contributors. Traffic Engineers across the country are
| setting traffic lights to reduce the flow of traffic to
| 20mph without changing the actual speed limit. It's
| making people crazy.
| mjevans wrote:
| They aren't fixing the real problem.
|
| Want ZERO fatalities? ISOLATE the Pedestrians from the
| cars entirely. Build it like Disney World does.
| closewith wrote:
| In urban areas, that is coming, but by banning/severely
| limiting car use in cities.
| kqr wrote:
| Strange! Where I live traffic lights are used for the
| opposite purpose: they are set up to improve flow by
| creating green waves that mean ypu don't have to care
| about orthogonal traffic.
|
| If the point was the reduce the flow, why wouldn't you
| make a roundabout?
| closewith wrote:
| > If the point was the reduce the flow, why wouldn't you
| make a roundabout?
|
| Roundabouts have far higher throughput than junctions
| with traffic lights.
| kqr wrote:
| But only because they allow for higher density, not
| higher speeds, which it seems GP was discussing.
| consp wrote:
| Not quite, traffic lights have the highest throughput if
| done properly (by quite a margin), but compared to the US
| style of lights they do.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Strange! Where I live traffic lights are used for the
| opposite purpose: they are set up to improve flow by
| creating green waves that mean ypu don't have to care
| about orthogonal traffic.
|
| story: An out of state tech visiting our job site greeted
| us with "What the hell is wrong with the traffic lights
| in Florida!?" This was SW FL and I was a little confused
| because he had driven thru one of the most benign
| counties. I might be conditioned though.
|
| Just north of Tampa is a county where most traffic lights
| are timed to insure you reach the next one on the yellow.
| I've traveled thru it regularly for 30 years. Between 20
| and 15 years ago it reached ~as bad as possible status
| and there it remains.
|
| Adding awful to bad are the drivers who've realized they
| can defeat much of this timing with sufficient speed.
| paiute wrote:
| That is what should be done, but it's becoming rare.
| Bangerter Highway in Utah comes to mind as a good one. I
| know Colorado is a state big on vision zero policy, where
| if you go the posted speed you will hit every single
| light.
| netsharc wrote:
| The lockdowns brought about a pandemic of selfishness. If
| x% of the people didn't like lockdown rules and they
| broke them and they were fine, y% of those probably
| absorbed the lesson that some other rules are useless.
|
| It didn't help that most, maybe all, governmental
| authorities were improvising their COVID response, some
| other percentage of people lost their fear/trust in
| authorities that way.
|
| Ha, societal breakdown indeed...
| closewith wrote:
| Here in Ireland, this is visible in road deaths, which
| have risen significantly this year, reversing a trend of
| low road deaths as a result of an enormously successful
| road safety campaign over the previous 30 years.
|
| There's noticeably more serious accidents too, although
| the data won't be available until mid-2024 to confirm.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_road_traffic_acci
| den...
| CalRobert wrote:
| Notably, Ireland achieved a lot of their reductions in
| road deaths by taking all the people walking and biking
| and putting them in a car instead. For instance, compared
| to the mid-80's about 250% as many kids are driven to
| school, half as many take public transport, and half as
| many walk or bike.
|
| Certainly, when I lived there Ireland was a terrible
| place to bike or walk.
|
| https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp6ci/
| p6c...
| smcameron wrote:
| Running lights... that's what daytime running lights are
| for, no? Switch those babies on and blast through. /s
| palemoonale wrote:
| Ever driven in the Philippines?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| people always drove horribly.
| koliber wrote:
| I noticed that too, but I am questioning myself. I'm
| wondering how much other people's driving has gotten worse,
| vs me getting older, more defensive and risk averse, and
| noticing such driving. If I look back to my 20s, I was not
| an exemplary driver.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Cell phones were a huge mistake. I was walking my dog and
| saw someone eyes fully down doing 20 in the street. It
| was late and empty but if anyone had been in the street,
| they'd have been dead.
|
| That distraction didn't exist 25 years ago on the scale
| it does today. I wish cell phone use penalties would be
| promoted closer to those of alcohol use while driving.
| euroderf wrote:
| Turning the passenger compartment into a Faraday cage
| might be a start, altho people would hack around it.
| civilitty wrote:
| _> altho people would hack around it._
|
| By opening a window?
| close04 wrote:
| > Cell phones were a huge mistake
|
| This kind of exaggeration undermines any point. An
| invention as useful as the cell phone was a mistake
| because people (ab)use it while driving? Any invention is
| used and abused but the benefits of this invention far
| outweigh the drawbacks. I'm sure more lives were saved by
| the mobile phone, and even more were made better, than
| were taken.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Cell phones were a mistake in the sense that all
| organization-dependent technology was a mistake. People
| of the past lived more happy and in-peace years of life
| _despite_ child mortality, diseases, manual labor, wars,
| violence, inequality etc. Reason is that no matter how
| you look at it, either from a evolutionary or a
| creationist standpoint, human mind-body is literally not
| designed to live in this world of convenience and ease.
| There is friction, a lot, which we try to adapt to and
| fail, and will continue to fail. Nor do we evolve in
| timescales of 300 years.
|
| No unga-bunga is speaking here. NixOS-loving Rust-writing
| software dev. Read some Ted Kaczynski folks.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Mobile phone use is just a symptom. Everyone fiddling
| with their fancy in-car radio with distracting bright
| flashing display in the 90s was just a symptom. People
| fixing their hair in the mirror in the 70s while driving
| was just a symptom.
|
| It doesn't matter what distractions you remove - ban
| eating and drinking (even water) while driving, impose
| ruinous fines for those caught... none of it will work.
|
| You need to address the root cause, not the symptom.
|
| The root cause is unspeakable. You will face extreme
| repulsion if you choose to openly discuss the root cause
| in this society because it would mean tough questions for
| our cultural identity.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| What's the root cause?
|
| Unspeakable, unimaginable, impossible to write in a
| sentence on HN?
|
| To me the root cause is that 2-ton metal bricks shouldn't
| be propelled at 50 kph, much less 140 kph, by tired
| hairless apes with tired ape reflexes, ape kids in the
| backseat, listening to other apes on podcasts, or talking
| even hands free with ape friends or ape spouses.
|
| We were never designed for this. It's guaranteed to be a
| leading cause of death and life-changing injury, so long
| as we keep it up.
|
| Is that unthinkable or unspeakable? I say it on HN all
| the time.
| Comfy-Tinwork wrote:
| We weren't designed for anything. We take metal from ore
| and make metals which we shape and make thin to cut other
| apes in some cases to make them better even.
|
| They're good apes brant
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| If you were to have 80% of adults performing surgery
| every morning and every evening, tired and distracted,
| you wouldn't be surprised when surgical accidents become
| the #3 cause of death.
| tim333 wrote:
| You can say that fine. It's a reason I'm keen on self
| driving tech. Which usually on HN leads to a conversation
| along the lines of it'll never work, Musk is a fraud...
| but Waymo actually works... and round in circles.
|
| On a more immediate time frame, road engineering can work
| really well which is why deaths are like 5x lower in
| places like Holland. Put bends and obstacles in the road
| and drivers will either have to pay attention or hit
| them.
| mistercheph wrote:
| I agree with this 100% WRT you and excluding everyone
| else.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _What's the root cause?_
|
| Cynical answer: Humans.
|
| Slightly less cynical: Cars.
|
| We've built an environment (in the US, at least) where
| driving a car is basically a requirement to participate
| in society. So, people drive, whether they want to or
| not. And they drive whether they're physically or
| mentally capable of doing so successfully.
|
| And we're so entrenched in this design that discussion of
| a change is met with derision and scorn.
| tim333 wrote:
| I was driving in the 90s and mucking around with the
| radio was quite different to using a smartphone these
| days. You'd maybe flip stations every 20 mins when one
| got annoying and it didn't even need taking your eyes off
| the road generally.
| everdrive wrote:
| The root cause is human nature, which has been warped by
| various environmental factors: cell phones, traffic
| density, lack of experience being the pedestrian, etc.
|
| The human nature isn't going away, and although the
| environmental factors are technically under our control,
| they're just getting worse.
|
| The fact that technology only made a pre-existing issue
| worse does not mean that technology is not the problem.
| koliber wrote:
| That's indisputable.
|
| Maybe faraday cages should be mandated in cars, in
| addition to rear-facing cameras. :)
| rodrigodlu wrote:
| Where I live(not US) I need to constantly use the horn in
| a gentle manner to get people out of whatsapp after 2~5
| seconds of green light. Specially when red lights are
| longer than 40 secs.
|
| Interestingly is to see police officers and transit
| officers also distracted inside their cars doing the
| same.
| ruszki wrote:
| One good indicator, when people start to break when
| traffic light switch to yellow. How many people you see
| blowing red. Full red, not just "orange".
|
| It objectively got worse in my country of origin for
| example.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Another anecdote, but the number of times I think "wow,
| that guy ran that yellow really late!!!" increased
| massively over the last four years.
|
| The number of drivers using the bike lane outside my
| house to make illegal passes has also increased. As has
| the amount of tailgating and excessive use of horns on
| the same road.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Same boat here although I can say that in my younger days
| I was always a "civilized" driver on city streets but was
| also into street racing and bike speeding which was done
| in isolated areas or late at night. Nowadays I see more
| "1 block drags" to show the pop-bang of a shitty modded
| 3-series than anything else. That and the "Coupe-SUV"
| owners who think they're driving an MRAP on an assault.
| throwaway914 wrote:
| My counterpoint to this is there have always been a ton of
| bad drivers. The most important skill to have is to be a
| predictable driver. Bad drivers will always exist. You
| cannot change them, and the great number of them is not
| likely to drop to 0 overnight.
|
| The best thing you can do is drive in a way that even bad
| drivers expect. Be a speed-limited, blinker-indicating,
| cautious log in the river. They will parkour around you and
| you will be fine. Greatly limit your reactions to things.
| If you freak out, others around you will freak out. Bad
| drivers cause okay drivers to perform worse. Herd
| mentality.
|
| (Obvious disclaimer: The best defensive driving in the
| world won't prevent all accidents)
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Both you and the parent post are correct. There have
| always been bad drivers, a lot of them, and defensive
| driving is the best thing for that. But at the same time,
| I have anecdotally been observing a serious breakdown in
| people following the rules. All the things the parent
| mentioned have become more frequent in my experience --
| the number of times I see blatant bad and malicious
| driving behaviours has increased significantly in the
| last few years, except I drive maybe a 3rd of the miles
| per year that I used to 5 years ago. The density of
| terrible/self-absorbed drivers has significantly
| increased.
|
| It's gotten to the point where even defensive driving
| doesn't do much. How do you defensively drive against
| someone just blasting through a red light 15 seconds
| after it turned red and cross traffic is moving steadily?
| Or the guy in a lifted truck who decides to force you
| into the shoulder because he thinks it's funny?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "How do you defensively drive against someone just
| blasting through a red light 15 seconds after it turned
| red and cross traffic is moving steadily? Or the guy in a
| lifted truck who decides to force you into the shoulder
| because he thinks it's funny?"
|
| Probably upgrading to a tank at some point. Or bringing a
| gun. Or bribe politicians, that they urge the police to
| focus on maintaining sanity on the roads and take away
| the licence(and at some point the cars) from those
| drivers eagerly.
|
| Honestly, if I can, I drive a bicycle, even now in
| wintertime. But I often indeed wished for a gun, to bring
| awareness to my fragile self. To express, that I also
| have rights on the road, despite being lighter. But I am
| aware, this might not be the best solution overall.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| A gun won't save you from the stupidity of bad drivers.
| And you understand (in your anger) that it won't solve
| anything. At best (not really) you shoot and kill (?) one
| of them. You will then go to prison for many-many-many
| years, you will lose everything and everyone.
|
| Meanwhile there is a million equally bad drivers out
| there. We can't be doing "a purge" every weekend. It's
| either policing, or self-driving cars. I am looking
| forward to the latter.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "It's either policing, or self-driving cars. I am looking
| forward to the latter."
|
| But till they are there, policing is the only other
| option to self justice (aside from changing the road
| environment like the sibling commentor mentioned). There
| are drivers who intentionally drive close to cyclists -
| if one of those will have his tyre shot (without him then
| crashing into other bystanders, or crashing at all) he
| likely will have some respect in the future. He also
| might invest into a bulletproof design, further
| escalating the whole thing, so like I said, I am not
| advocating for road warfare. Just expressing my anger.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Altering the built environment helps too. Narrow the
| streets, reduce turn radii and sightlines, protect
| crosswalks and bike lanes, use more "uncontrolled"
| configurations like 2 way stops rather than full
| stoplights.
|
| It's counter intuitive on one level, but making the road
| feel less like a racetrack causes most drivers to slow
| down and treat it less like one:
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/11/8/public-
| health-...
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm uneasy about reducing sightlines. There are drivers
| that will turn blindly into a corner at excessive speed
| because they feel lucky or invulnerable except they are
| not, nor the people on the other side of the turn. Small
| radii reduces speed no matter what, but keep the line of
| sight. At least one of the two parties have a chance to
| prevent a collision.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Speed bumps are brutally effective, like I just
| experienced driving through spain and france. I also do
| not like them too much, as they punish everyone and some
| of them are kind of hidden (by design) and you do not
| want to hit them even with just 20 mph. So they do
| prevent speeding in rural areas. But there should be
| better solutions ..
| bluecalm wrote:
| Speed limiters in cars is one such solution. It's simple
| to implement - we just need to make it max 130 (or
| whatever) km/h on highways, 80km/h on "country" roads
| outside of population centers and 40km/h (or whatever,
| even making it 50 would help tremendously) in populated
| areas. It doesn't need to be smart enough to understand
| every speed limit out there it just needs to know what
| zone out of 3 possible ones it's in.
|
| Of course car lobby makes it sound like impossible task
| because of "think about all the edge cases" while even
| making the most crude system would save tens of thousands
| of lives and hundred of thousands of injuries per year.
|
| As it is we can even force car manufacturers to implement
| max 140km/h speed limit in cars even though driving
| faster than that is criminal level behavior and illegal
| about anywhere in the world. Like we can't even force
| them to make the least controversial safety check
| imaginable already written into law because "driving a
| car fast boost my ego and you are not taking away my
| freedom to do so".
| alistairSH wrote:
| _There are drivers that will turn blindly into a corner
| at excessive speed because they feel lucky or
| invulnerable except they are not_
|
| Making the corner tighter helps solve this.
|
| I walk to work in the suburbs. I have to cross a 6 lane
| highway. It's signaled properly. But the one thing that
| nearly kills me every few months the road has very smooth
| radius corners. Drivers can easily carry 40mph through
| the corners. Between red-on-red being legal, right-on-
| green-even-though-pedestrians-crossing-is-active, and
| generally driver fuckery, I'm amazed nobody has been
| killed at this intersection.
| throwworhtthrow wrote:
| Surrounding my child's school are blind s-curves and
| streets barely wide enough for 2-way traffic. All densely
| lined with parked cars. And yet I people speed through
| these areas on most days during pick-up time, and often
| they looking at their phones (or whatever else they might
| be up to behind blackout-tinted windows).
|
| The only thing narrow streets and turns do is make it
| harder for parents to check for oncoming traffic before
| crossing. No amount of "traffic calming" will protect us
| from these rotten drivers. We need at least a modicum of
| enforcement.
| financltravsty wrote:
| It's interesting. I finished reading the Amazon PIP
| thread. There was a comment about the double standard of
| at-will employment dishing out immediate firings, but
| employees must give 2 weeks notice; how employees have
| become accustomed to getting the shorter end of the
| stick.
|
| At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own
| desires through violence? The one real tool we have for
| making any tangible change, just stripped away from us at
| some point.
| jjav wrote:
| > At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our
| own desires through violence?
|
| You can even today join a gang or the mafia, you will
| find that this is still a very common use case.
|
| If you do, you might also find out that it's not a
| lifestyle anyone wants, thus realizing why most of
| civilized society doesn't work that way.
| financltravsty wrote:
| In my experience, that's usually only because the people
| that inhabit the gang or the mafia are not themselves
| civilized.
|
| Dueling, boxing, and so on used to be common among the
| upper crust. I still get into fights with some of my
| immigrant friends whenever we reach some total impasse on
| conflict. We're all civilized, educated, and generally
| good people. But violence always seems to be the quickest
| way towards a resolution to certain problems, where
| simple communication will not do.
| bluecalm wrote:
| There are many readily available technical solutions to
| limit danger from cars and drivers. The problem is that
| there is zero political will to do so. I think mainly
| because of car manufacturers playing this on two fronts:
| bribing or blackmailing politicians (think what happens
| to economy if we don't sell faster, bigger, stupider
| cars!) and influencing pop culture - driving a car in
| irresponsible manner is still seen as cool and manly
| thing to do. It's cigarettes all over again and it will
| take a monumental effort to change it.
| collyw wrote:
| I always thought it was a good idea to assume all the
| other drivers around me were likely to be incompetent
| idiots. Obviously not the case, but it means when you do
| encounter one you will be ready.
| benjijay wrote:
| My first driving instructor gave me the greatest line on
| this; "expect other drivers to be idiots, you will never
| be disappointed"
| episiarch wrote:
| Use of signals is the single most important consideration
| in my opinion. Other drivers cannot read your mind. Using
| signals protects you.
| nicbou wrote:
| I am not American but I read this again and again. The most
| correlated reason, I have read, is that the police
| explicitly stopped enforcing laws in many places, in
| reaction to some larger political event. I forgot which.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Oh yes. I live in one of those places. It was when a new
| sheriff was elected who wasn't driven by ever-fattening
| budgets. The first thing he did - stop allowing fine
| revenue to influence enforcement.
|
| Ticketing dropped. Also the quality of policing in
| general (and officers specifically) improved
| dramatically. We had _way_ better cops than under the
| previous sheriff.
| CalRobert wrote:
| One thing I learned after getting a motorcycle license is
| that a huge percentage of drivers are staring at their
| phone.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "drunk or phone" is a game that I play.
| verisimi wrote:
| Perhaps they have been damaged by medical treatments? Could
| be due to lower mental and physical capabilities.
| sampo wrote:
| > People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane
| changes, excessive speeding etc.
|
| No longer bothering to turn off long beam headlights, when
| there is oncoming traffic. And with the new bright led
| lights, the long beams are really bright.
|
| Sometimes even the low beam lights feel too bright,
| especially if the oncoming car is big, and thus has its
| headlights sitting higher up.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Most of the US, AFAIK, doesn't have a mandatory yearly
| vehicle inspection like Germany (and other countries).
| Mix that with massive trucks with massive lift kits and
| you get these fun road behemoths that blind you, even
| with low beams. It's infuriating. I walked past a lifted
| truck yesterday in a parking lot and it's hood was level
| with the top of my head. I'm 6ft tall. It was comically
| large. How can you drive something like that around? You
| could hide an entire family in the front blind spot!
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| The GTA5 kids grew up and are living their dreams.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| GOURANGA
| tomwheeler wrote:
| I think you forgot "looking at their phone instead of the
| road."
| kyrra wrote:
| As a reminder, the increase of vehicle size has little to do
| with consumer choice but rather fuel efficiency standards.
|
| https://www.resources.org/common-resources/how-much-do-
| regul...
|
| Increasing fuel efficiency standards has outsized impact on
| the price of small cars, so fewer of them are made.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If consumers wanted smaller cars, they would buy more of
| them. A car is still much less expensive than a larger
| vehicle. The data clearly indicates people want bigger
| vehicles.
|
| Anecdotally, I have personally heard many people say they
| want to sit up higher, or have a bigger vehicle because it
| is safer for them.
| eru wrote:
| > If consumers wanted smaller cars, they would buy more
| of them. A car is still much less expensive than a larger
| vehicle. The data clearly indicates people want bigger
| vehicles.
|
| That's true to a point. In the US there are regulatory
| loopholes for SUVs, so that's impacting what vehicles
| people choose.
|
| I agree that fuel efficiency standards are pretty silly.
| Especially CAFE standards. They should just tax CO2
| emissions (or fuel) directly, and let the market sort it
| out.
|
| Perhaps also have a tax on the weight of the vehicle,
| because that's a negative externality: heavier cars are
| worse for other people in a crash.
|
| But the US is a country that has effectively legalised
| running over cyclists, so I don't have much hope for
| them. See
| https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-
| ok-t...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The cheapest car to buy and insure from any manufacturer
| is going to be their subcompact hatch or sedan. No,
| people don't care about price now that I see a bright
| yellow Urus doing 70 down a local road once a week.
| Psychoshy_bc1q wrote:
| paywall
| tim333 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/EsAIg
| kyrra wrote:
| I think you miss my point. When CAFE standards
| drastically increase the price of small cars, it impacts
| choice.
|
| It's similar to house prices. The more regulations you
| pile on, the more things cost. While those things are
| seen as "good", it removes choice and increases cost.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I understand what you are saying, but I predict removing
| or fixing those regulations will not change anything
| (other than increased fuel or weight taxes), because the
| underlying reason remains the same. People (in general)
| prefer sitting higher up and being in bigger vehicles.
| brailsafe wrote:
| > People (in general) prefer sitting higher up and being
| in bigger vehicles
|
| I don't think that _in isolation_ people broadly prefer
| bigger vehicles, but in the context of other people
| having bigger vehicles, a circular problem exists, with
| people feeling like they 're in ever increasing danger
| behind the wheel if they have a small car but are
| surrounded by behemoths. If it weren't contextually
| dependent, I don't think it would be a relatively recent
| phenomenon, since big vehicles have always been
| available, and I think you'd see people getting large
| vehicles despite what's common around them, in terms of
| both geography and what's on the road. I'd prefer a
| larger vehicle if I was driving around polar bear
| country, and I think every other car on the road in North
| America is a metaphorical polar bear.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I don't. I would gladly purchase a small practical brand
| new kei car if I could.
|
| Given the choice between a $35k sedan and a $40k SUV the
| choice is going to be SUV for most people.
|
| Given the choice between a $15k sedan and a $40k SUV, it
| gets a lot more interesting.
|
| The US car market is incredibly restricted. You can buy a
| 300 mile range electric sedan for $25k in China. Why the
| fuck can't we get that in North America?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You kind of can. Chevy bolt ev is $26k and 260 miles.
| That's probably cheaper relatively speaking than the $25k
| china ev when you account for wages.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| My last two vehicles have been trucks:
|
| - 1991 Ford Ranger 2WD
|
| - 2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD OR (4WD + extra features)
|
| The Tacoma is Toyota's smallest North American truck and
| is dramatically larger than the Ranger. The Ranger suited
| my needs perfectly _except_ that it wasn 't 4WD and would
| frequently get stuck in Canadian winter. I couldn't even
| buy good snow tires for it anymore because the rims were
| too small.
|
| If there were a recently built 4WD truck available in the
| North American market that was the size of the 91 Ranger,
| I would have bought it in a heartbeat. It does not exist.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| 90s Tacoma were the same size as the Ranger.
| Unfortunately, as you have found, nobody makes a 90s size
| small truck anymore.
| beAbU wrote:
| They do, just not for the US market. Both ford and Toyota
| make excellent mid-small-size trucks (Ranger and Hilux).
| In South Africa we have similar sized trucks from Nissan,
| Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Colt, a bunch of Chinese
| brands.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Lol up, 90s Tacomas and 90s Rangers are the about same
| size. 2023 Tacomas and Rangers are the about same size.
| But wow is there a delta over that time frame.
| techdmn wrote:
| My dad recently totaled his old Mazda pickup. Insurance
| gave him about three times as much for it as I expected.
| Turns out the value of used small pickups is through the
| roof, because there are no new small pickups and used
| ones are getting harder to find.
| everdrive wrote:
| Ford Maverick is about the size of your old Ranger,
| although it looks visibly chunkier.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Looks like it's 8" wider and 24" longer, with a box
| that's 6" shorter. To be fair on the length/box size,
| mine was one of the "club cab" ones with the two
| sideways-facing backseats and no rear doors. Great for
| throwing the dogs in the back seat but not so good for
| passengers. It would probably have been an option but I
| bought the Tacoma a year before the Maverick was
| released.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| And I think you've missed the point.
|
| When CAFE standards specifically carve out an exception
| for larger vehicles (pickups and SUVs), thus forcing only
| compacts and sedans and station wagons to be subject to
| the new standards, of course there's some price pressure
| that nudges people into bigger cars.
|
| If CAFE was applied across the board, there'd be no
| impact on choice at all. But it's not.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sorry, I don't buy it at all. People are not rolling up
| to my kids' daycare in F150/XC-90/Suburban/4Runner
| because of CAFE making smaller cars more expensive.
|
| They are buying it because they like bigger cars, and the
| people that can't afford bigger cars still want to sit up
| higher, hence the popularity of CRV/Rav4 type vehicles.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| If you don't buy it, I assume that you have solid
| alternate explanations of why the trends in vehicle
| size/power/design seem to closely track the preferences
| expressed by federal policy (intentionally or not) along
| with fuel costs.
|
| Yes, there are (largely misguided but in some senses
| game-theory justified) preferences for
| higher/larger/heavier vehicles. But from what I've read,
| these don't provide much (statistical) explanatory power
| for the actual numbers.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Hypocrisy of care about environment and our safety, isn't
| it?
| namdnay wrote:
| if that were the case it would be a purely US phenomenon.
| Whereas increasing car size is global (relative to the
| initial size in each region of course)
| modo_mario wrote:
| I personally find it sad to say but the US has a strong
| cultural dominance especially in the western world but
| also beyond that. From car sizes to architecture styles.
| paganel wrote:
| Which is a tragedy, it's the reason why city cars like
| Puegeot 107/Citroen C1/Toyota Aygo (basically the same car,
| different brands) are not produced anymore.
| userbinator wrote:
| Visibility has also decreased, which is likely a factor in
| that.
|
| Modern cars with huge pillars feel absolutely claustrophobic
| especially compared to those with wraparound windshields
| which were common mid-century.
| eru wrote:
| I wonder if that's just an American thing, or more global?
| orwin wrote:
| It's a US thing, pedestrian safety continued to improve in
| France (mainly caused by infrastructure improvements), but
| we are starting to have the same sized cars, with the same
| issues)
| digdugdirk wrote:
| I've always understood the US's giant car problem was an
| unintended consequence of the CAFE fuel efficiency
| legislation, why is Europe getting caught up in the giant
| car fad? I'd imagine that'd be much more obvious of a
| terrible idea when the streets are half the size.
| eru wrote:
| CAFE standards have a loophole for SUVs, don't they?
|
| Those standards are pretty silly, even without the
| loopholes. They should just tax CO2 emissions (or
| petrol), and let the market sort it out.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Yep, that's the legislation I was referring to that's the
| cause of the massive rise of gigantic trucks in the past
| decade.
|
| There's some formula between overall car area (the
| literal length x width of the vehicle) and the allowed
| mpg for the automaker's corporate fuel economy. Yay for
| second order effects...
| eru wrote:
| > There's some formula between overall car area (the
| literal length x width of the vehicle) and the allowed
| mpg for the automaker's corporate fuel economy. Yay for
| second order effects...
|
| Well, every economist (or anyone with half-a-brain) could
| have predicted these effects.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Europe also has pedestrian crash safety standards as
| well. US crash safety standards deal exclusively with the
| occupants of the vehicle, and not at all with the lives
| of whatever was smashed into.
| fomine3 wrote:
| Even if local roads aren't getting bigger, cars getting
| bigger due to it's international product. Here in Japan,
| thankfully there are narrower JDMs available on some
| category, but for who want a modern expensive SUV, there
| are only international big SUVs.
| masklinn wrote:
| > why is Europe getting caught up in the giant car fad?
|
| Because wankers gonna wank.
| eru wrote:
| But why didn't they do that earlier?
| masklinn wrote:
| Because pickups were not generally available in europe so
| you wouldn't bother unless you really actually genuinely
| needed one (e.g. forestry services), and many countries
| had automobile taxes which approximated power via
| displacement, so huge american-style engines led to
| absolutely prohibitive car tax rates (that's why euro
| engines have historically been pretty small, and even
| completely weird e.g. the UK's RAC horsepower didn't even
| use displacement at all it only used bore, so a small-
| bore long-stroke piston was taxed significantly less than
| a large-bore short-stroke one, for the same
| displacement).
| fingerlocks wrote:
| Well except for that Hilux, right? I was in Spain
| recently, but felt more like Alabama with all those
| tanked out Yodas everywhere. Same with Turkey.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| The Hilux is actually smaller than the Tacoma - the
| smallest Toyota truck offered in the US.
|
| And the Tacoma is dwarfed by the larger pickups on the
| road. It's wild.
| lb1lf wrote:
| This wanker (Been driving a Land Cruiser 95 since 2001)
| feels positively out-wanked when driving in the US; my
| 4x4 is considered large-ish at home, but is dwarfed by
| what appears to be common fare in at least parts of the
| US; I was in Port Fourchon, LA last week, driving a
| Corolla - the Silverados, RAMs, F350s and whatnot
| surrounding me could almost fit my Land Cruiser in the
| glove box!
|
| The Corolla? I don't think half of them would even have
| noticed if they ran it over.
|
| Anyway - point being, I don't think we are anywhere near
| getting caught up in the giant car fad. Not yet, anyway.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Anyway - point being, I don't think we are anywhere
| near getting caught up in the giant car fad. Not yet,
| anyway.
|
| Oh we definitely are, it's nowhere near as bad as in the
| US yet because they are decades ahead in that mess, but
| around here mid-size and light-duty full-size are
| becoming more and more common.
|
| They functionally didn't exist a few years ago, nowadays
| it's a good days when I don't see one. And that's not
| including the few I know of parked in driveways on the
| drive to work.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| It's a result of cultural imperialism and basic
| psychology.
|
| Many Europeans are bathed in US media. They see the huge
| cars constantly on US footage, and some are inclined to
| purchase these even if they are impractical in EU towns
| and cities. As these behemoths are introduced in the
| traffic mix, others in classic smaller cars feel
| threathened, and their next purchase will be a big tanky
| SUV to feel less vulnerable.
|
| It self-reinforces from there.
| Sander_Marechal wrote:
| While SUVs are on the rise in Europe, there's still a
| large gap between what Europeans consider a large SUV and
| what Americans consider a large SUV. I'm European and I
| drive what I consider to be a large car: A 2014 Nissan
| Qashqai. I'm sure it is considered a small can by
| Americans. There are bigger SUVs on European roads (like
| the Volvo XC90) but the true American behemoths are rare
| here. It's usually Americanophiles driving tricked out
| RAMs.
| paganel wrote:
| It's also becoming an European thing, I've left a
| separate comment for it but the latest environment-
| related regulations are the reason why very small cars
| like Peugeot 107/Citroen C1/Toyota Aygo and the Renault
| Twingo (the recently announced EV version is a very
| expensive marketing gimmick) are not produced anymore.
| culi wrote:
| > but we are starting to have the same sized cars
|
| in parts of Europe, vigilante groups are deflating tires
| of SUVs to discourage people from contributing to this
| trend. Not that I endorse the practice but it's
| interesting to consider how unimaginable something like
| this would be to Americans. Whereas in Europe people can
| probably at least understand why they're doing what
| they're doing
| frantathefranta wrote:
| Those vigilante groups do it largely when a large SUV is
| parked illegally, such as on a sidewalk. You don't have
| as much of a chance to park like that in the US.
| mortify wrote:
| People always drive, not to within certain parameters of the
| law, but to within their risk tolerance. As cars become more
| safe, the risk factor reduces which allow people to increase
| risky behavior.
|
| If you want people to drive better, don't put airbags in
| their steering wheel, put a 6" metal spike pointed at their
| chest.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| Yep. Studies on helmet usage in skiing and snowboarding
| showed that as helmet usage became more common, brain
| injuries increased. People felt more protected and thus
| took more risks.
| happymellon wrote:
| You see this on sports too.
|
| You still get concussions, and plenty of blood in rugby,
| but more serious amounts of concussions in grid iron
| because of all the excess padding.
|
| People are more likely to charge head first with a
| helmet, and the helmet doesn't protect your brain from
| rattling about.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The head first tackle is illegal anyhow in American
| football, but they tackle differently to begin with
| because you want to down the runner as soon as you can
| and stop the play more than anything.
| happymellon wrote:
| This feels like you are arguing a point that is
| irrelevant.
|
| Are you saying that in Grid Iron there are no
| concussions? Hate to break it to you, but they are fairly
| common even before they broadened the definition last
| year.
|
| Or are you saying that no player ever does a foul, or an
| illegal tackle?
|
| If so, I'll link you to YouTube clips that disagrees with
| you.
|
| They are constantly researching helmets and trying to
| reduce the chances of concussion, but ultimately wearing
| of a helmet introduces a risk factor, in the same way
| that that bigger cars make people feel safer so drive
| more dangerously.
| defrost wrote:
| Which studies?
|
| It wasn't this study:
|
| _An Evidence Based Review: Efficacy of Safety Helmets in
| Reduction of Head Injuries in Recreational Skiers and
| Snowboarders_ (2012)
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3989528/
|
| from _Trauma & Acute Care_ which concluded:
|
| * The use of safety helmets clearly decreases the risk
| and severity of head injuries as compared to non-helmeted
| participants in skiing and snowboarding.
|
| * The beneficial effects of helmets are not negated by
| unintended risks as their use does not appear to increase
| the risk of neck or cervical spine injury as compared to
| non-helmeted participants in skiing and snowboarding.
|
| * The use of safety helmets also does not appear to
| increase the risk of compensation behavior as compared to
| non-helmeted participants in skiing and snowboarding.
|
| * Therefore, helmets are strongly recommended during
| recreational skiing and snowboarding.
|
| I mean, sure, there are BMJ Sports Medicine _Opinion
| Pieces_ by Dr Paul McCrory who was prolific with his
| _thoughts_ on the matter but short on _evidence_ , not to
| mention that whole, ummm, thing:
|
| https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/56/23/1327
|
| (The investigation into his extensive single author
| pieces).
| ahoka wrote:
| Maybe helmet users just did't die when headbutting
| something during snowboarding, so the increasing injury
| rate is actually good.
| doikor wrote:
| While a common hypothesis there is no scientific proof of
| that effect in skiing/snowboarding.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3989528/
|
| > Helmets do not appear to increase the risk compensation
| behavior among skiers and snowboarders.
|
| Nor has it been proven with a bunch of other activities
|
| > Convincing evidence in support of the risk compensation
| hypothesis has not been seen with the use of the face-
| shield in ice-hockey, motor vehicle seat belt use and
| motorcycle helmet use.
|
| Though the data isn't the best but what we do have does
| not seem to support that hypothesis.
| Fice wrote:
| Of course, no one will be making cars intentionally unsafe,
| but the law is also a risk factor, the risks of getting
| fined, jail time or licence revocation count too, and these
| risks can be made higher.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > If you want people to drive better, don't put airbags in
| their steering wheel, put a 6" metal spike pointed at their
| chest.
|
| Cars without breakable steering column were pretty much
| this, so everyone had this before ~1990. Yet, deaths in
| traffic have steadily decreased since then.
| rightbyte wrote:
| The steering wheel hid the spike though. You need to see
| it.
| Racing0461 wrote:
| /r/fuckcars is that way ->>>
| numlock86 wrote:
| Can you please just stay on Reddit then?
|
| Or in your words: "hurr durr, reddit is that way ->>> smh"
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Also with increasing size of vehicles, fuel consumption raise
| as well.
|
| We just pretend, that we care about environment untill we
| start speaking about our safety.
| culi wrote:
| the only reason people feel like they need a bigger car is
| because of all the other big cars on the road. A vicious
| spiral
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Because car producers make them. And we gladly buy them.
| culi wrote:
| > car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased
|
| It's also decreased for anyone NOT willing to buy a "light
| truck" (e.g. a modern SUV). There's a loophole that makes it
| so that light trucks don't have to be tested against the same
| safety standards as other vehicles. Basically they just have
| to prove they're safe to crash into _other_ light trucks but
| do not have to be tested against regular passenger vehicles.
| This loophole is credited as one of the main reasons car
| fatalities have been rapidly growing in the US but falling in
| most other nations. And also for the massive recent explosion
| in size (again, mainly observed in the US).
|
| But size is just one factor that's reduced safety. Another
| one is reduced visibility. One of the contributors to the
| rise in fatalities has been due to parents literally running
| over their own children in their driveways. These are low-
| speed, suburban vehicle fatalities that are not happening in
| other countries
| DrThunder wrote:
| Most modern SUV's aren't trucks in any sense. They
| crossovers built on car frames.
| sulam wrote:
| Legally they are light trucks. Obviously that's not how
| they're used or designed.
| culi wrote:
| yes, but I'm speaking about the legal classification.
| They are always light trucks in the US
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_truck
|
| Side note, the Wikipedia page has a section about how
| SUVs get away with less stringent emissions standards
| webel0 wrote:
| Yes, I keep on thinking that a premium market will develop for
| Toyota and Honda cars from roughly ~2006-2010. Those cars were
| the height of internal combustion technology without all of the
| electronics.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I think that market has already developed. Look at prices for
| used cars from that time period.
| helij wrote:
| They will outlaw them soon enough and good riddance.
| Whenever I drive behind one of these older cars they
| usually stink.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| You might like to push the recirculate button/lever when
| that happens.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Seriously? Maybe a Honda Pilot, but not a Camry, Accord,
| or Civic, which are the big sellers during that era.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Yeah. I honestly don't know if I'd trade my 2006 Saab 9-3
| Aero for a 2023 anything. No trouble, no nonsense, it's fast
| enough, it doesn't nag at me if I drive around the block
| without my seatbelt, and minor repairs are rarely more than
| $100.
|
| A few years back, I had a late model Mercedes GLS, and the
| damn thing was in the shop almost every other month, and each
| time it was at least $300-400. Mostly it was electronic
| components that were at fault; an error in the anti-theft
| system which cost me $2000 was too much to bear, and I sold
| the car at a loss...
| wredue wrote:
| Pretty much all cars sell at a loss. The chip issues
| appreciating car values is not a generally normal thing for
| vehicle values.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| On most cars you can disable the seatbelt chime with the
| right sequence, it's just not advertised and won't be found
| in the manual, but is easily found online.
| lightedman wrote:
| "minor repairs are rarely more than $100"
|
| 2005 9-3 Linear here. I wish minor repairs were that cheap.
| Wait until you need your water pump replaced ;) Get ready
| to squick hard at the required labor charges (water pump is
| integral to the engine IIRC, requiring the engine to be
| pulled.)
|
| Right now I need new spark plugs, injectors, and a turbo
| replaced, and a grounding strap issue somewhere I haven't
| been able to isolate. Gonna run me a small bit of change.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Hello fellow sabers. I wouldn't trade my 88 900T for
| anything. Its just about to crank over 340K
| jabl wrote:
| Well, that's a "real" Saab, the newer ones are just built
| on the GM standard platform with a bit of Saabish
| styling.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| Don't forget the Saabaru
| BluePen7 wrote:
| That's the difference, he's doing his own work. Hell,
| around here the minimum labour charge is already more
| than $100.
|
| As someone who owned a Saabaru, many 4 figure shop quotes
| become a weekend and <$100 in parts. Just depends on if
| you have the time and space to DIY.
| astura wrote:
| Around here the minimum labor charge alone is more than
| $100, so you must be doing all the work yourself.
| pjmorris wrote:
| Anecdata to your point:
|
| 1. In the world of Honda S2000's, all other things being
| equal the 2004-05 models command a premium over the 00-03 and
| 06-09 model years.
|
| 2. My wife (2022 Prius) sighs when she sees how attached I am
| to my 2008 CR-V. It has 220K miles and I'd be happy to drive
| it another 220K.
| mcny wrote:
| Keep in mind if you're buying a used 2007 Toyota Camry that
| the oil burning problem was a Toyota Service Bulletin and not
| a recall. The TSB has expired. If the previous owner(s) did t
| do it in time, you can't do it for free anymore. You might
| need to "top up" half a quart of engine oil or do oil changes
| every three thousand to five thousand miles even with full
| synthetic oil, ignoring any Toyota assurances that you may
| wait longer.
| exhilaration wrote:
| That oil burning fix for my 2007 Camry was a lifesaver, I
| had been quoted $8000 (more than the value of the car) to
| essentially replace the engine. Then one day the letter
| arrived from Toyota telling me they'd fix it for free. My
| sister is still driving that car! That made me a lifelong
| Toyota customer.
| to11mtm wrote:
| I think a lot of companies started 'getting it right' during
| that time.
|
| FBOW however, the increasing demands of Fuel Economy and
| emissions standards led to a lot of poorly-executed moves for
| various companies from a reliability standpoint; Sometimes
| it's dual clutch transmissions or CVTs, sometimes it's stuff
| like cylinder deactivation or a cheaped out Turbo 4 or 3
| cylinder design.
|
| And then, all the speeds on an auto in general now. It took a
| decent amount of time for (most of) the automakers to make a
| reliable 4 speed auto across their lines. Hondamatic 5 speeds
| warned of things to come, because first everyone started
| flipping to 6 speeds (emphasis on the starting bit, in 2006).
| Then over the next 10-12 years we got all the way from 6
| speeds to 10, often without enough size increase budget to
| _know_ it will all be reliable.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| To me it feels like Mazda did it right even though they got
| a lot of crap for it. Still feels like they are a hidden
| gem. What they did was focus on _fleet average_. Their
| thesis was whats the point of being green if you still are
| selling gas guzzling hogs and you just sell some garbage EV
| to offset them.
|
| So what they did was first drop their pickup truck and then
| develop a smooth and efficient 4 cylinder engine mated to
| traditional transmission to deploy across the fleet, then
| slowly migrate all of them to a hybrid drive and then
| finally move to a fleet wide EV architecture. This keeps
| the fleet average down while also not compromising in other
| ways like crummy CVTs. (Im not sure if they use
| deactivation.)
|
| Will it work? well so far their first EV entry didn't fare
| so well. But they are still on the move to hybrid phase and
| they make some pretty darn smooth cars these days.
| to11mtm wrote:
| Mazda does OK. They did have their own missteps (a
| diesel) but they at least haven't been Toyota'd like
| Subaru.
|
| > Their thesis was whats the point of being green if you
| still are selling gas guzzling hogs and you just sell
| some garbage EV to offset them.
|
| Ford doesn't do this, but at the same time I find it
| hilariously suspicious that despite the success of the
| Maverick, there doesn't seem to be any messaging about
| increasing capacity. And I say that because even as an
| early adopter -most- problems have been in the 'I can
| still drive it' category. And yet they won't increase
| production.
| everdrive wrote:
| I don't know what's going on at Ford, but it seems to be
| nothing but production issues with them. They have
| constraints on nearly all of their popular vehicles, and
| are losing tons of sales. I wanted a Maverick, but had to
| settle for a Nissan Frontier since Ford can't seem to
| build one.
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| Under the electronic stuff the third gen honda fit is
| basically the same as my 95 honda del sol.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| Agreed. It was a time where the computer did all the
| important stuff of fuel trim, timing etc. but none of the
| bullshit. 2005-2010 was peak ICE. And the parts are dirt
| cheap!
| xattt wrote:
| > Toyota ... ~2006-2010
|
| The 5th Gen Camry was one of the first, if not the first,
| cars with drive-by-wire throttle.
| localhost wrote:
| My gone but not forgotten E46 M3 had drive by wire throttle
| in 2000.
| blyry wrote:
| Absolutely. I have an 08 accord, an 02 Silverado and a 2019
| odyssey for the wife and family. I want the safety and
| sensing upgrades for the family and road trips, but I get a
| bench seat and /real/ buttons!
|
| I'm averaging 20-30% of a new car payment keeping them
| running and replacing big parts, but I would spend double
| (maybe lol) that so I can keep the experience. If I had a
| commute longer than a half hour maybe I'd look into a Prius
| or Leaf? Just waiting for a cts-v wagon to fall into my
| lap....
| hot_gril wrote:
| This is the era of my 3 cars, but really they weren't the
| height of ICE tech. There was a breakthrough in
| power/efficiency around 2018. I just like how non-fussy the
| older cars are and how they look.
| everdrive wrote:
| The the breakthroughs you're referring to are direct
| injection, then those come with their own downsides. Either
| severely reduced reliability (when solely using Gasoline
| Direction Injection (GDI) injectors) or increased cost and
| complexity. (When using a dual-injection setup, such as GDI
| + Port Fuel Injection (PFI))
| lloeki wrote:
| I don't know of any car from that period that don't have
| electronics, they all have a bunch of sensors (lambda probe
| and whatnot), an ECU, ABS and ESP. Or maybe by electronics
| you mean the various fancy assists like lane keeping and
| whatnot?
|
| That said this electronics is rock solid, my '08 Civic Type-R
| is basically pristine mechanically and after 15 years only
| required maintenance of wear parts. The paint job though has
| time taking its toll, as varnish is peeling off in various
| places. Still with proper care I expect the car to last
| another 15 years without breaking a sweat.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The ones from the 90s in good shape are already commanding
| higher prices after bottoming out like a decade ago. I don't
| think the late 90s supra or s2000 ever got truly cheap.
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| I bought a 2004 corolla off the lot and my experience has been
| the same.
|
| legitimately the only major repair I've ever needed is to
| replace the oil pan and that was my fault. runs like a champ, I
| literally just got back from driving it about 10 minutes ago.
|
| It looks ugly as sin as over the years people have thrown
| themselves at the vehicle, including a line down the passenger
| side where a fedex semi took a left turn too sharply, but it
| runs beautifully. Part of that is maintenance, of course, but
| if you treat'em well they'll treat you well.
| carabiner wrote:
| 2015 tacoma it's the same. marvel of engineering
| w0m wrote:
| I miss my 2014 Taco.
| SilasX wrote:
| Interesting contrast with the Onion's other parody, Ford
| marketing a used 1993 car as the option for poorer buyers "who
| just need to get from their mother-in-law's to the unemployment
| office".
|
| https://www.theonion.com/ford-unveils-new-car-for-cash-strap...
| mattpallissard wrote:
| I have kids and value their safety but they can pull my 90's
| Honda and Chevy from my cold dead hands /irony
| w0m wrote:
| Maybe they won't break down, but they have ~none of the
| modern safety features to keep them, uh, safe.
| denvaar wrote:
| > extremely mechanical 4Runner
|
| Same sentiment for my washer/dryer. Bought an older (used) set
| for $300, They have lasted 7 years so far, which is in addition
| to however long they were in use before: I would guess at least
| 7 more.
|
| Seems like lots of people lament how things like cars,
| refrigerators, washers, etc. are becoming less mechanical and
| more electronic. Maybe there's a market for "bespoke"
| mechanical items.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I don't think all that many people really feel this way in
| the end. A significant majority of new car buyers feel very
| strongly about having Apple CarPlay for instance. And hey, me
| too.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| Adding Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to older vehicles is
| easier than adding it to a newer one. On a newer vehicle
| you have to worry about car systems like the AC, seat
| controls, etc being integrated into the infotainment
| system. On an older car with a single din radio (w/
| cassette deck or cd) you can just buy an off the shelf
| radio that has CarPlay and Android Auto.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Yeah but that's just one example. As much as I like to
| imagine myself as a practical driver who might want to do
| performance driving or whatever, in reality I like all
| the creature comforts of a modern car.
| underlipton wrote:
| Electronic stuff is still reparable. Probably even more
| cheaply, in some regards (certainly material cost). We've
| just been made to become accustomed to viewing electronic
| devices as disposable/primarily replaceable. And while most
| people have turned a wrench before, knowing how to use a
| soldering iron/heat gun/magnifier effectively is not a common
| skill. Could be, though.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Electronic stuff can be incredibly hard to repair, when the
| manufacturer doesn't share any information or even actively
| encrypts/locks it down.
| Tool_of_Society wrote:
| Really it just depends. Depends on who made it what it it
| is where it is etc.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Yes, but some fixes can also be incredibly simple (ie. a
| bad capacitor, loose wire, etc..).
| mlhpdx wrote:
| My built-in refrigerator was slowly dying. Weak beeping,
| occasionally power cycling - and getting worse as the days
| went on. No longer under warranty, and no replacement parts
| being made. Replacing the fridge would escalate to
| replacing cabinetry, and possibly a full remodel since that
| would "enhance" the worn look of everything else. You may
| know how this goes...
|
| I knew enough to google the symptoms and found someone that
| would "rebuild" the main circuit board for a flat fee of
| $250 with about a week to turn around. That's a fair bit
| cheaper than the remodel option.
|
| But that got me thinking "if it's a flat rate, and
| occasionally something is hard to fix that means most
| repairs must be trivial or the person wouldn't be making
| enough money". What's an obvious, easy and cheap circuit
| board problem? Capacitors.
|
| I had to buy a tester for $150 but I get to keep it. And
| the bad capacitor it found cost $.08.
|
| Knowing just a little and being willing to learn a little
| more saved me a considerable amount of time, trouble and
| money.
|
| I hope the same is true for cars because I have three
| relatively new ones in the family and we tend to keep them
| 10-20 years.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| We also know that any electronic stuff is very often
| designed to not be reparable at all. While there are
| standard interfaces for standard diagnostic data, you
| rarely can skip dealing with a very closed stack of
| software, intellectual property around a thick shield of
| armor.
|
| This is why you get things like heatable seat DLC.
| jocaal wrote:
| Repairing electronics is not fun. Ask any undergraduate
| that spent hours looking for broken op-amps and bad solder
| joints. I don't think its the same class of repairability
| as old cars.
| supportengineer wrote:
| My base level Kenmore washer and dryer are over 20 years old.
| When it's time to replace them I would only consider Speed
| Queen.
| secabeen wrote:
| SQs are reliable, and pretty robust. However, it is
| important to know that the top-loader agitator models and
| are popular on the Internet use quite a lot of water and
| are pretty hard on clothing. You may keep the SQ longer,
| but a modern front-loader may allow you to keep your
| existing clothing longer.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Maybe our family have just been lucky with the brands we
| pick, but I definitely haven't found this... My Electrolux
| fridge has been 100% solid for over seven years now, which I
| bought because my parents had had one for eight or nine years
| at the time (which is still going). My Bosch Series 8 front-
| loader washing machine has also been a tank, same age, no
| signs of anything going wrong, same story - I bought it
| because a friend had had a similar model for years, theirs is
| still going to...
|
| Seems like there are still reliable appliances to be found,
| it's just probably that there's more low-quality cheaply made
| appliances on the market than there used to be, so it used to
| be easier to get a good one without researching so much...
| matt_s wrote:
| Its kind of ironic that here in HN, a forum about technology
| and software, a lot of people have sentiments about less
| electronics and software. We know this stuff breaks in bad
| and odd ways and the more you have in a product (car) the
| more chances there are of it happening. Less is more.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| FWIW, the computers don't tend to break. The things that do
| break are essentially the same as they were 20 years ago. The
| bells and whistles are mostly for creatures comfort. The
| mechanical components haven't changed much.
|
| The only thing that I couldn't fix on my own in my 2020 vs my
| 2006 was re-alignment of lane keep system after replacing the
| windshield.
| metadat wrote:
| The littany of sensors begin to go bad after 6-7 years in
| many newer cars.
| 1-6 wrote:
| I've had malfunctioning servos that can't seem to keep
| still. It affects the recirculation and air controls but
| that's about it.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| That's not a new problem. My experience is the most
| reliable actuators are simple vacuum spring design but
| they're so much more complex to route and take up space.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| I wish we never got rid of manual windows. Those servos
| are the most annoying thing I've had to replace on my
| vehicle yet
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Which sensors?
|
| All of the important sensors have been in cars for years
| and years at this point.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Lots of sensors and features on my 2016 Honda have trouble.
| Not as bad as a Cadillac or Mercedes, but bad nonetheless.
|
| The worst is software problems. The dealer techs don't have
| the tools, training or interest to sift through TSBs and
| upgrade systems.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| As a car nerd, a popular opinion is to avoid cars with
| computers because they could fail anytime, and can't be
| macgyvered into a repair roadside.... but after ~50 years of
| computerized cars, it seems that simple solid state
| computers, ruggedized and often potted in epoxy essentially
| never fail. And moreover, they can both give early warnings
| before you're stranded, and diagnostic data that can be used
| to pinpoint and fix a problem in the middle of nowhere.
|
| I especially love the mid-90s and newer VWs, which will
| report through VCDS software literally every part failure, or
| sensor output, from any system in the car.
| smoyer wrote:
| I have a couple of '71 VWs and you can fix almost anything
| on the with toothpicks and Scotch tape. They just run
| because they're so simple ... You can actually count the
| wires in the harness and read the color codes! Thing thing
| that drives me nuts are the mechanical voltage regulator -
| they are finicky and today's hardened solid state devices
| near them in every way.
| dasv wrote:
| If you don't intend to keep them fully stock there are
| modern solid-state drop-in replacements for reasonable
| prices! Given that they are fairly simple cars building
| one yourself from common electronic parts would not be
| too difficult either.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Simplicity is huge for reliability... but Volvos from
| that same early 70s era were also crazy simple yet used
| solid state boxes to control everything... and were way
| more reliable than the VWs.
| Sophistifunk wrote:
| It's not computers breaking you need to fear, but your
| engine management refusing to turn on when you've put a in
| third-party window washer motor that doesn't provide the
| correct response to some proprietary encrypted canbus
| query.
| samtho wrote:
| Having a newer VW with VCDS is a superpower. If you are
| getting vague codes (e.g. Air Intake Leak), you get really
| good at analyzing sensor data to determine exactly what an
| issue might be and can either fix it or swap the sensor,
| most of which can be had for reasonably cheap (notable
| exceptions include MAF and emissions related sensors).
| busterarm wrote:
| Beg to differ.
|
| The reality is more like how Ford has victimized its
| customers with its EPAS system. That's Electronic Power
| Assist Steering.
|
| They got rid of the old dead-simple power steering pump and
| replaced it with a flakey system based around an electronic
| sensor that is prone to shorting if you look at it funny
| and can only be replaced along with the entire steering
| rack that it's attached to...to the tune of thousands of
| dollars.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| VWs and Audis of that era were notorious for the electrical
| system getting haunted by ghosts. Forums are littered with
| threads of perplexing symptoms, engine codes, voltage
| readings, often no solutions either for most of these
| threads from userbases that are competent enough to swap
| engines or transmissions themselves.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| As a longtime VW forum guy, those issues are mostly from
| people not knowing what they are doing and usually
| involve extensive water damage to the electrical harness-
| that can be prevented with proper maintenance. For
| example, there was a design flaw in some of the coolant
| reservoirs that cause coolant to leak into the wiring
| harness. If you know about this, you can look for it and
| catch it early or prevent it.
| SethMurphy wrote:
| When I bought a new 2012 VW GTI there wasn't even a
| schematic for the fuses. Apparently the wiring is not even
| consistent on a model year, so they just didn't provide it.
| Easy to understand why with even computer codes mechanics
| are stuck with a plug and pray methodology.
| rapind wrote:
| The thing most likely to cause an accident with my car is the
| horrible Apple Car Play system via USB. I don't know if it's
| a VW problem, Apple problem, or just a bad combination of the
| two. It can be so frustrating and fiddly that I'll just pull
| over to deal with it. I've been considering going old school
| with a mount and just use the car speakers via bluetooth
| instead.
| GoodDreams wrote:
| Not sure if I had the same issues but my situation was
| resolved by cleaning my lightning port and using a quality
| cable.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Car Play has been reliable for me in a Toyota. Now the
| Toyota software, twice in two years I've pulled over to
| power cycle the car because the head unit was wedged. I'm
| not sure how that compares to other cars but never had to
| reboot any of the many rentals I've used over the years.
| hot_gril wrote:
| CarPlay is hit-or-miss. It's been totally unusable in every
| Chevy I've driven and moderately bad in some other cars,
| but it worked flawlessly in my last Chrysler rental car of
| all things.
|
| You know what's even better than a working CarPlay, the
| cupholder in my own car that can hold my phone in a nicely
| visible spot.
| girvo wrote:
| VW problem. My missus' VW Polo has the same problems. I did
| work out that a brand new, known-good cable _and_ working
| out that pressing and holding the power button to hard-
| reset the dash would get it to finally start connecting
| every time (or connect properly after it 's done its "I'm
| useless" failure mode)
| dahart wrote:
| The chips themselves don't tend break, but wires and
| connectors and sensors all do tend to break, and they are
| effectively part of the computer system. Today, it's
| practically moot where you draw the line. Something
| mechanical on my CRV broke somewhere, and the computer didn't
| know what it was, and so the dealer didn't know what it was,
| and the computer tended to shut down over unknown problems,
| and it eventually caused a cascading failure of physical
| mechanical components when the timing belt melted and it took
| out the alternator with it.
|
| > The bells and whistles are mostly for creatures comfort.
|
| This is increasingly (and rapidly) less and less true.
| Traction control, lane assist, adaptive cruise control, and
| emergency braking, are all things computer controlled (and
| things that are programmed to disable when the computer
| barfs. You can argue these are creature comforts, but in my
| experience they are becoming necessary modern safety
| features.
|
| In a previous car, the sound system wigged out completely
| when it was only 5 years old. That's a creature comfort,
| except _really_ annoying to go without, and it was insanely
| expensive to replace, several thousands for a pretty basic
| stereo.
| water9 wrote:
| It's actually the capacitors that fail first because they
| have a liquid electrolyte
| twisteriffic wrote:
| I have never seen an electrolytic capacitor fail in an
| automotive context, and I've owned my fair share of
| capacitor plague-era vehicles. I'd imagine it's a
| combination of preferring other types of capacitor for
| that environment and not buying the cheapest shit they
| can find in the markets that day like Dell did.
| water9 wrote:
| Yeah, it could also be a product of where you live. I
| live in the southwest us so it's more area here and
| likely to dry them out faster. You're definitely right
| about good quality not being as good as it used to be
| cuu508 wrote:
| Did the computer shutdown(s) cause (or fail to prevent) the
| timing chain failure?
| dahart wrote:
| Yes - it was probably more in the failure to prevent
| category, but I'm not sure because we never got to the
| bottom of it, the computer would just freak out and
| refuse to recognize any systems. We were playing a game
| of pay the dealer to replace something random to see if
| it worked, and then repeat when it didn't. Once it
| asploded, we paid over $5k in repairs, only to have the
| computer start convulsing again, so we sold it back to
| Honda. Something was seriously wrong with Honda's overall
| computer design here. I don't know if they've fixed it,
| but I'm not alone, this is a relatively common issue for
| ~5 year old CRVs, based on what I've found online.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Sounds like you need to stop relying on the dealer and
| find one of those old guru mechanics that can diagnose a
| car just by listening to it. Good mechanics are worth
| their weight in gold and I promise they're out there if
| you look for them.
| dahart wrote:
| Hehe they can hear the sound of the computer? I have a
| couple of excellent mechanics on speed-dial, but they
| couldn't have done any better here, and I wouldn't have
| gotten the work partially reimbursed, nor would Honda
| have bought the car back after the damage if it had been
| a 3rd party. It turned out to be really useful in my case
| that Honda was the one that tried to fix it, and the
| dealer admitted the problem was out of our control.
| whatevaa wrote:
| Listening to the computers does not work. Debugging
| electronics also requires different skillset and oftenly,
| expensive equipment to even talk to it. Also,
| manufacturers are increasingly locking down debugability
| of the cars and after market part availability via parts
| pairing.
|
| That's why people don't like increasing amount of
| electronics in cars.
| xeromal wrote:
| Old guru mechanics don't often like computers. lol
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > in my experience they are becoming necessary modern
| safety features
|
| EU recently mandated that all new models have Intelligent
| Speed Assistance[1].
|
| This requires the car to use GPS, read signs and such to
| determine the current speed limit, and provide some
| feedback like a dynamic force on the gas pedal[2].
|
| I got this in my new car, being a model introduced last
| year, and while it's nice when it works, it's often
| confused or wrong. And that's when it's operating normally.
| I already had to replace the gas pedal unit because the
| force feedback mechanism in it had some issues (would tap
| the pedal like a light hammer strike at a specific
| position, repeated around 5 Hz if held at the exact
| position). Wonder how it'll all hold up down the line.
|
| [1]: https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-
| knowledge...
|
| [2]: https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-
| news/a40543584/anti-s...
| BeetleB wrote:
| Do computers last 20+ years in cars?
|
| As others have mentioned, sensors and stuff related to safety
| fail all the time. I recently paid $800 to re-enable the
| safety systems in my (newer) car after a part failed. I've
| never had such expensive repairs on my 20 year old car.
| lightedman wrote:
| Do computers last 20+ years in cars? Well, my 2005 SAAB
| 9-3T is still working quite nicely outside of a failing
| turbo and the injectors needing replacing. Computer still
| tells me when lights are out, if I'm having A/B throttle
| sensor voltage issues, etc.
|
| But that's 18 years old. Give me two more and we can have
| this convo again.
| zeusk wrote:
| My 2001 BMW with electronic throttle and fuel injection is
| doing just fine, the weakest point is plastic in the engine
| bay gets brittle and starts rotting (especially around
| coolant system).
| BeetleB wrote:
| Ah, but probably a single repair on that BMW will be more
| expensive than 5 years of repairs on my Corolla.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Only if you do your repairs at the dealership
| tirant wrote:
| It depends on the country. BMW are well known by any
| mechanic and parts are widely available, OEM and
| aftermarket. In my experience BMWs are not more expensive
| to repair than any Toyota or VW, but due to the increased
| set of features they have a higher failure surface.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| As a BMW owner, I actually found the repair pricing quite
| comparable. Maybe not quite to a Corolla, but it was to a
| Lexus.
|
| If anything the Lexus was a bit more, due to how common
| BMW specialist shops are, while there's none for Lexus.
|
| The issue for me was the frequency of the repairs, 5
| years of Lexus ownership cost me less than any 3-4 month
| period of BMW ownership over the 2 years I owned it.
|
| I suppose I can only compare 2-3 repairs, cause the other
| dozen repairs for the BMW simply didn't break on the
| Lexus, nor did it spring any of oil leaks my BMW was
| famed for.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| My Xdrive unit in my BMW died 3 months after buying it. I
| thought...ya, out of all the things that could break in my
| car...it was the bell and whistle computer. I'm betting it
| was just a capacitor or something, but of course you have to
| get a whole new one as a replacement.
| bane wrote:
| One thing that years and years of looking at CR has attuned
| me to is that car electronics break all the time and are the
| reason why many brands have poor reliability scores even
| though the engines run, the lights turn on, and the doors
| open and close (most of the time).
|
| German and American cars seem to have a very frustrating time
| with reliable electronics compared to Asian brands for some
| reason, and the problems persist year after year.
|
| For especially electronic heavy brands, typically higher-end
| ones the problem can become particularly pronounced, the
| bottom ranked vehicles on this list are mostly high-end,
| expensive, and packed full of gear (except for a few).
| Electric vehicles and PHEVs have the biggest problems being
| almost entirely electronics.
| anymouse123456 wrote:
| My 2015 Dodge RAM with a failed ECU begs to differ. Wouldn't
| be so bad except replacements aren't expected to be available
| until April 2024.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| But, that's not unique to a "computer loaded car". ECU's
| have been a standard component for decades.
| anymouse123456 wrote:
| Granted. Good point. :-)
| _AzMoo wrote:
| I have a 2021 Subaru Forester and the sensors are a
| nightmare. The computers are fine, but the sensors are
| extremely problematic.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| "The only thing that I couldn't fix on my own in my 2020 vs
| my 2006 was re-alignment of lane keep system after replacing
| the windshield. "
|
| That car isn't old enough for anything to be breaking yet.
| It's barely 4 years old. In a 2006 so many basic simple
| things break like the clip to hold down the center console,
| the knob on the AC control. Not to mention the suspension,
| fan on the blower, belts, power window on at least 1 window.
| And you expect that touchscreen and software to make it?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Sounds like someone has never had to replace a wiring harness
| or deal with electrical "gremlins." Also a lot of parts are
| just really terribly made these days. I had a 2000 car that
| was already succombing to modern plastic everything crap
| philosophy. Basically all the motors controlling the windows
| or power door locks were shot or close to shot. The internal
| gearing was all plastic and had gone brittle. The fix? Take
| apart the internal panelling and replace the whole motor
| assembly with a new unit that has the same fundamental issue
| with it, even though a five cent gear or clutch is what
| broke, until you can source no more new oem units, at which
| point the part is broken until the end of time since all the
| junkyard stock will also be rotting apart. This is the world
| we are building for ourselves.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| Depends on how well the wiring is done in the first place.
|
| I am an enthusiast of the entire reliability spectrum of
| vehicle brands.
|
| There are people on Range Rover forums wondering why their
| infotainment doesn't work half the time in their brand new
| SUV, meanwhile when I goggled why my windshield wipers
| wouldn't turn off in my 97 Tacoma, I found a thread that
| suggested a wire would wear through in 200-300k miles
| (which was my mileage).
|
| I owned a BMW 325i that was full of gremlins, then owned
| the competing Lexus IS350 (with far more features), to
| double the age and mileage without 1/10th of the issues.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > The mechanical components haven't changed much.
|
| But the control/configuration of mechanical components is now
| being done from touch panel and if it becomes unresponsive
| then it's as good as mechanical component breakdown.
| pantulis wrote:
| Sadly even old computers will being to break at some point.
| My Ford Focus is old enough to drink too and the central unit
| has become flaky, like numbers disappearing from the odometer
| and the speedometer going to 0 in mid route. The repair shop
| said those were dirty contacts, then the soldering, then they
| took it to a 3rd party... they didn't solve anything. The
| mechanics of the car are still good, but I feel like its time
| has come because now I'm not feeling confident of taking it
| for a long trip.
| katbyte wrote:
| went from a MT 3rd gen 4runner to a MT 3rd gen 2022 tacoma -
| aside from the 4wd shifter being electronic no complains!
| Lazare wrote:
| Interestingly the article actually calls out the 4Runner as
| "among the most reliable models in the survey". Apparently the
| newer model years are still pretty solid!
| sciurus wrote:
| The 4Runner hasn't been redesigned in a long time. A 2024
| 4Runner is substantially the same as a 2010 4Runner.
|
| Rumor has it that Toyota will finally unveil a new design for
| the 2025 model year.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_4Runner#Fifth_generat.
| ..
| ghaff wrote:
| On the other hand anecdata, I had a 13ish year old 4Runner
| with only about 70K miles lose a transmission line on me a
| couple years back. The dealership shrugged and said maybe it
| was a chip on the coating from a piece of gravel. Though it
| may well have been a manufacturing defect. In any case, ended
| up having to nurse the vehicle home and basically nurse it 2
| months until I could get a new Honda.
|
| Which I actually like a lot better. The 4Runner is a very old
| platform. Other than the infortainment system, a rental I
| coincidentally had a couple years back was basically
| identical to the fairly poor handling SUV I had for 10+
| years.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| What is a transmission line?
| ghaff wrote:
| Automatic transmission hydraulic fluid line.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Why did the transmission line require replacing the
| vehicle? I've replaced them on a cargo van...it was cheaper
| and easier than a pair of rear drum brakes, a normal piece
| of routine maintenance
| ghaff wrote:
| The transmission was drivable but damaged because it was
| a bad leak. Given its age and some body damage, it didn't
| make sense to repair--and I got a ridiculously good
| trade-in anyway.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| There's _one_ thing about "newer" cars (mine's a 2014) that
| older cars don't tend to have, and that's the ability to make
| the car beep remotely. That is insanely valuable in large
| parking lots.
|
| Bluetooth stereo: that, you could install after-market.
| randerson wrote:
| I've solved the parking lot problem with a $29 Apple AirTag.
| imwally wrote:
| If you use Apple CarPlay or connect your iPhone to
| Bluetooth Apple Maps will remember where you parked your
| car once you disconnect. I use this feature quite a bit to
| know how far I have to walk back to the car when I'm out on
| a hike.
|
| Though, I imagine an AirTag will give you more precise
| location.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| We used to install security systems with remotes in our old
| cars. Using the remote to trigger the alarm/horn works
| exactly the same as it does today.
| hackernewds wrote:
| it's an inanimate car that is dispensable. your family's life
| is not. there is a DRASTIC difference in safety and
| survivability of newer cars. I would switch over yesterday
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| 2000 4Runner 2x4 (I think last year made in Japan) 320k miles.
| Still original alternator, starter and every other major
| component (transmission, rear end, etc). I am not sure but may
| have replaced water pump about 10 years ago but I could be
| wrong and it still might be original. Just tires, brakes,
| battery and religiously change oil every 3k. Has a little hail
| damage but other than that looks new and feels dependable and
| drives well. It is my first Toyota...
| StillBored wrote:
| Yes, 1999 Tachoma, is largely the same thing, although there
| is a laundry list of things that need to be done as basic
| maintenance, which I assume is the same on the 4runner since
| they are basically the same vehicle. Mine needed rear axle
| seals, timing cover seals, and I did the water pump
| preventatively as part of the timing belt change, also
| because I have the warm climate version, the starter is too
| small and eats the starter contacts every ~70K or so miles,
| and last time I just swapped in the higher current starter
| instead of doing the contacts for the 3rd time.
|
| It also has grease fittings on the drivetrain that, if not
| greased on a regular schedule (read maybe every ~10K miles),
| will squeak, the mass airflow sensor needs to be cleaned on
| nearly the same schedule as even tiny amounts of
| contamination throws it off and the gas mileage will suffer
| and eventually the 5ZVFE will knock because of it. And
| because it doesn't have auto tensioners on the belts, they
| need to be checked and adjusted every 40K or so, etc. Lots of
| extra maintenance that some of the newer Toyotas don't seem
| to require. And of course, just about all of the toyota
| truck/4runners/etc of that era a super sensitive to brake and
| tire wear issues which turn them into vibration machines if
| not kept in perfect alignment/wear/etc because apparently the
| suspension/etc are so lightweight. Plastic headlamp fog is
| another one.
|
| While yes, things that seem to wear out on other vehicles
| seem to be designed for the vehicle's life (alternators,
| wheel bearings, AC, cabin controls, etc).
|
| (ex my 201x 4.6L tundra, which is plugs every 100K, brakes,
| tires and fluids, oh and hell the battery on that thing even
| lasted 2x as long as it was labeled for, I just replaced it
| last year)
|
| Anyway, many of those items can be ignored for a long time if
| the vehicle is treated like a 20 year old beater. Things like
| the rear axle seals can leak into the rear drums and largely
| be missed until someone notices that the rear diff has been
| run for 100k miles with barely any fluid, and is cooked. The
| same is true for the valve covers; they seep in the back near
| the firewall or onto the exhaust manifold. Unless you look
| for it, there won't be enough oil lost between changes to
| notice.
| purpleblue wrote:
| I have a 2012 Honda Fit that they will need to pry off my cold
| dead hands. It's my favorite car of all time, it's everything
| that I want from a car. Except possibly a larger gas tank.
| shoelessone wrote:
| Fellow 2012 Fit owner. I bought it after reviewing
| carcomplaints.com and finding it was a very reliable car by
| their metrics, all the top problems are related to
| accessories.
| tylerstorm wrote:
| I have a 2009 Honda Fit and feel the same way. 181k miles and
| still working perfectly!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You and me both, Fit Fiend!
|
| We had to do something with the spark coils/plugs last
| year, but other than that, no repairs except routine
| maintainance (tires, oil, filters etc).
|
| Amazing vehicle, very sad that Honda initially talked about
| an EV version and then pivoted to "no more Fit in North
| America"
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Also a happy Fit owner. Apparently, there exists a
| hybrid, 4wd Fit in Japan. We don't get the cool stuff in
| the US.
| smoyer wrote:
| I have a 2006 Toyota Sienna that's approaching 300k miles and a
| 2001 Mercedes that's got about 220k miles. That's almost the
| top and bottom of the list and IMHO it's all about regular
| maintenance. I have a 2008 Honda FIT with under 100k and it
| constantly needs something.
| Infernal wrote:
| I've got an 08 Fit as well, in 15 years and 150k miles I
| haven't had to do anything outside of brakes/ignition
| coils/spark plugs. What sorts of things have gone wrong with
| yours?
| porknubbins wrote:
| People complain about new cars being harder to fix because of
| electronics but I think post OBDII they are actually easier
| because they tell you what is broken with error codes and also
| forums of experts are just a click away.
|
| I do think its true that you can no longer be a diy hotrodder
| for most models because there is so much complexity with
| timing, emissions, fuel efficiency strategies, variable valve
| timing etc.
| bane wrote:
| I think it's interesting that reliability seems to have two
| common semantic meanings:
|
| 1) Doesn't break
|
| 2) Easy to repair
|
| I've had this discussion numerous times over the years and
| the second meaning, while surprising, seems to come up
| frequently.
|
| "My Toyanda is ultra reliable"
|
| "So is my 76 Esquinot. It's really easy to fix, <insert
| reason why>."
| samplatt wrote:
| 1) can be a result of 2).
|
| When a car makes regular maintenance really easy and/or
| cheap, it's going to be more likely to never break. My
| Toyota Prado had the oil filter easily accessible at the
| top of the engine bay instead of being a PITA deep
| underneath near the sump, and had a "lip" around the seal
| to catch oil drips and divert down a hole to a catch line.
|
| Makes me actively angry that this design isn't universal.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > also forums of experts are just a click away.
|
| I've found most car forums tend to drive the real experts
| away due to them being full of blowhards. The real experts
| get tired of getting told by these folks they don't know what
| they're talking about, and end up creating closed invite only
| forums to trade info and advice on that the casual shade tree
| mechanic has no access to. I completely gave up on Rennlist
| after I asked a question about the turbo control system on
| the Porsche 951 only to realize many useless replies later
| that these people didn't even understand the basic theory
| behind how a turbo works. I answered my own question by bench
| testing an old junk turbo I bought on eBay and reported back
| to the forum only to be yelled at for not trusting their
| 'expert' advice. I've had similar experiences on other
| forums. Don't even get me started on the internet myths of
| DOT5 brake fluid that pretty much every forum takes as
| gospel. Even stacks of research papers and mandatory legal
| requirements don't keep people from spreading false
| information. Who needs all that nonsense? I now typically
| just pick up the phone and talk to experts I have personally
| worked with.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| > Don't even get me started on the internet myths of DOT5
| brake fluid that pretty much every forum takes as gospel.
|
| Please do!
| porknubbins wrote:
| Funny you mention a 951 that is the exact car I am working
| on right now (an 86). Certainly Rennlist has been not very
| helpful, but I think its just in the nature of the internet
| to have an extremely bad signal to noise ratio. I use the
| term experts lightly but I find that the knowlede online
| goes way beyond what you can find in the service manual.
| Roughly 75% of the time I can find an answer and the rest I
| need to do some basic science or logic like bench testing a
| turbo.
| m463 wrote:
| The only argument I can find against old pickup trucks would be
| lack of safety equipment.
|
| even with expensive gas.
| rascul wrote:
| Crappy fuel mileage except for some of the small trucks.
|
| Can be a bit dangerous on slick roads with no weight in the
| back.
|
| Easy to hit things and people while turning if you're not
| used to the size, and even if you are.
|
| Parts can be more expensive than one might think.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| > Parts can be more expensive than one might think.
|
| Couldn't agree more, due to their added size
| maintaining/operating a Silverado 1500 was similar to
| maintaining my Lexus. Reliable enough, but bigger tires,
| brakes, rotors, more fuel, etc.
| palemoonale wrote:
| You don't want the amount of SW in youger cars though, and all
| these nanny annoyances.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I hear ya. We have a Toyota that's over a decade old at this
| point. It only ever needs routine maintenance. We'd like to
| purchase something newer for the same reasons as yours. But
| also everything is now "smart" and always online. Just like I
| want my TVs, I want a dumb vehicle with buttons and knobs. But
| dumb with premium features like how vehicles used to be, not
| the cheapest barebones models.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Do you have to waste time filling gas in it and drive yourself?
| Sounds like cool hobby /s
| matwood wrote:
| Not quite as old, but I drive a 2007 Tundra. Does all the
| things I need it to do. About a year ago I replaced the foggy
| headlamps and people thought I had gotten a new car lol
|
| I was at the Toyota dealership not long ago and the mechanic
| says, "we're not supposed to say this, but if you just do basic
| maintenance these cars will go for 20+ years. No way would I
| sell this for a new one. They cost too much now."
| sethammons wrote:
| I had one of those and it turns out they don't have true four
| wheel drive, but rather an antilock rear differential. It is
| controlled by a sensor that can freeze in icy conditions and
| fail to engage. Living in Montana, we had to sell the
| otherwise perfect truck for something that could reliably get
| up our driveway in winter.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| It was the TRD package that had the locking differential
| which was electronically actuated, right? But that's
| entirely separate from the "true" 4x4 with the barrel drive
| shaft synchronizing the front and year diffs. Did you have
| a pre-runner? Some of those were sold with funky
| combinations that have the locking diff but a crippled 4x4
| that disengages when you hit 10 mph.
| sspiff wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. I drive an 07 Volvo wagon, and it's
| practical, mostly reliable besides the odd repair and replacing
| wear items.
|
| It's still relatively safe, at least in terms of passive safety
| (it has a well engineered crash structure, curtain side impact
| airbags, etc).
|
| It drinks fuel like a drunk uncle drinks wine at a wedding,
| burns and leaks a little oil, etc. Fuel is very expensive where
| I live (currently around $8,3 to the gallon), so that's a
| thing.
|
| But mostly, modern cars are extremely expensive and just not
| appealing to me as a driver or as an owner. I'd have to go
| through a ton of repairs and fuel before I'd break even on a
| new car, I can probably drive my car for more than a decade
| still before it gets to that point.
|
| Pair that with Mozilla's Privacy Not Included report[0],
| pervasive tracking in modern cars and bullshit practices like
| "heated seats as a subscription", and I'm out.
|
| I'm considering just buying a good shell of a car and have it
| converted to EV when the time comes to replace the Volvo. An EV
| conversion is about $30-35k for a professional to plan, build,
| execute and certify. If I want to buy a car that matches or
| exceeds the comfort, practicality and joy of my Volvo, I'm
| looking at $60k+ on the new market, at least.
|
| [0]
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...
| tim333 wrote:
| $30-35k would be a good price. I've seen quotes like 3x that.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| You attribute it's reliability to it's simplicity, but I'd
| argue Toyota simply builds things to a better standard.
|
| As most people know, Lexus is also Toyota, and I've been
| driving a fully loaded luxury sedan from 2008 that also gave me
| no problems I didn't cause.
|
| It had plenty of fancy do-dads (that are pretty standard
| nowadays), a steering wheel and seat that moved into place upon
| entry, adaptive headlights that swivel and self-level,
| heated/ventilated seats, backup camera and infotainment, etc.
|
| Only time I _thought_ it was acting up (error with the self-
| levelling headlights), I discovered something had bashed the
| entire sensor bracket off the undercarriage. Replacing the
| bracket fixed it immediately.
|
| It made it to 280,000km (175k miles) before a red-light runner
| wrote it off, and it went to the scrapyard without even the
| check engine light on.
|
| Meanwhile the equivalent BMW fell apart on me in half that
| mileage, and hell, so did an F150 actually (and it was as basic
| as could be!)
| jjav wrote:
| > it's almost always something simple and relatively cheap
|
| That's a key point. Reliability might be good these days, but
| long-term repairability is very low.
|
| It's come to the point that even a mind-dumbingly trivial
| change like changing a brake light bulb or a battery can't be
| done (on a BMW, surely many other brands) without access to
| factory repair computers.
|
| So when the factory stops supporting your particular model,
| what then?
|
| I firmly believe that a century from now we'll still have
| historical cars from the 1950s-60s running around, but
| surviving cars from the 2020s will be extremely rare, since
| they can't be repaired beyond factory support.
| jmyeet wrote:
| You should be asking "What do terrorists and militants use?".
| Seriously. Look anywhere at any established militant or terrorist
| group and you'll see common tools. Some examples spring to mind:
|
| 1. Toyota Hilux trucks. Interestingly, for a combination of
| legislative reasons, you can't buy these in the US; But they are
| _incredibly_ reliable.
|
| 2. AK-47 rifles. These are perhaps one of the most influential
| weapon systems in history. Again, incredibly reliable.
|
| 3. Casio digital watches. These are used as timers for improvised
| explosives but again, they're incredibly reliable. And cheap.
|
| Back to cars, reliability is an interesting metric for cars
| because the manufacturers have made it incredibly difficult to
| maintain such cars yourself. You need to go to an authorized
| reapir shop that'll have the equip to access the computer
| systems.
|
| Is this more reliable? If you break down in the middle of
| nowhere, it can be less than ideal. A simpler vehicle can be
| easier to get going again.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| > 3. Casio digital watches. These are used as timers for
| improvised explosives but again, they're incredibly reliable.
| And cheap.
|
| While the watches themselves last forever I find that the strap
| or loop breaks pretty quickly at which point the cheapest
| option seem to be buying a whole new watch.
| intermerda wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
| Galacta7 wrote:
| Top Gear once tried to intentionally kill a Toyota Hilux,
| ramming it, parking it in the sea, dropping a trailer on it,
| and literally setting it on fire. Nothing worked. It still
| drove.
|
| I'm convinced that whatever remains of the charred Earth after
| WW3, somebody will still be driving a Hilux.
|
| https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk?si=wE7S-iFl2yxIxQ-O
| lbj wrote:
| BMW
| lbj wrote:
| BMW beating Mercedes? That'll be the day :D
| jacquesm wrote:
| On engine reliability they are on par. On electronics and
| auxiliaries both can't hold a candle to the Japanese in terms
| of reliability, but _all_ car manufacturers have problems in
| that domain.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| I have had 5 Toyota trucks and only replace them because I get
| antsy every few years for the newest thing. Never had a single
| problem with one and my current 19 taco at 70k miles just feels
| like a break in period. Each time the trade is is quite close to
| what I paid for it. Have been looking at getting a late 80's
| 4runner as a fun second rig and don't anticipate any issues with
| that either.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I drove a Tacoma that started at 125k miles _with_ a leaking
| cylinder and a torn CV joint boot.
|
| Kept waiting for something to stop working and need fixing...
| 70k+ miles later, I was still driving and waiting.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| If you had a torn cv boot, it was a 4x4. The cv doesn't
| actually transmit any power when you're in 2 wheel drive
| mode. So unless you did many miles in 4x4 after the torn cv
| boot, you wouldn't really ever experience a problem with it.
| That's very different than a FWD car with a torn boot.
| deeesstoronto wrote:
| A CV boot keeps dirt from getting into the CV joint and
| keeps grease from flying out. Dirt that gets in causes
| increased wear.
|
| Unless the boot is majorly damaged, very limited dirt gets
| in, most of the grease stays in, and lifetime of the joint
| isn't severely impacted.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| The point is, yes his grease flew out. And dirt got in.
| But his CV joints aren't being used, they are just free
| spinning around all day not moving any torque. So yes his
| torn cv boot didn't give him trouble in a Toyota 4x4. It
| wouldn't have given him trouble in a dodge 4x4 either..
| ethbr1 wrote:
| At some point I was expecting clicking or grinding, but
| it just kept going.
|
| How long do unsealed CV joints usually last?
|
| (At the time, I didn't have access to a garage, so it was
| more than I wanted to repair at home)
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Yours will not/did not click or grind because it is not
| being used. You owned effectively a rear wheel drive
| truck with a switch/lever to make it 4x4. 99.9% of the
| time those trucks are in RWD mode, which means your cv
| shaft is not being used. It just free spins at most,
| transmitting no torque.
|
| How long can it last like that? Basically forever.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Ah. I get what you're saying now.
|
| That the wheel suspension and tie rods are the working
| components, absent power.
|
| It definitely took more of an umph to get into 4WD late
| in life.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| I should add that I live in an area where ~40% of my driving is
| not on pavement, I am in 4wd at least half of my driving time
| and I have a second set of wheels w studs that I run from Nov
| to early Apr.
| geocrasher wrote:
| I'm in the market for a used vehicle, and I am looking at mid
| 2010's Toyota 4runner's and Tacoma's, maybe even Tundra. It's
| just hard to go wrong with a Toyota.
| carabiner wrote:
| There are only 4 cars: Tundra, Tacoma, 4runner, prius. The rest
| are mere toys. Don't get a Tundra if you live in a big city
| though. Seriously just get a 4runner unless you regularly need
| to haul stuff.
| bethekind wrote:
| Why not a Prius for a city?
| carabiner wrote:
| Wasn't in his list.
| supportengineer wrote:
| What's wrong with a Highlander?
| geocrasher wrote:
| I don't live in the city. I also have an old '88 Suburban for
| the hauling stuff. A 4runner would be perfect for 99% of what
| I want.
|
| As for the rest being toys, I have to disagree. Toyota makes
| fantastic cars too. A friend has a 2010 Matrix that's just
| great. And his 20+ year old Camry is very good too.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| What about the GR86 and the Supra? They are usually
| considered decent sports cars.
| xyst wrote:
| I thought Nissan would rank a bit higher. Somehoe less reliable
| than a bmw.
|
| My Nissan going on 8 yrs now. Only basic maintenance, tire
| replacement, and battery replacements so far.
| pictureofabear wrote:
| I've had pretty good success with my Nissan, but it has some
| problems. Sunroof leaks are notoriously bad on Nissans. My
| Honda... no problems at 250K miles.
| Paul_S wrote:
| I don't have to read the article to know it's Toyota. That's the
| kind of brand awareness only years of great track record can buy.
| If you're playing the long game, money invested in reliability
| gain you more than marketing.
| itake wrote:
| Toyota is second to Lexus.
| grzm wrote:
| Lexus _is_ Toyota.
|
| > _Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese
| automaker Toyota Motor Corporation._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus
| itake wrote:
| yes, but the article is about brands, not companies.
| deeesstoronto wrote:
| Perceptions of brand reliability at that.
|
| I would hazard a guess that Toyota and Lexus have very
| similar real-world reliability - most of them share
| platforms. However this article shows that Lexus owners
| perceive their cars to be more reliable than Toyota
| owners.
|
| Somehow Mini is near the top of the list too
| Dah00n wrote:
| >However this article shows that Lexus owners perceive
| their cars to be more reliable than Toyota owners.
|
| Maybe they get better maintenance than their Toyota
| cousins on average?
|
| BMW often ranks high but there's a bias when asking a BMW
| owner -who often likes cars- how good their car is,
| compared to a Dacia owner who often just needs to get
| from A to B and see a car as strictly transport.
| Racing0461 wrote:
| Lexus is just a toyota frame. I bet they are even built
| in the same factory.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Lexus is Toyota's up brand, like Acura is for Honda and
| Audi is for VW. They share parts, designs, often
| factories, but just better interiors, higher end engines,
| exterior trims, etc...
| blinding-streak wrote:
| What the hell happened to Mercedes? 29th out of 30 on the list.
| Truly awful. I've never driven one (let alone owned one) but by
| the marketing (and price) you'd think it was the greatest vehicle
| on earth.
| paxys wrote:
| Nothing happened. They have always had a terrible reputation
| for quality, and the results show it. People buy it for the
| brand name, and that's about it.
| dunco wrote:
| Tell that to the all the ~80s w118's etc. around the world
| still working as taxis and running off vegetable oil
| LegitShady wrote:
| the 80s started 40 years ago.
| floydnoel wrote:
| If my calculations are correct, 40 years is actually less
| than always
| metabagel wrote:
| This comment doesn't say anything about the
| maintenance/repair cost to keep those cars running.
| dunco wrote:
| They're (were?) a popular choice in very poor countries
| due to their reliability. They did used to be built to a
| higher standard. The story I heard which I have no idea
| about the truth of, is that competition from lexus coming
| along in the 2000s made merc more price conscious, and
| reliability suffered as a result.
| jesterson wrote:
| That's terribly untrue (or relates to particular market).
| Mercedes of 80-20x were one of most reliable on market, but
| unfortunately quality tumbled sharply.
|
| I have driven lots of them in 90s-20s and thought it were the
| best cars. And it were.
| wizee wrote:
| My old W126 was an amazingly well built car. Very durable and
| reliable, extremely long lasting, very comfy, interesting to
| drive, and amazingly safe compared to other cars of that era.
| Mine was previously owned by a couple who just did bare-
| minimum maintenance and drove it 120k km over their 6 years
| of ownership. The car was 24 years old when they got it, and
| 30 years old when I bought it. I drove it many more years,
| and the only repairs I needed to do were fixing age related
| leaks, and replacing one relay.
|
| The W126 was a fairly simple car though, compared to their
| modern offerings, and it was built under a philosophy of
| building the best car regardless of cost.
|
| My W140 was a also a well made car, great quality in
| materials and mechanical fundamentals, but it was too
| complicated and quite a bit more problematic for me.
|
| Modern Mercedes-Benz cars don't seem as distinguished or well
| built as their offerings from the 1980s. With that said, my
| C216 CL-class is a very well built car in terms of materials
| and general attention to detail; it's just too complicated
| with hurts its overall reliability (though the powertrain is
| decently solid).
| langarus wrote:
| They built that reputation on merit. But for the past 10 years
| they focused a lot on profits. Ask any mechanic and no one in
| his right mind would recommend getting one. Unless you don't
| mind paying frequent high fees for repairs.
| eliseumds wrote:
| A few months ago I ordered an Uber Black in Bangkok and the
| driver showed up in a C300 AMG. I know it's not a high-end
| model (~50k USD), but I was shocked at how cheap the entire car
| felt. The leather is worse than the one used in base VW models,
| the armrests are pathetically small, visibility is bad. I'd
| 100% prefer to be a passenger in a Corolla or Camry.
| jesterson wrote:
| Due to import nuances, they do all sorts of shenanigans in TH
| for cars. The one you have gotten may have very little to do
| with Mercedes.
| Dah00n wrote:
| The US made models seem to be the worst ones.
| jesterson wrote:
| Sounds about right. No wonder mb decided to make S klasse
| only in Germany
| buildbot wrote:
| There is no c300 AMG (That I know of) The AMG badge was
| likely fake.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| It's well-known that the better a manufacturer's Formula 1
| racecars do, the worse their road cars. And Mercedes were the
| dominant team from 2014 to 2020.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| "Well-known?" The top F1 team is manufactured by Honda and
| Honda is near the top of this Consumer Reports lists...
| abawany wrote:
| I had an older one (W210) for a while and have to say the
| driving experience is amazing - the words tank and vault come
| to mind. I also mostly worked on it myself and this older model
| was very maintainable and well thought generally - the only
| exceptions were the pusher cables on the sunroof and the
| insanely-buried evaporator coil. I've also driven the Car2Go
| Mercedes models and even though they were the cheapest
| Mercedes, they still drove very well imo. I miss driving
| Mercedes cars.
| aldebran wrote:
| CR poll asks about any problems faced. Phone didn't connect to
| the multimedia unit? That's a problem.
|
| Not saying MB quality hasn't changed but given the large
| feature set the problem surface area is also very large. More
| opportunities for owners to find issues.
|
| By comparison, Lexus uses tried and tested old technology to
| the point it's boring to own. But it's super reliable.
|
| 2nd thing not captured here: not all car models are equal. The
| lower end Mercs and other premium manufacturers models aren't
| built to the same standards by my experience. There's a
| difference in quality of a German car made in Germany and a
| German car made in Mexico. The higher end models used to be
| made in Germany (not sure if that's still the case).
|
| All of this affects this rating. You might be fine buying an E
| class but the experience of owning a CLA might be shit.
| jesterson wrote:
| It was the greatest vehicle back in days. Have driven quite a
| number of those and all were very enjoyable.
|
| Regrettably quality deteriorated quickly.
| gumballindie wrote:
| I am surprised tesla is that high up in the list. It feels like a
| bucket on wheels.
| darknavi wrote:
| I have a Model 3 (2018) and a Model Y (2022) and both are
| largely without issues.
|
| I think people meme hard on Tesla to make them sound like the
| most unreliable car out there for some reason, when in reality
| you occasionally have fit and finish issues and a normal amount
| of unreliability.
| gumballindie wrote:
| Stats dont lie and you are right, but it feels brittle
| somehow. Thin metal and cheap rubber. Also that centre
| console gets really boring after a while, although it looks
| good.
| mberning wrote:
| Mini, Subaru, BMW in the top ten. You can completely disregard
| this list.
| puzzledobserver wrote:
| Is ranking by brand necessarily the most useful ranking?
|
| How does the Toyota Prius (with 19 potential trouble areas, per
| the article) compare with a non-hybrid (say a Mazda 3)?
|
| The first graph indicates that Toyotas are, on the whole, more
| reliable than Mazdas, and the second graph indicates that hybrid
| drivetrains (despite having more trouble points) are marginally
| more reliable than purely gas powered vehicles.
|
| Taken together, this suggests that a recent Prius would be more
| reliable than a recent Mazda 3, but it would be nice to have a
| model-wise reliability score, no?
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Here is a similar ranking from Germany where you can sort by
| class of car and than compare car models instead of
| manufacturers (just scroll down a bit to get to that part and
| have it translated by your browser): https://www.adac.de/rund-
| ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a...
| tomxor wrote:
| This is really good. "Number of breakdowns per 1,000
| registered vehicles per first registration year:"
|
| Funny how the order is almost the opposite of the rather
| opaque consumerreports one. While looking at actual
| breakdowns is more telling of major issues, looking at only
| the first year isn't going to reveal much beyond glaring
| manufacturing defects. I'd be interested in more long term
| issues (although understandably this would be more of a past
| performance based on previous models metric). Although long
| term all cars reliability (especially ICE) is an AND
| operation with maintenance and care, but with a large enough
| sample size there's a hope this noise should average out..
| ignoring the annoying issue of buyer bias.
|
| The article also points out the vast majority of breakdowns
| are from dead batteries - Whether that's user error or
| parasitical leaks, or bad batteries is not clear, but
| sticking in a bigger battery with high cold cranking amps is
| a very cheap fix for that. Parasitical leaks are more of a
| pain to solve, especially since fitting a kill switch tends
| to make the computers in modern cars very upset.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Not sure if you noticed, but you can see the issues for
| each car by the year it was first registered in, so if a
| model is out for a few years you will be able to say more
| about long term reliability.
|
| If I had to guess it is partially due to user error, but
| the majority probably stems from people not replacing them
| when they should and being one of the few things in newer
| cars where you need to actually call help and can't wait a
| few days to have it repaired.
| kemayo wrote:
| Given the relative simplicity of the drive train for EVs, it's a
| shame that the dedicated electric manufacturers like Rivian and
| Tesla aren't much higher on this list...
| resolutebat wrote:
| My understanding is that US-made Teslas are kind of poorly put
| together, while the Chinese-made ones are excellent, which
| would explain the middling rank. (And why US-made Rivians are
| near the bottom.) I'm not sure Chinese Teslas are sold in the
| US though?
|
| https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/big-difference-betwe...
| sgarman wrote:
| (Rivian owner) It's painfully obvious rivian is stuck playing
| the american capitalism game where if they don't meet certain
| numbers of sales each quarter the stock goes down so nothing
| else matters. I'm sure they would rather invest in service,
| reliability or something but they can't stop for a second on
| trying to move new vehicles out the door. The future doesn't
| matter, only next quarter matters.
| adverbly wrote:
| This is the wrong question to ask as a consumer. There is a large
| variation across models as well as across years.
|
| If you are in the market, you are better off spending your time
| researching specifics rather than aggregations.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I've owned many car brands, and I can't say I'm at all surprised
| to continue to see Toyota/Lexus and Honda/Acura continue at the
| top. The thing I find so fascinating about that is that most of
| the cars they sell in the US, they also built in the US. So even
| though it is a Japanese company, it is US labor.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Interestingly a similar study from Germany for 2022 has some very
| different results and I need to say I prefer their way of
| measuring things, as the ADAC (the equivalent of AAA) has looked
| at how many cars needed actual help on the road in comparison to
| registered cars, so minor problems don't count and you can say
| things about the longtime reliability of manufacturers. However
| some differences probably stem from different driving patterns
| and services offered by the brands.
|
| https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a...
| yurishimo wrote:
| There are very few Toyotas on that list. Isn't that a good
| thing? The ANWB in neighboring NL has a similar report and
| Toyota scores extremely high on their lists (as in, they very
| rarely need any sort of roadside assistance).
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| You need to consider that Toyota sells a lot less models in
| Germany when compared to the US, but a lot of those listed
| like the Rav4 or C-HR got some of the worst scores of all
| cars, so I don't think that is a good sign.
|
| The ADAC list works by listing how often a model needed
| roadside assistance per 1000 registered vehicles, so if they
| didn't need any assistant, they would just appear as a 0.5 or
| something along those lines, but the Rav4 has a values
| between 16-20 and even the best performing model, the Toyota
| Yaris, doesn't have the best scores.
| bmitc wrote:
| Funny how Kia ranks so highly above others.
|
| But I'm dubious because Mini is near the top. And are Porsche and
| BMW known to be reliable? You can't even get your oil changed
| except at slecialized centers. I assume they're reliable in the
| same way airplanes are: lots of maintenance intervals.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| We have a Hyundai (Kia's sibling). It's hands down the best car
| we've ever owned. Absolutely no issues 4 years in.
| bmitc wrote:
| Yea, I think Kia and Hyundai are awesome. And my head swivels
| every time I see a Genesis on the road.
| wizee wrote:
| BMW has had some reliability misses in the past (especially
| with past V8 engines), though their current B48/B58 engines are
| very reliable. Porsche has a very extensive vehicle testing
| process before their models come to market, and they have
| always been known for good reliability (though they have had
| some misses in the past, like M96 engine IMS bearings and bore
| scoring from the early-mid 2000s, and 991.1 GT3 engine
| failures).
| midasz wrote:
| I've a 2021 Kia Proceed and I've had 0 problems with it. I
| don't know much about cars but I was advised by a mechanic
| friend to go for a Kia or Hyundai.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I'll bet a lot of people are surprised to learn BMW is one of the
| most reliable manufacturers in the business.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| Only for the first 3 years... and I wonder if these stats are
| being padded by BMW's warranty/maintenance program for the
| first few years. How many 30 year old BMWs with 300,000 miles
| do you see? Not as many as you do Toyota or Honda.
| emodendroket wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. If it's covered or not you still had
| to bring it in so that's a mark against its reliability. BMW
| also sells fewer cars in the first place and most to an
| audience who's less likely to hold on to them for a long
| time.
| tirant wrote:
| You're not taking into account the type of usage that BMW
| have to Toyotas. Toyotas are usually driven by non-car-
| enthusiasts, and people that do care about reliability.
|
| BMWs on the other hand are enthusiast cars, driven quicker,
| modified more, raced in tracks, etc. Obviously the
| reliability is going to suffer. I'm pretty sure that under
| normal usage, they will endure as much if not more than a
| Toyota.
| scop wrote:
| My late father taught me three things I must do to be a grown
| man:
|
| - brush my hair
|
| - work hard at school & work
|
| - check Consumer Reports before buying a car
| an_aparallel wrote:
| my 2001 honda accord stared getting on (took a few too many hits)
| - i installed a very good after market system in it - with hefty
| subs/amps.
|
| the replacement 2013 accord euro...absolutely impractical to do
| the same DIY...the dash computer integrated console with A/C
| controls is a nightmare to replace with fascia which has space
| for double DIN...
|
| i wonder if i should downgrade again to a classic Honda integra,
| or pre-smart Civic...
| bagels wrote:
| Don't buy an old integra or a civic unless you like dealing
| with regular car theft.
| an_aparallel wrote:
| Is this country dependant? I used to drive a civic :)
| bagels wrote:
| I don't know, they don't last long in California.
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| What is the most reliable isnt really the right question.
| Reliability vs cost is the correct question. I.e In my case the
| kia carnival was 12k cheaper than the sienna or the odyssey so
| going with tenth place vs second place was a no brainer for me,
| especially when i am not limely to need that extra repair money
| for 5 to ten years and can invest it so it is really more like 15
| to 19k by the time i need it if invested at 5% return.
| bagels wrote:
| My parents bought a new Chrysler because "It's american".
| Transmission failure a few months in, and out of commission for 6
| months. Not surprised to see them in last.
| riku_iki wrote:
| you can tell them that toyotas are produced in US nowdays..
| yurishimo wrote:
| Assembled* in the US. Many of the engines are built in Japan
| and shipped around the world to be installed in local
| factories to avoid import tariffs.
| bagels wrote:
| I don't think they're ever buying a new car again, not worth
| trying to convince them.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Surprised to see Benz so low - does anyone have any particular
| insight on that?
| bradly wrote:
| Mine didn't come with a dip stick.
| jandrese wrote:
| Edit: While I'm still dubious about these metrics I was ranting
| about an entirely different company here. Sorry. A very similar
| report has been making the rounds recently from JD Power,
| probably part of a marketing campaign of some sort. The JD Power
| list is even more hilarious because it is book-ended by two
| brands: Dodge and Chrysler. Also it suggests Alfa Romeo for
| reliability. https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-j-d-power-
| initial-quality...
|
| This is just "initial quality" which has always been a bullshit
| metric invented by JD Power to sound good in automaker
| advertising.
|
| The way it works is for the first 90 days of ownership every
| problem that bothers the owner counts as one point. So expensive
| cars that cater to fussy people score poorly compared to cars
| bought by people who only care about reliability and getting from
| point a to point b and don't pay attention to their car. Also,
| there is no weighting to the issues.
|
| So you might have a situation like: CR: So what
| problems did you find in the first three months of owning this
| expensive luxury car? Owner: The glovebox latch
| is too loud and the heated seats heat up from the back first
| instead of the front first like I prefer and the power mirrors
| adjust too quickly. CR: Ok, that's three points.
| CR: Next person, what problems did you have? Owner:
| Well, the rear wheel fell off after about 50 miles and after I
| owned it a couple of months it burst into flame on the highway.
| CR: I'll mark that as two points.
| carabiner wrote:
| This is Consumer Reports, not JD Power, and they said they
| surveyed for issues in the first 12 months. It's about "new"
| cars after all so you can't go further back than that. They
| also weigh issues for their severity. Where are you seeing that
| their methodology is the same as JD Power?
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
|
| > Every year CR asks its members about problems they've had
| with their vehicles in the previous 12 months. This year we
| gathered data on over 330,000 vehicles, from the 2000 to 2023
| model years, with a few early-introduced 2024 model years.
|
| > We study 20 trouble areas, from nuisances--such as squeaky
| brakes and broken interior trim--to major bummers, such as
| potentially expensive out-of-warranty engine, transmission, EV
| battery, and EV charging problems. We use that information to
| give reliability ratings for every major mainstream model.
|
| > We weigh the severity of each type of problem to create a
| predicted reliability score for each vehicle, from 1 to 100. We
| use that information to give reliability ratings for every
| major mainstream vehicle. (The reliability rating is then
| combined with data collected from our track testing, as well as
| our owner satisfaction survey results and safety data, to
| calculate each test vehicle's Overall Score.)
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > It's about "new" cars after all so you can't go further
| back than that.
|
| > This year we gathered data on over 330,000 vehicles, from
| the 2000 to 2023 model years, with a few early-introduced
| 2024 model years.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| > So expensive cars that cater to fussy people score poorly
| compared to cars bought by people who only care about
| reliability and getting from point a to point b and don't pay
| attention to their car.
|
| That _sounds_ believable, except that Lexus is at the top of
| the list, and they are definitely a "fussy people" brand.
| Meanwhile Chevrolet, Ford, and VW are near the bottom.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| ICYMI:
|
| > We weigh the severity of each type of problem to create a
| predicted reliability score for each vehicle.
| carabiner wrote:
| Yeah OP is confused. This is CR which is a completely
| separate company from JD Power. Only JD Power measures JD
| Power metrics and no one else really cares about them.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| They have KIA, Porsche, BMW and Mini in the top
| 10..hehehe....There are quite a few Youtube channels that are
| either Car sales guys or Mechanics that will tell you to stay
| away from all of them and if you buy them your stupid and
| deserve what's coming. Although I have seen some last a while,
| many are a horror story.
|
| I really wouldn't turn to consumers reports for advice, Youtube
| is a better source for what to buy...
|
| Just saying...
| loeg wrote:
| JD Power is a marketing company. Their placements are pay-to-
| play. Don't take it seriously.
| Dah00n wrote:
| > Also it suggests Alfa Romeo for reliability.
|
| So? Are you saying that's wrong? Alfas are as reliable as the
| parts they are made of. One of the biggest weaknesses in many
| years in Alfas were the manual gearbox in the 159. It was from
| GM, not Alfa.
|
| Is Alfa reliable? Depends. Compared to a Ford? Maybe, it
| depends. Compared to a Tesla? Yes, much much better.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I've had a regrettably excellent experience with my 2015 Mazda.
| Easily the most reliable machine I've owned.
|
| Which is unfortunate because it's a soulless, joyless shitbox and
| I hate it. It just starts every single time, but it's not fun to
| drive. I see dozens of the exact same model on the road every day
| and they're all boring. The interior is fine, the handling is
| pretty good, the power is fine, fuel economy is fine. It's just
| okay all around. Except for the *five hundred dollar* alloy
| wheels, that really sucks. It's fine, it's boring, it gets me
| from A to B _every time_.
|
| My prior car was the first one that I really enjoyed driving. It
| was fun, it had personality, it was a little car with a _lot_ of
| pep in its step. It truly was a joy to drive. It burned all of
| the fluids and had plenty of mechanical problems, but I lovingly
| maintained everything I knew how to.
|
| Honestly I'd take the fun troublesome car over the bland, boring
| box on wheels I'm stuck with now. At least troublesome is
| interesting.
| bichiliad wrote:
| out of curiosity, what was your prior car?
| calamari4065 wrote:
| '05 Ford Focus with a 5-speed manual. My first, and
| unfortunately last manual transmission. It had the sporty red
| trim interior and I replaced the CD changer with an android
| head unit and gave it a matching red theme.
|
| Then I wrecked it, and the cops stole it by forcibly towing
| it to one of those scam tow yards that charge $500 a day. I
| had to bribe the guy at the yard just to get my personal
| belongings out of it.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| 2015 Mazda, you say? If you could also include the model I'd be
| grateful, because this all sounds great.
|
| We're talking about a car that gets you to and from work, not
| about dating in your 20's :)
| julianlam wrote:
| A reliable soulless Mazda sounds like a 6 sedan. Larger and
| weightier than the engine can handle, but otherwise a solid
| car.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Bingo.
|
| Honestly the engine handles the load just fine. It's not
| nearly as fast as the tiny 5-speed Ford focus I had before,
| but I wouldn't say it's slow either.
|
| It's fine, and nothing more.
| fruit2020 wrote:
| What engine do you have? A lot that I see for sale have
| 165bhp engines, which doesn't sound under powered.
| Compare that with a lot of newer cars which have 1L
| 100bhp engines
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Never bothered to look, honestly. I have the higher trim
| model, so probably more horses
| calamari4065 wrote:
| It's a 6. I _guarantee_ you 'll see at least three of them on
| your way to the grocery store and all of them will be gray.
|
| Yeah it gets me to work _every_ day, but my last car made my
| commute fun. At least on the days it worked, that is.
| mrmincent wrote:
| I'm absolutely not a car guy, and Mazdas are my perfect car :D
| We've got a 2008 mazda3 that is still running perfectly that
| we're hoping to replace with a slightly larger CX-30 or PHEV
| equivalent once they sort out that product line.
|
| They really do seem to just be super reliable and are taking
| over the "I'm not a car person" market.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's what it is. I was never a 'car guy'
| before, but my last car changed me. Now I have a 'not a car
| person' car and it's miserable.
|
| Oh well, at least it will keep running until I can afford an
| EV. We'll probably still keep it around for long range trips
| because I really don't expect it to die for a long time. 140k
| miles and I'm certain I'll get at least another 100k out of
| it if I cared to.
| simonsarris wrote:
| huh, my 2014 Mazda 3 (manual 6 speed) I find quite fun to
| drive. It feels light, it's not some powerhouse but its
| immensely spritely. It feels like, given the constraints, the
| engineers were still trying to make something that feels good.
| Very different from Corollas or Civics that I've owned.
|
| I actually bought the 2014 model rather than 2015 because I
| wanted the last year made in Japan, though I don't know how
| much of a difference this makes.
| julianlam wrote:
| Having driven a CX-3, a 3, a 6, a CX-5, and a CX-90 (test
| drive), if you want "spritely", you want the CX-3 (or perhaps
| the CX-30?)
|
| Mazdas are fantastic to drive, but that CX-3 rental had the
| real zoom zoom out of all of them.
| pkorzeniewski wrote:
| I bought CX-3 5 years ago and it's a really fun (and
| reliable) car to drive and I say that as someone who
| previously was daily driving a sporty roadster for many
| years :-) Unfortunately they stopped producing the CX-3
| line and replaced it with CX-30 which is very similar, but
| I prefer the look of CX-3..
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I have the 6 and it's a bit of a boat. Manual transmission
| would definitely make it more fun, but I got stuck with the
| 6-speed auto. Yeah it still has manual shifting but it's just
| not the same.
|
| Don't get me wrong, it's a great ride and a great car. The
| only thing I don't like about it is that there's nothing _to_
| like.
|
| It's the Brother laser printer of cars. It's fine, it's
| whatever. It does the thing, it'll do it for years and years
| and never bother you. But it's still a bland boring box with
| nothing to love except the fact that it works and only needs
| serviced every fifth year.
| bigger_cheese wrote:
| That is exactly why I bought a Mazda earlier this year. I
| wanted to upgrade to a larger car (since 2010 I have driven a 2
| door Toyota Yaris it was getting to hard to manage without
| extra doors) wanted something plain, reliable that I could
| count on to "just work", I was torn between Toyota Corolla and
| Mazda 3. What ultimately titled the decision was the waiting
| period. Here in Australia the Toyota had an 8 month wait and
| the Mazda 3 had 10 week wait.
| thsksbd wrote:
| I wish my cars were merely boring.
|
| One car (KIA) has electrical problems, probably the CAN bus.
| Parking shifter has to be overridden with a screwdriver to
| shift, the ABS sensor is on, and the cruise control doesn't
| disengage when I press the brake.
|
| This car has a glove box of recalls letters Im going to have
| done when I finally have an appointment w/ the dealer.
|
| The other one a VW, otherwise the "reliable one", had a
| radiator light turn on yesterday. Im praying it's just low
| coolant (it is low) and not a leak. It also has a dash light
| that wont go off complaining about the headlights (they're
| fine).
|
| Neither of them have 100k miles.
| lnsru wrote:
| Obviously you can check coolant level by yourself. Roundish
| coolant container has min indicator. And looks similar for
| all VW cars.
| thsksbd wrote:
| That's why I know it's low ;) In fact, after picking up
| some G12, I can even refill it myself!
|
| But why is it low? Is it because the seals in the cap are
| getting old and slightly out gassing? Or is it because I
| have a hairline crack in a gasket that's about to be a
| catastrophic crack?
|
| There's almost two orders of magnitude difference in price
| between those two repairs!
| lnsru wrote:
| That's a very good question. How often is it too low?
| Once in 2 year? I could live with that. Once a week? Time
| to visit repair shop.
| sentientslug wrote:
| Genuinely never understood why anyone would buy a Kia or
| Hyundai product. Year after year after year there are
| constant problems and recalls. What drove you to buy one? (no
| pun intended)
| nathanfig wrote:
| Mazda also makes the Miata, arguably one of the most fun cars
| to drive.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I've never been in one, but I'm sure that some of Mazda's
| other models are more fun.
|
| It's just that the 6 was designed to be a mass produced
| commodity with no frills and no personality. It's designed
| for someone who _only_ cares about getting from A to B _every
| single time_. That 's not me, I don't find that satisfying, I
| have other priorities.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, and the RX-8! Seriously so fun to drive.
| Zuiii wrote:
| Isn't mazda that shitty company that thinks it can take legal
| action against you for doing things with your own car?
|
| Edit: Yep, it is[1]. No thanks.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37921584
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I don't know if you know this, but buying a ten year old used
| car from a third party does not, in fact, support the
| manufacturer in any way.
| pbmonster wrote:
| Sure it does. The way a new car keeps value is a factor in
| how popular a car is. High demand for 10 year old models
| will influence how well new models sell.
|
| It's e.g. the main reason why you'll wait months if you
| want to buy a new Volkswagen van, even though it is tens of
| thousands of dollars more expensive than similar vans. Much
| easier justifying buying a T7 when T5s with 100k miles
| still sell for more than other vans cost new.
| iammiles wrote:
| Sounds a lot like my 2013 Subaru Forester. I often fantasize
| about getting a newer car but then I remember my car is paid
| off and has never let me down. It doesn't deserve me.
| taurath wrote:
| I slapped a sound system well tuned for the music im into
| into my 2013 civic which I have had since new, and that has
| given me at least 3 more years out of it after briefly toying
| with getting something else.
| solatic wrote:
| This is why you buy both :) You have the fun car for when it's
| working and the reliable car as a fallback when the trouble
| starts up at the _wrong_ moment.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| My 2016.5 (why did they call it that?) CX-5 is exactly my type
| of boring: It Just Works. Also, they backported CarPlay to it
| for a nominal installation charge, it has actual buttons for
| all essential functions, a nice scroll wheel I can use without
| looking, and the screen isn't obnoxiously big. Repair costs
| have been quite low, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop
| there (around 85k miles).
|
| In a few years I'll start looking at Subarus most likely. The
| feel on the road is fantastic. I just hope they haven't slipped
| into the complexity/tech abyss that most manufacturers seem to
| have.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| This is exactly what I want in a car, unironically. I really
| dislike car culture. I think it is ruining America. This is
| like wanting a bus to be fun and exciting. Why are daily driver
| cars supposed to be fun? We are spending all our infrastructure
| money building and maintaining massive roads at the expense of
| everything else.
| tabiv wrote:
| What was your prior car?
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| I remember watching friends buying cars a couple years ago - some
| were buying Teslas for about $50k USD, and one bought a 1996
| Toyota Rav-4 for $2.5k USD. It was so, so fun to ride/drive in
| that Rav-4 - you could see everything, the driver awareness was
| phenomenal, the mechanical/tactile solidity was satisfying. The
| ultimate goal (going from one place to another) 100% matched the
| Tesla's capability.
|
| Is the Tesla better? It is safer and quieter, and it doesn't
| require gas stations. So yes, it is better. Is it 2,000% better
| (following the price difference)? No - it is maybe 5-10% better.
|
| (If I were to buy a car right now, I would choose the Rav-4.)
| pruthvishetty wrote:
| Tesla.
| water9 wrote:
| The most reliable cars come from the end of a production series
| right before a facelift. Yeah, the car won't look as new but a
| lot of the engineering challenges of the new design don't get
| worked out until later
| atlgator wrote:
| We're going to see reliability drop as Toyota and others downsize
| and turbocharge their engines.
| 6d6b73 wrote:
| who makes the most reliable new cars..and why is it Toyota
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Interesting to see Lexus, Toyota and Honda, Acura.
|
| Are they meaningfully different or just different badges of the
| same company?
| Vecr wrote:
| Toyota is Lexus and Honda is Acura but they all are not the
| same company.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I think Ram makes a pretty good truck these days. The ride is
| unbelievable. City driving kinda sucks due to the obnoxious size,
| but if you need to drive 2+ hours across Texas it's unmatched in
| comfort.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Was this ever contested? Yes, making a comfortable boat is not
| rocket science.
|
| The list is about reliability. Having soft shocks doesn't play
| much into that unless you're forgetting that the motor mounts
| need to be replaced way sooner than you would expect because
| the suspension is absorbing a lot of the rough ride in the cab.
|
| Dodge has taken their trucks into competition with Cadillac and
| GMC instead of Ford and Toyota in years past.
| srj wrote:
| Not only can my Tacoma not be killed but it's super easy to work
| on even for a novice mechanic like me.
| porphyra wrote:
| Do they still count over-the-air software updates as "recalls"
| that negatively impact the reliability? I don't have the CR
| subscription so I can't see the detailed breakdown...
| demosthanos wrote:
| Is there a problem with counting software updates as recalls?
|
| I like the idea of penalizing manufacturers for frequent
| software updates: they either mean that there are frequent
| safety issues addressed after manufacturing (so calling them
| recalls is 100% appropriate) or they mean that the manufacturer
| is constantly fiddling with the infotainment system. Neither of
| those are traits I want in a car manufacturer.
| ars wrote:
| Your local library will probably have a subscription and you
| can read them via your library card number.
| phlipski wrote:
| Interesting results. Toyota at the top is no surprise. But Mini
| at #3?!?! WTF?? And Mercedes Benz second to last?!?! Porsche at 8
| and Tesla at 14 are both surprising to me as well. But on thing
| to note about consumer reports methodology is they only poll
| consumers about the first year of ownership. Following for a
| longer time span (5 years?) would be better.
| bigwheeler wrote:
| My 2008 Rav-4 has 327k miles on it and is showing no signs of
| quitting. I was planning on giving it up at 300k, but now it's
| (by far) my longest relationship, and I'm getting sentimental
| about it...
| screye wrote:
| Wow Mini being that high up is a surprise.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Aren't Lexus and Toyota basically the same thing? Lexus is
| Toyota's luxury brand, and Lexus cars are built in Toyota
| factories [0]. Why are they considered two different brands for
| this? (and, more interesting, why do they have different
| reliability scores, apparently swapped from last year?)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus
| colechristensen wrote:
| "Same factory" is used with a lot of things as an argument that
| things are the same. Industrial processes have a lot more to do
| with decisions made for the specific product. A luxury product
| could involve a longer more in depth QA cycle, tighter
| tolerance for rejection, etc. A commodity product could have
| more reliable parts because they simply made more of them and
| had more experience with problems and fixes. The building a
| thing is made in or using the same machines does not result
| equivalent products.
| shric wrote:
| Because they're different brands. Volkswagen own Porsche and
| Audi, but they're listed separately and presumably they have
| different reliability levels. There are also different
| reliability levels across different models, but they drew the
| line at brands.
| pbhowmic wrote:
| I find it remarkable that Mercedes-Benz is near the bottom of the
| list.
| chubs wrote:
| My mechanic who specialises in Euro cars told me to avoid
| buying one, for one piece of anecdata.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I wish Volvo's were more reliable. Their safety record is
| appealing.
| Deprogrammer9 wrote:
| We should do away with the automobile. We could plan & design a
| far better system that totally removes cars from our lives.
| 1024core wrote:
| How can Mercedes be the 2nd worst car maker in the US?!?!
| irrational wrote:
| Toyota. Though, a lot of that is how good their internal
| combustion engines are. I wonder if their reliability will go
| down when they start moving to new engines (electric).
| prerok wrote:
| Maybe I don't understand something but where is Renault? It's not
| even mentioned AFAICT.
|
| Also, VW data does not encompass Golf, which seems to me to be by
| far the most sold VW car in Europe (based on what I see on the
| streets, not actual data). Seems a bit strange to omit these.
| jesterson wrote:
| Renault is so bad, it's unsurprising it even couldn't make to
| the list
| Dah00n wrote:
| Not compared to Tesla, which are listed.
| system2 wrote:
| Renault 9 is a great car. Similar to Nissan Sentra from 90s.
| jesterson wrote:
| That's car for 90s. There was lots of good cars in 90s, and
| quite likely Renault 9 was one of those.
|
| But oh boy, whatever they made after 200s was a complete
| garbage.
| Miiko wrote:
| Consumer Report is an American organization and they only
| report on cars sold here, so no Renault (not sold in USA) nor
| European Golf in the list.
| prerok wrote:
| Now it makes sense, thanks!
| VectorLock wrote:
| I feel like these numbers are fudged if Mini is coming in over
| Honda & Acura.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| ...would be very interesting to see who makes the most reliable
| 2nd hand car. Everything i see points to Toyota (been studying
| the market for a few years, my current VW, though, is still
| hanging on in there).
| kazinator wrote:
| Compare Tesla with Volvo: no wonder the Swedes are messing with
| Musk.
| winrid wrote:
| The fact that BMW and Mini are at the top of this list should
| make you ignore this data.
|
| First off, the Mini is just a smaller BMW, second the BMWs are
| complicated and designed to be maintained a _certain way_ because
| that is how german cars are designed. You don 't accidentally go
| 10k over an oil change on a higher mileage BMW and expect nothing
| bad to happen, but that would probably be okay on a
| Honda/Toyota/some American cars.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Of couse you shouldn't just ignore it. What you should do is
| think a bit deeper than "X > Y so X = better". Included in the
| data is the fact that a BMW needs the maintenance it does, to
| rank where it ranks here, as its average owner maintain it as
| they do. The maintenance schedule and how the BMWs included in
| the statistics were maintained is likely different than on a
| Toyota, but following the maintenance schedule or not is up to
| you to decide. However, those who do not follow the maintenance
| schedule are included here as well as are those who service
| their BMW more than required.
|
| If you are not average, expect results that are not average.
| That goes both ways.
| winrid wrote:
| I the 2nd point maybe I didn't get across well is more that
| the initial three years does not tell as much or are very
| useful. In 2023 people are not buying new cars with the high
| interest rates we have now, taking that depreciation hit,
| only to sell three years later.
|
| Also:
|
| > If you are not average, expect results that are not
| average. That goes both ways.
|
| I still have trouble believing BMW has 3x the reliability in
| the first three years than practically all the American
| manufacturers.
|
| > think a bit deeper than "X > Y so X = better"
|
| that's pretty much what the list is for.
| tirant wrote:
| It is not only how they are maintained, but also how they are
| driven.
|
| BMW's are sport enthusiast vehicles. They are probably used
| and abused and higher levels than typical Toyotas and Lexus.
| You won't see many Toyotas and Lexus in race tracks, however
| they are usually populated by all type of BMWs, specially M
| performance and full M models.
|
| So I expect that under normal usage, BMWs are even more
| reliable that the ranking shows.
| everly wrote:
| I wouldnt exactly call 3rd and 9th "top of the list"
|
| The fact that Lexus/Toyota are actually at the top makes me
| trust it
| piperswe wrote:
| But if you do maintain them in that certain way, they can be
| brilliantly reliable. Problem is, many people (especially in
| America) don't. And getting the proper fluids for them can be a
| pain in the ass in America, since BMW LL oil is basically
| impossible to get anywhere except dealerships and specialty
| websites.
|
| I'm surprised Mercedes is so low in the list. They've
| traditionally been one of the more reliable German brands,
| that's why they're used as taxis in many countries.
| taurath wrote:
| Chrysler has had some of the least reliable for most of my
| entire lifetime and Mercedes shares a parent company and
| presumably a lot of parts with them.
| wil421 wrote:
| Both of my WK2 Jeep grand Cherokee's have been reliable and
| they share parts with the old MLs. The parts they share are
| pretty silly to consider reliability, control arms, 5-speed
| transmission (until 2014), and some other random parts with
| Mercedes stamped on it. Considering Chrysler transmissions
| were terrible I'm glad they used Benz then ZFs.
| SandunGunn wrote:
| Mercedes is owned by Daimler
|
| Chrysler (30 out of 30) by Stellantis
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellantis) along with:
| Fiat, Alfa Romeo (unranked), Dodge (21) RAM (15) Jeep (26)
| taurath wrote:
| Whoa I totally messed that up! I didn't even know that
| they dropped Chrysler in 2007
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Group)
| numlock86 wrote:
| > I'm surprised Mercedes is so low in the list. They've
| traditionally been one of the more reliable German brands,
| that's why they're used as taxis in many countries.
|
| Oh, my sweet summer child. I can tell you still have fond
| memories of the pre-2010 Mercedes era ...
|
| Who's gonna tell him?
| cheschire wrote:
| This is an insulting and patronizing reply as you are
| implying something you know (or think you know) is common
| knowledge that only GP would not know.
|
| Please share what you believe happened in 2010 to Mercedes
| to cause the flip from an ideal choice for taxis to this
| consumer reports ranking.
| numlock86 wrote:
| 2010 was when they started using motors from other
| (cheap) brands like Renault for a lot of models on big
| scale. Before that you could drive your Mercedes up to
| like 400,000 km and more and still get money for it or at
| least sell it to development countries to be used as a -
| mostly reliable - taxi for example. Been there, done
| that. Nowadays getting a newer model to 200,000 km before
| its "end" is the exception rather than the norm. And
| that's just their cost-down strategy on the motors ...
| yourusername wrote:
| The Renault engines are used in the entry level cars like
| the A, CLA and B class. The kind of Mercedes used as
| taxis (E and S class) will not be impacted by that
| change.
| piperswe wrote:
| It's less that I have fond memories and more that I know
| little about M-B other than general sentiment of other car
| enthusiasts. I'm a big BMW fan myself, and I'm perfectly
| fine with seeing BMW taking M-B's place as the "reliable"
| German brand, I just didn't know that was happening to this
| extent.
| tirant wrote:
| Newer BMWs are some of the most reliable cars that you can buy.
| Minis and BMWs are essentially the same cars, just Minis are
| limited to the low segment, with less luxury features and
| smaller motors. That means that, as expected, the higher
| complexity of luxury segments and their big V8 or V12 engines
| have more chances of failing.
| ycombinatrix wrote:
| spoken like someone that hasn't owned a BMW from the last 10
| years
| winrid wrote:
| did they stop using plastic guides for the timing chains yet?
| :)
| wil421 wrote:
| That's completely not true at all. BMWs have come around in the
| past years. The 2000 e46 I had was as reliable as my 2002
| 4Runner. I replaced the same things at similar intervals, water
| pump, belt tensioner, wheel bearing, plugs, coils etc.
|
| BMWs B58 engines is so nice Toyota put it in a Supra.
| osigurdson wrote:
| As a consumer, I would like to report that I am generally
| unsatisfied with consumer reports.
| hasoleju wrote:
| First thing I did was searching for the car brand (Volkswagen) of
| my car in the list. I was surprised to find it way down in the
| yellow area of medium reliability. After all, I choosed that
| brand specifically because I wanted to have a reliable car. It
| should at least last 20 years.
|
| After reading into the details of the rank and some comments here
| I came up with the following explanation for me:
|
| - Reliability is only related to the first 2-3 years of the car
|
| - Long term reliability of engine and gears or chassis is not
| related to some minor issues of other parts in the first years of
| life of a car
|
| I'm currently in year 3 and so far only had 2 issues caused by
| external factors:
|
| - Electric cables damaged by animal bite (marten)
|
| - Rear drive shaft gear broken because workshop forgot to refill
| oil after change
| RcrdBrt wrote:
| It's safe to say that the bathtub curve applies to cars, too.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
| jaimex2 wrote:
| AKA Who makes the cars with the least amount of modern tech
| janandonly wrote:
| Toyota
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Driving a w124 Mercedes-Benz e420 from 1992.
|
| Perhaps the best mercedes model (w124) ever built.
|
| Reliable and still going from Denmark to Italy and back with no
| trouble at all.
|
| Can only recommend it even though it is +30 years old.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| This era (and even older) mercedes are all over the place in
| southern california. They look mostly in mint shape with the
| lack of rust from no road salting and quality paintjobs that
| have lasted 40 years or more compared to modern cars that seem
| to peel after 10 years.
| ospray wrote:
| About to pickup a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV strange they don't
| make a mention here.
| system2 wrote:
| I owned a BMW for 8 years. It cost more to fix it than its
| original purchase price.
|
| I now own a Honda CR-V. In the last 5 years, not even one time it
| caused an issue. It is as reliable as cars get.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Years ago http://reliabilityindex.com/ had a fantastic list of
| the repair costs of used cars, collected by a UK car warranty
| insurer. They took it down for reasons I'm not aware of but it
| was basically this but for used cars (and Europe-focused). It let
| you see repair costs per brand, model _and generation_. There'd
| sometimes be _mad_ regressions in quality between the old and
| newer generations of the exact same car - newer isn't always
| better!
|
| It was also mildly surprising to me how badly cool cars did. Eg
| Porsches and Audis had insane repair costs, compared to eg
| similarly sized Volkswagens. I assume this had more to do with
| the average driving style of Porsche owners than the hardware
| though - but that's equally part of the risk math you gotta do
| when buying a used car!
|
| We ended up buying a 12yo used Ford Focus for 3000 euros, from a
| generation that had miraculously low repair costs according to
| the site. We had nearly no repairs on it for the 6 years after
| (and then it suddenly pretty much fell apart, but still). I know
| nothing about cars and I fully credit the site for making me not
| screw up.
|
| I really miss that site so if anyone knows something similar for
| used car, please do share!
| brailsafe wrote:
| My impression has always been that cool cars are expensive
| because rich people are willing to pay for comfort and status,
| and as such they're expensive to repair and likely to need it
| because the cost goes to superfluous vanity/comfort/speed
| aspects rather than reliability, which is what sensible people
| pay for. Buying a used luxury car is often a huge financial
| mistake, because they're either meant to not be driven, or only
| meant to be repaired at a high cost paid by someone who doesn't
| need to care about proportionally little money to them.
|
| After all, the most reliable car is no car :) When my 2009
| Volkswagen (which was fun to drive sometimes) finally shit the
| bed, I wasn't in the position to need another or afford one,
| and I now lived somewhere where there were viable alternatives.
| Ever since then, when the prospect of considering a new one
| crosses my mind, I just think about how much of a liability it
| really was, and without the original constraints of an obtuse
| commute, I'd just be buying it for hypothetical impromptu road
| trips, and paying an extremely high cost to do so over time;
| insurance, gas, lots of repairs and basic maintenance at
| specific shops, the risk of accidentally hitting someone or
| getting into an accident, that attrition on my body from not
| walking enough, parking fees, broken windows, fuuuuuck that
|
| Now when I need one, and I do maintain my license, I just rent
| an arbitrary new car for the week or so I might need it, and
| that's so far been pretty serviceable except for post-pandemic
| shortages and demand.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| This is one of the more correct ways to go. The methodology of
| the article is customer surveys and that is unreliable.
|
| There is also an ODB2 manufacturer that collects stats about
| ODB2 error code frequencies per model and manufacturer (they
| have an API their hardware uses for up-to-date info), and they
| correlated that to repair costs per error code to estimate the
| reliability and maintenance costs of vehicles. I can't remember
| who it was, though.
| arc-in-space wrote:
| > average driving style of Porsche owners
|
| Just recently I've had a driver completely ignore me on a
| crosswalk, which I almost never see happen, and it sure was a
| Porsche.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " Porsches and Audis had insane repair costs, compared to eg
| similarly sized Volkswagens"
|
| It's a known thing that those brands share parts between
| models, but the price will be substantially different if you
| buy the "Porsche" part vs the (identical) "VW" part. The price
| discrepancies don't necessarily indicate they Audi/Porsche are
| less reliable.
| skrebbel wrote:
| > The price discrepancies don't necessarily indicate they
| Audi/Porsche are less reliable.
|
| No but once you express reliability not as "chance of
| breakage" but "repair cost", which IMO is the key metric for
| someone considering a used car, then it does. Especially when
| you also factor in the behavior of the average Porsche driver
| on the road, which means more wear and tear.
| batushka3 wrote:
| How come Tesla is not on top? It has only a handfull of models
| compared to legacy automakers and it's mechanicaly more simple.
| Fanboys allways tout about it and now the facts...
| sparrowInHand wrote:
| Does this report include defects the company internal towing &
| repair service handles?
| thierryzoller wrote:
| According to the German ADAC the ranking is somewhat opposite :)
| https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a...
|
| https://car-recalls.eu/reliability/reliability-tuv-report-20...
| numlock86 wrote:
| Notice that with the higher ranked car brands you usually get
| two years or more of "special service" on purchase. Something
| along the lines of "for any problem just call this number and
| we will help you immediately!". That's how they don't show up
| in the statistics because the brand itself will handle it and
| not - like in this example - the ADAC. My company even has a
| compliance form you have to sign before getting a car from the
| pool to agree to not call ADAC or similar at any circumstance,
| no matter the problem. Always call the given brand number.
| Reason is to keep their statistics low (and in exchange our
| leasing prices ...)
| mfld wrote:
| But why?
| Lolaccount wrote:
| Still running a 2005 Toyota right here ... I wanted to get rid of
| it a few years ago, but it's turning into a classic before my
| very eyes (in my heart anyway).
|
| Has never let me down ... even once ... * knock on wood *
|
| Also enjoying maintaining a 69 Beetle... no Wifi, no tracking,
| hardly any electronics at all ... LOVE IT.
|
| And though I love driving, I don't drive that often, so my
| emissions are low.
|
| Sorry, you can keep your new cars.
| tormeh wrote:
| German Tuv recently released their annual car inspection
| statistics report. This is of course backwards-looking, but I
| suspect manufacturers preferred trade-offs and culture don't
| change that fast. Volkswagen did a clear sweep, and on the other
| end of the scale were Tesla and Dacia. The discrepancy with this
| report makes me wonder what to believe.
| culi wrote:
| Is the first time Tesla wasn't last or second to last in a CR car
| reliability report?
| tomaytotomato wrote:
| Surprised with VW being so low.
|
| Might be survivor bias but my VW Passat B6 TDI is still trucking
| and I don't plan on replacing it anytime. Ideally I will run it
| into the ground.
| notadev wrote:
| I love my Toyota and will always recommend them as a reliable
| brand. Their replacement parts are relatively cheap and they're
| easy to maintain.
| chaostheory wrote:
| This list is likely mainly for ICE cars. EVs are much more
| reliable in general due to a lot less moving parts. The main
| issue is that in about a decade you'll have to replace your
| battery
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Toyota and Porsche
| andix wrote:
| I had exactly this experience with Toyota. Their cars don't
| contain the fanciest and most complex technology, instead they
| seem to focus on simplicity and reliability, without compromising
| on the product too much.
|
| This approach is a serious problem now though. They have big
| issues producing competitive EVs.
|
| It would've been great to have the reliability score for EVs as a
| separate statistic. I'm sure they don't always match up with the
| overall reliability of a manufacturer.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Nissan has been the General Motors (i.e. a manufacturer of
| mediocre cars) of Japan for a long time. Its low ranking doesn't
| surprise me. Likewise Volkswagen has been the GM of Germany for a
| while too. No surprise there either.
|
| But Mercedes coming in 29/30? That surprises me. I've never owned
| a Mercedes but I thought they had a reputation for reliability.
| rufius wrote:
| I've owned two and my parents have also owned two. There
| appears to be a boom and bust cycle of reliability with them.
|
| We still own one - a GLC300 from its first model year (2017)
| and it's basically been perfect. Zero problems beyond some
| cosmetic stuff w/ a seat rip but that's wear and tear. I care
| more about mechanical.
|
| On the other hand, the E-class sedan we owned was nothing but
| trouble. I remember looking at some of the reported reliability
| data and it seemed like every 3-4 years, you'd have this cycle
| where the first year had _great_ reliability and then it
| degraded over the next 2-3 years. When they released a new
| trim, reliability was back up.
|
| Note - this is heavily anecdata, but having talked w/ other
| folks that owned multiple MB's, they felt it was similar.
|
| My theory is it has something to do with the models
| manufactured in Germany versus the ones eventually offshore.
| Something doesn't translate as they offshore manufacture.
| StillBored wrote:
| As a toyota driver, and owner of among other toyotas an early
| 201x 4.6L tundra, the fact that the tundra is the worst Toyota
| surprised me. Considering mine is probably the best toyota I've
| owned, it is literally at 170K+ Miles with little more than
| standard maintenance (tires, brakes, oil, air filters, a belt and
| plug change, and a couple of fluid flushes) and having all 4 of
| the $.50 DC motors in the electric locks replaced.
|
| But, I guess that is in part because toyota just redesigned the
| tundra with a lot of fancy junk, while mine is a near base model
| that was produced for more than a decade and had most of the
| "bugs" worked out by the time I purchased it new.
|
| But that happened with the tachoma/4runner, too right? A couple
| of years back, the redesign had drivetrain problems, which
| presumably have been worked out now.
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