Once upon a time, a car that could crest 100K miles was a pampered piece of technology. To make it “round the clock” most machines demanded a tune-up every three to five thousand miles— at the very least. Today, high-mileage used cars with nothing more than a routine oil change under their [fan] belt are par for the course. Now that the goal posts have moved, how do we measure a vehicle’s “quality” and “reliability”? To some people the terms mean “the car starts when I turn the key and I don’t have to mortgage the house to keep it running.” To others, they mean “it looks and operates as well today as it did when I bought it.” And to others it’s like pornography to a Supreme Court Justice: they can’t define it, but they know it when they see it. What’s your definition of reliability and quality? Are the two joined at the hip? Please post your answers below…
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Quality is a much broader term. Beyond reliability, it also includes quality of materials, fits, finish, etc. Quality problems often cannot be corrected with a repair.
Reliability is a matter of whether a car breaks. Reliability issues can be fixed.
There is then the matter of how severe the problem is. A rattle? Engine failure while a thousand miles from home?
The main thing missing from CR, J.D. Power is a clear indication of what is being measured. I’m going to fix this. You can view my survey here:
http://www.truedelta.com/survey.php
Using this survey, I’ll be able to provide results for all trips to the shop, those that required a tow, those that resulted in a successful repair, those that required many days in the shop, and so on. Not only will I be able to do this–many of the current players could provide better information than they do–but I will do this. So when I do release numbers, you’ll know what they mean.
I should add that many people tell me they want to know how many repairs a car will require when it’s 5-8 years old. More and more people assume a car will go 3-4 years and 80-100k without any major repairs.
This is important even for people who trade a car before it gets this old, because people will pay much more for a used car they think will be reliable.
My 1999 Mustang GT is reliable– I’ve only had a couple issues with it over the years. But is it a “quality” vehicle? A five minute ride will convince any passenger it is indeed not. It is loud, crude and sloppy, more so than its 86,000 miles would suggest.
But trade it in? Can’t afford to, so the old mare is staying with me.
Quality: design, usability (e.g., no blind spots, no reflection off of dashboard), fit and finish, no unpleasant surprises (e.g., a trunk hinge that digs into luggage), longevity (e.g., no interior door handles where the surface wears away following normal use), ability to disconnect annoying electronic features, no need to read a 300 page booklet to learn how to operate the car (which invites disaster when you loan the car or use valet parking), having to ask your dealership for directions (since it has been so long since you needed service).
Reliability: No repairs — just routine maintenance. If a repair is needed, fixed the first time.
Reliability to me is longevity WITHOUT having to rebuild the car 3 times. I ahve a Honda and a Chevy truck. The truck is at 260k, but needs its third engine (changed oil every 3k). Chevy owners tell me I have a great truck. It needs, everything. I mean it, everything is rotten, or broken. I am doing a ground up rebuild (they still sell new frames for an 89). My Honda, only 130k so far on an 01. My dad’s, 380k on an 89 on ethe same engine, but needed a new clutch, paint job, and struts. That is reliability to me. 380k miles without having to change much of anything. 260k rebuilding major chuncks along the way doesn’t signal reliability to me. I love both. Each has their strengths.
J.D. Power doesn’t cut it in my book. They have an award for just about every category they can come up with so (almost) every manufacturer receives an award.
The perception of quality as a value sells cars. I sold my teenage daughter’s 95 Hondacivic to the first person who looked at it. It had 130,000 miles, cracked windows, rust, not a straight panel on the car, broken side mirror, speedometer that worked somtimes, broken window lift, no rear brakes, and a major dent in the rear quarter panel. It sold for $2,800 (because it is a Honda?). I wouldn’t of paid $500 for the car.
I also sold my 97 Mercedes E420, Which was in perfect, mint condiition. It need nothing and looked really great inside and out. But I couldn’t get anybody to look at it because it had 160,000 miles. It fianlly sold, but it was difficult to get somebody to look at it.
Kelly: I’ve often noticed that old Hondas sell for crazy money.
Schmu: I think we’ve got a new record for definitions of reliability.
Some people say you’ve just got to maintain a car correctly. But I’ve never seen a maintenance schedule that specified maintenance for the electrical system, which contains the parts most likely to fail. I don’t think regular oil changes have much impact on how long the power window motors last.
I’d rather talk about what quality isn’t. It isn’t a snobbish badge. A quality car isn’t one with poor reliability, even if reliability on its own might not qualify as a quality car. It certainly isn’t defined by the number of electronic fashion accessories. The old world standard bearers for quality aren’t quality anymore.
Like many things, quality and reliability are relative. Is the owner of a Ferrari more likely to have an unintended close relationshp with a mechanic than a Toyota owner? Probably. But, is the Ferrari owner more likely to mentally allow for that probability? I think so.
A co-worker just bought a 99 Carrera, which limped home this week after losing its coolant. The repair cost her $800. She justifies the repair against the good deal she got on the car, hoping it’s not a harbinger of things to come.
My 99 Miata suffer from some squeaks, rattles and little foibles I need to fix one day soon. But, I enjoy the car every day. I would say it’s a reliable car that carries a quality design. It’s also almost 9 years old (built in late 97).
My wife’s 99 Grand Cherokee has surprised me by how well it’s held up. It required a complete four-wheel brake replacement a couple of years ago (including discs and calipers), it has lost a water pump and needed some emissions work and a speaker replacement (all post-warranty). It leaks oil and differential fluid. Still, in my estimation, this list isn’t bad for an American SUV at its age. I’d also claim the Jeep is a reliable vehicle based on a quality design.
If what I described for the Jeep needed to be done on a 4-year-old Corolla, I’d be steaming mad, just because my expectation level would be higher for that vehicle. Thus, the relativity.
A sure sign that Porsche quality has gone downhill: in the old days 911s never lost their coolant.
Quality should imply reliabilty whereas reliability does not imply quality.
When I purchase a well made (quality) automobile I expect peace of mind (reliability) as well. If it truly is constructed well, then it should perform as intended for a long time, look good and have very few operational problems or broken parts. In my opinion, quality inherently lends itself to the expectation of reliability. I pay extra for quality workmanship and (should) get reliability as well. This is something that Mercedes and BMW have forgotten in the past couple of years and that Lexus and Acura have in the bag.
If I simply purchase a reliable car, I won’t care so much if it rattles and shakes and is increasingly uncomfortable, as long as the car starts and doesn’t cost me anything to run. In this case I didn’t pay extra for quality.
Reliability and quality are like stepsiblings in my opinion. Somewhat related, but with only one common parent. Or something like that.
My wife’s 2002 Corolla is 100% reliable. Not one single problem (not ONE) in 60K miles. But quality? If luxurious appointments define quality, the Corolla ain’t. But I think quality is much more than just luxury. Quality to me is how well a device works as intended. Meaning my wife’s non-power windows work flawlessly. So they’re not luxurious, but they are high-quality windup windows. The windup windows in my first car (1979 Grand Prix) broke about once a week. Not quality. The power windows in my 1991 Camaro are (semi) luxurious, but also broke about, well, every freakin’ day. Not quality.
Hmmm. Not sure I made my point. Will think about it some more.
Quality tends to be in the eye of the beholder. People will forgive some problems and forget as long as enough time elapses between repairs. Several problems in a row and the car is deemed a POS, even though it’s possible that nothing else will ever fail or that the problems were caused by owners, or just bad luck.
Though it may seem strange, one of the things that drives my perception of overall quality is the quality of seemingly small and/or inconsequential items. Door handles that get their paint/finish rubbed off through normal use, HVAC knobs that fall off and have to be re-glued, headliners that separate from the ceiling, seats that lose their “spring” too quickly – none of these things will leave you stranded by the side of the road, but they contribute to an overall “feel” of cheapness and poor design. Part of it is just the fact that we interact with, for example, the HVAC controls a lot more than we interact with the engine or transmission interiors The other part of it is that a driver has to think “if they took these kinds of shortcuts with the glove box latch, what kind of shortcuts did they take with the brakes, the engine and the tranny?”
IMO this is one of the biggest failings of most inexpensive American cars, and the advantage of many inexpensive Japanese cars: On the imports, the small stuff works, even after 100,000 miles. Whereas on many of the American cars I’ve driven (particularly GM), by the time a vehicle has that kind of mileage, a lot of the little widgets and gizmos have stopped working, fallen off, or just look like crap because the finish has worn off. The car may run fine, drive OK, heater and AC work, etc, but the impression from the driver’s perspective is one of lackadaisical quality and cut corners.
It’s sort of an automotive equivilent of the saying “take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.”
Schmu: I’ve editted my post to make it less confusing. The first line referenced a different post.
I own a ’92 Taurus SHO which is now semi-retired. The quality of assembly was average and the interior materials so-so. It is a high maintenance car but it has been reliable and durable in that it has always started, has never failed me and still has all its original components. I like the way it can putter around town getting 20 mpg and cruise down the intersate getting in excess of 30mpg. Then I like stomping on the accelerator and watching the tach needle run to redline like a scalded dog, shifting out of third in excess of 100mph and grinning from ear to ear.
I replaced it as my daily driver with an ’03 SVT Focus with an equal grin factor.
Quo Vadis and Speed42 and I are on the same page; “reliability” is a subset of “quality”.
Reliability is something not talked about anymore simply because most cars seem to be highly reliable these days. The best examples of reliability problems come from the past:
Cars that didn’t start when it was cold, Windshield wipers that flew off the car, sheetmetal and parts that would rust to pieces, easily overheated cars etc.
The quality of all cars these days is so much higher than in the 70s and 80s
that it’s measurable by non-scientific, non-statistical means: There just aren’t as many broken down cars on the side of the road as when I was a kid.
Now that the reliability of cars is less of a factor, other measures of quality and features are used to compare cars: “fit and finish”, “haptics”, rattles, durability, form, headlamp types, rim size & type, drivetrain technology, suspension technology, trunk/hatch hinge type…
then perhaps durability is more of what i am after. is it too much to say, “i want it all?”
Quality? My Volvo. Older Volvos of yore may not be visually appealing,(unless you like bricks) but they are over engineered and last forever. Sure the interior of my 240 is totally utilitarian in it’s design, but it all makes sense. It wasn’t made to appeal to everyone, like a lot of new cars are. There are no compromises in its design.
Mechanically, it’s sound. At 258,305 miles it’s yet to have a major failure, and nothing has been rebuilt.
Quality to me is a 17 year old Volvo.
“Michael Karesh:
August 18th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
A sure sign that Porsche quality has gone downhill: in the old days 911s never lost their coolant. ”
No. They leaked their oil whenever you looked at them cross-eyed.
Lets remenber the basics. Quality is defined in a formal sense as “conformance to specifications”. nothin more. What we are trying to define is “high quality”, which is conformance to very tight or rigorous specifications. Reliability is the ability of a product to perform its specified function a given number of times with defined maintenance without error or breakdown.
I agree with with Martinjmpr about quality being largely a matter of taking care of the “little things”.
Reliablity, in the sense of the car starting, running and not breaking down, is largely a given nowadays. Almost any car from the humblest Kia to the fanciest Mercedes-Benz will go 150k+ miles with normal maintenance. But how the ‘touchy-feely’ bits (interior, controls, power conveniences, etc.) hold up makes a big difference in how happy owners are over those 150k+ miles.
I used to be a repair technician at a BMW dealership. I can almost guarantee that no day went by without at least one customer needing a cupholder repair.
The E38 (7-series) and E39 (5-series) had ridiculously complex and fragile cupholders. If you put *anything* larger than a 12-oz can in either one, the chance of breakage was very high. One customer got so fed up that he designed his own cupholder for the E39 center console (and sold them through the dealership).
BMW apparently learned from this and made the E46 (3-series) cupholder a panel with appropriately-sized depressions. It broke far less frequently and, when it did break, the panel could be swapped out in 1 minute.
However, the lesson didn’t stick. When the E53 (X5) came out, it had cupholders similar to the E46, but they were attached from the underside of the center console. Hence, when they broke, the entire center console had to be removed and flipped upside down to replace the cupholder unit.
While the cupholders are somewhat trivial, they are emblematic of a failure to consider the long-term real-world durability and repairability of many non-core parts. Examples abounded, including:
–Window regulators that used low-strength plastic in high-stress areas, resulting in frequent breakage
–The infamous M50 engine plastic-impeller water pump, which would almost invariably crack or disintegrate by 60k miles.
–Ridiculously complex PCV systems that required 2+ hours to repair when they failed. The rest of the automotive world gets by with a couple of hoses and a $5 PCV valve, why can’t BMW?
–Valve cover gaskets that harden and leak every 2-3 years (4 hours labor to replace on V8 engines).
–Power steering hoses that leak within 4 years of installation.
–Instrument clusters that come as a single assembly, so if one row of pixels burns out in the message display, the only fix is to replace the entire unit.
You get the idea – we rarely replaced engines (M3/S54 connecting-rod failures excepted), head gasket failures were usually 6+ years/120k+ miles. Transmission failures usually happened early during the warranty period or over 150k+ miles. Steering, braking and suspension failures were almost unknown. But, boy did I replace a *lot* of window regulators…
Buzz L.
As has been eluded to by previous posters:
quality and reliability are different in the eye of the beholder:
The owner of a 70K Porsche likely didn’t but that car as their only mode of transportation, so when/if something breaks, they aren’t terribly put out since they can drive their other car while the Porsche is getting fixed. But you damn well better expect that Porsche to be one fine car when it is working and cruising the strip picking up attractive members of the opposite sex.
The owner of a 20K Toyota expects their car to work every day. They probably bought it as their only car and need it to get them to work and the grocery store, pick up the kids and repeat tomorrow and the next day for many years. The owner of this car probably knows they are going to pound the car into the ground, they don’t expect 100% natural hand polished wood trim that is hand assembled. They accept that their car has been mass produced by robots and some things may not fit perfect, but it’s cheap and it works. If the window wont close when the owner is cruising down the strip, that’s OK because they aren’t trying to pick up members of the opposite sex, they just want to get the kids home and into bed.
Buzz,
This is one of the reasons I bought my Audi, the interior is 2nd to none. The quality is there and you can tell. I know people with older Audi (A4’s) that have over 100K miles on them and while other things may have broken here and there (mechanical), the interior is still to this day: perfect.
Jon.
Quality and Reliability are interrelated but not co-dependant. Quality reflects initial design, quality of materials specified, and control of assembly and OEM vendors. Reliability is affected by quality of design (margin for neglect…), but also by intangibles like maintenance – which can be affected by quality of design (how easy is it to repair and can you get the parts?).
You can usually “touch†something (panel fit, materials) and get an intuitive feel for overall initial quality. You can look at Consumer’s Reports reliability index to get an idea of general reliability. Ultimately, each individual probably has as much effect on long term reliability as anything – especially as vehicle mileage rises.
I agree that reliability may have become irrelevant now that cars routinely last 100K miles without much intervention. After that point, most cars hit a “wall†where something breaks that too expensive to fix vs. the value of the car. At that point most people just get something newer and it passes into the junker category.
That being said; both my ’98 & 91 (100K & 180K miles respectively) vehicles are in perfect shape because I keep them that way. By contrast; a friend brought over her Civic for me to look at because it was making “a funny noiseâ€. Turns out the rear trailing arm bushings had collapsed and worn the tires so badly that wires from the radials were slapping against the wheel wells and had pulled off part of the exhaust. “Funnyâ€, indeed.
As long as there’s that wide a variance in tolerance for what’s drive-able – there’s no good answer to these questions. I do know that if costs to maintain keep climbing because of short-sighted choices by manufacturers on what replacement parts are available and how much they cost, we’re going to see “reliability†fall for a lot more cars in the long run.
Consumers Reports every April edition does a good job of reflecting reliability on a most current cars on the road. GM and Ford seem to get the most bad marks. Toyota still the most reliabile.
Coolant in a 911! Hmmm.
There is an emotional attachment factor that somehow fits into this equation. That sinking feeling when you sell or trade it in. It’s not always there. Sometimes you can’t wait to get rid of it.
“Michael Karesh:
August 18th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
A sure sign that Porsche quality has gone downhill: in the old days 911s never lost their coolant.”
Funny…in the old days, 911s were air-cooled. But if they had waterjackets built into their cylinder blocks anyway, I digress.
Other than that, I would say that reliability is a subset of quality; but a reliable car is a sure to be a result of well-considered design and engineering, an essential ingredient to any quality car.
Joe C wrote:
“My wife’s 99 Grand Cherokee has surprised me by how well it’s held up. It required a complete four-wheel brake replacement a couple of years ago (including discs and calipers), it has lost a water pump and needed some emissions work and a speaker replacement (all post-warranty). It leaks oil and differential fluid. Still, in my estimation, this list isn’t bad for an American SUV at its age. I’d also claim the Jeep is a reliable vehicle based on a quality design.
If what I described for the Jeep needed to be done on a 4-year-old Corolla, I’d be steaming mad, just because my expectation level would be higher for that vehicle. Thus, the relativity.”
You’re right about the relativity. I was guilty of it when I had my Corvette. But I was keeping the Miata around for a backup vehicle. How stupid is that?
Then I got smart and sold it (the Corvette). The BMW I replaced it with was far more reliable, so after a few months I felt comfortable selling the Miata.
For me, there are a couple of quality factors to consider.
1. Manufacturer’s quality.
2. Dealer’s service department quality.
And there are a couple of “grades” that I consider.
A. Design flaws vs. Manufacturing/assembly flaws (related to 1 above)
B. Seriousness of flaws: a paint blemish vs. something that might disable the car. (“Seriousness” is a factor not necessarily related to manufacturer or to dealer/service. I have had both types, both non-serious and serious/potentially life-threatening).
C. How many times I have to take it in to get a service representative to agree that it’s a flaw that they should fix. Chevrolet dealers were terrible about this. Denial, denial, denial; and I am convinced that it’s because they didn’t know how to fix that specific problem. Conversely, my local BMW dealer covered a $550 convertible top 20 days outside of the warranty!
D. How many times I have to take it in to get the problem resolved. Ditto this on the Chevrolet dealers. I used to get my car back with uncalibrated tire pressure guages, “spare parts” on the floor, and inside door panels and trim missing/not reinstalled! A festering pox on them all! (…Okay, only on the ones who did me wrong. So there!)
E. Whether or not I get the car back with a more serious flaw than the one that was ostensibly fixed. Don’t get me started here. My FORMER Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile dealers won’t come out of this one smelling nice.
F. Whether or not the dealer 1) accurately represents the time needed to fix the problem, 2) holds to that time, 3) doesn’t make me call them for a status update, and 4) returns my phone calls in a timely manner.
As you can see, a lot of my issues are with dealers. But the dealers exist at the behest of the manufacturers. Leadership (or lack thereof) descends from the top.
The problem is that Quality has at least 5 dimensions, and odds are that they change from vehicle to vehicle. To my mind, they are:
-Assembly (fit -n- finish)
-Durability (does the door handle break if you pull it hard)
-Reliability (does it keep doing whatever it did when you bought it without repair)
-Materials (is it made out of expensive stuff…or cheap stuff)
-Asthetic (does it look pretty, is it easy to use)
Each of these can and often is independent of the other, and the most important are often related to vehicle category. For example, a work truck would be expected to be durable first, then reliable. Nobody would care if it had a teakwood instrument panel or gauge rings in polished chrome unless it first could handle hauling rocks around all day.
Likewise, a luxury car would not be used to pull stumps out with a chain but might be expected to have tight fit lines and be made out of premium leather. For example, Porsche offers full leather interior as an option. Is a leather-covered dashboard higher “quality” than the vinyl-covered dashboard? Most people would say yes even though this does nothing to improve reliability, durability (in fact, it is probably lower), or assembly…but there is a big jump in materials quality.
Most people want a commuter car that is reliable first, with a blend of the rest. They don’t want to be in the shop all the time.
It seems that a useful scale might be ranking quality on all of these dimensions.
Reliable: it starts, runs, everything works when I need it to. Predictability is key, even when working on the car.
Quality: it looks and feels nice, it takes punishment AND is reliable.
As per the last topic, recalls don’t necessarily hurt reliability or quality.
Reliability is what you measure. Quality is what you perceive.
Sit inside a new BMW for a few minutes. Feel it, smell it, study it with your senses. Now do the same with a new Cadillac. The Cadillac is, according to statistics, a more reliable car than the BMW. However, the empirical data you have collected gives you a perception that the BMW is a higher quality piece. This is the same reason why people love cars that are notoriously unreliable (e.g: Ferarris): they feel that, even though their car is very unreliant, it gives them a quality experience that no other car can provide.
Of course, there are always people who feel the opposite way. People who could really care less about how good a car pleases their senses so long as it will go 200K with minimal maintenance. But I think that these people are a dying breed in this age, when many buyers only “own” a car for a 3-4 year term, then move on to whatever is hot this year… and what are the chances of a vehicle needing any major repairs in that timeframe? To these buyers, a good reliability record is more like an added bonus on top of the perceived quality that drives the purchase.
One thing that I would like to see measured in any new standard for reliability tests is repairability. If and when a car breaks down, how easy and cheap is it to fix? Are parts inexpensive and easily obtained, or are they expensive and backordered for weeks? Is the car apt to have time and money-consuming breakdowns (for example, A/C failures), or smaller failings that are easily and cheaply repaired? Can the car be repaired at any local shop, or must it be serviced at the dealer$hip?
Speaking for myself, my Behringer guitar amplifer has been at the guitar shop since April to fix a broken input jack. The trouble is that the jack has a unique a 6-pin design, so a jack from a Fender or a Marshall won’t fit. Also, Behringer’s policy when stuff like this happens is to replace the entire amp if it’s still under warranty. Mine isn’t. Because of this, they don’t make any spare parts. Hence, it has been nigh on impossible to obtain them. The experience has soured me, and I plan to trade the amp in for a more reliable brand when/if it gets fixed.
Substitute a few guitar names for automotive ones in that last paragraph, and you have the makings of a nightmare for a used car buyer. And, getting back to my original point, this is where perceived quality can turn out to be worthless. Sure, that used Honda may look like a nice, reliant automobile, but what about when it comes time to replace the timing belt?
I think Petra is on to something. As I recall from B-school days, quality is defined under the Toyota manufacturing system as consistency. Most of the posts above use definitions linked to reliability, durability and repairability. But that doesn’t capture the essence of quality in a car.
Take Land Rover as an example. If there is one thing the “quality experts” — from JD Power to Consumer Reports — it’s that Rover has abysmal quality. But as Petra suggests with the Bimmer, sit in one. Or ask any consumer, they’ll tell you that Rover is a high quality car, and worth 80 large.
Buick and Mercury have moved up the “quality” charts, but I don’t consider those to be quality brands, and I don’t think you do either.
Perhaps we need to define quality in a more specific way. As in having a checklist for features at a given price point. As in the weight and softness of the leather seats. As in the exact gaps between body panels, and the consistency of those gaps. You could go on and on.
I suppose I have. I’ll finish with this — Mercedes lately has been bragging in its press releases that when driving over a particularly challenging road course, drivers in a Mercedes show lower signs of stress — through heart rate or blood pressure I think. In the middle of a traffic clogged highway at the end of a hard day at work, maybe that’s the most important measure of quality.
A piece of junk car has something wrong with it either every week, or every other week. I had a friend who had a ’98 VW Beetle TDI. It was something different every week. Check engine light caused by maybe the mass air meter dieing, or the coolant temperature sensor for the computer going, or the air temp sensor, or the EGR, or the waste gate, or a piece of inlet tubing cracking, or the AC going out, or this, or that..
I commute in a gutless 4 banger Ranger(01) and it starts every time and gets me where I need to go. ~75k miles on it and still going. Optima Red Top battery, I keep the oil checked and changed, synthetic fluids everywhere, and I changed out that $20 brake switch that was recalled on the master cylinder so it doesn’t burn up…
We’ve got a ’98 Grand Cherokee with 180k miles on it. Nearly 100% original. Optima battery, synthetic fluids.. Starts every time.
Bryanmsi said:
“For example, a work truck would be expected to be durable first, then reliable. Nobody would care if it had a teakwood instrument panel or gauge rings in polished chrome unless it first could handle hauling rocks around all day.”
While, true, this still doesn’t help us define quality. I would argue that there does exist a quality work truck, even if it doesn’t (possibly because it doesn’t) have wood and leather.
Perhaps then this leads us to define quality not by how a car (or tool, or shirt or watch, etc) feel and behave, but how they perform their job. My Macintosh iMac gives me little trouble at home and is a joy to use. My PC at work, well, for argument’s sake, let’s say it gives me little trouble. But it’s a huge pain in the ass to use. I say the Mac is quality, the PC very much not quality. They both will allow me to do a job, but I’d much rather use the Mac.
So perhaps quality is inherent in luxury, but luxury is not required for quality.
With Ford and GM on the rocks, and DCX probably not far behind, what kind of quality are we going to get from them? Are the designers focused on finding solutions or finding new jobs? Are the parts suppliers on board with zero defects or zero payment plans? Do the assembly workers care if you get a car built properly when they might be out of a job in three months?
A quality product is a result of quality people. And people don’t produce quality when their minds are somewhere else. I’m sure someone in one of those positions at the big three is mad as hell at my comments but do you think customers trust a big 3 vehicle enough to pay 20-30 large for it? Resale prices reflect the impression that some cars are good investments and some suck.
Toyota has had quality problems after the 2002 year because of personnel problems related to the TPS, or Toyota Production System. This mentoring program depended on old hands that would guide new workers on assembly and fault detection, developing a quality mindset based on error-proofed assembly methods. The US based plants had few TPS certified specialists willing to work with the US staff. Out of frustration many returned home. The WSJ has run a few articles on this over the years. Cost cutting in the face of a shrinking US dollar has had an effect as well.
Toyota, though, has it’s reputation and can make a few missteps because they still beat the pants off everyone. Honda is in the same position, although their defect rate has not changed they still face challanges here. Many Hondas are reworked in Japan by a quality assurance team ( Most Hondas are inported back to Japan) that knows what to look for and handle the problems.
Petra’s got two good points. I love my old Mercedes because it does everything well – and has kept doing it well for 15 years. I can get it fixed because parts are available and they are actually reasonable cost. This has been Mercedes’ trait for a very long time, but now that’s changing.
I hadn’t thought of it this way, but the newer Benz will not be “maintainable” the way the older ones were designed to be. My ’91 will never wear it’s carpet out because you only touch floormats or dead pedals. Our ’98 has no dead pedal or protection for the carpet over the wheelwell – when that wears, you have to replace the whole thing. The ’91 has leather on all wearing surfaces – the ’98 had a vinyl center armrest that wore out 3 times in 2 years (had it recovered with matching leather myself after that…).
Maintenance-wise, it’s worse: the 91’s window lifts broke. All it took to fix it was a $5 nylon block. The ’98 had a similar problem and I had to replace the ENTIRE $130 lift assembly because that block is permanently riveted instead of bolted (also took a LOT longer to disassemble the door – 3 hrs vs. 30 minutes!). Another example: backup light switch in gear selector got dodgy. Since it also turns on parking sensors and tilts mirrors, it got really annoying. Fixing it cost $500 because its NOT ADJUSTABLE (duh!) and the switch itself is not removable from the whole selector assembly.
It may cost less to assemble and stock spares for the new models – but they will have nowhere near the longevity or retained value of older models because of MB’s poor choices. I can see keeping the ’91 for the rest of my life if I choose to. The ’98 is very nice, but it just doesn’t have that sort of life span engineered into it. From what I’ve seen with a friend’s R-Class & a CLS, the newer ones are even worse. It takes a long time to build a reputation for reliability and quality – it doesn’t take long at all to destroy it if you only trade on perceptions.
Native American definitions:
Quality = “Good bean, bad bean?”
Reliability = “Do bean be good, big time long time?”
The following thoughts come from someone who has owned and operated Japanese, American traditional, and European mainstream and prestige cars. As many have pointed out already, there is a difference between durability and (perceived quality). An old jap-mobile from, let’s say from the eighties would probabaly last for a couple hundred thousand miles, but the quality experience was extremely low, to use diplomatic laguage; paper-thin doors, paper-thin body panels, tiny seats. I once damaged my then-new Mazda 626 for hundreds of dollars by just trying to lift it out of a ditch with by bare hands hooked up to the front fender. The whole fender got seriously bent. A quality feeling is what I get when I get into my daily driver, a 1998 BMW 5-series with 150,000 miles on it. All switchgear still works like it was new, the seats are as tight and firm as when it was new, doors and windows work perfectly, the automtic transmission is still smooth and has nice and firm shifts, the enigine still gives good power and excellent mileage – 32 mpg in highway driving. Also – the engine sounds as good as a new one, no valve clatter or anything like that. Of course I have serviced it diligently, and it has had its share of brake pads and front rotors and new rear control arms. The only thing that has “broken” is the electric trunk lock. It has a few lapses in the interior, specifically the control buttons for HVAC system, they have a tendency to break, but that’s about it. So to me – this is an example of an automobile this epitomizes quality.
Petra: …”the empirical data you have collected gives you a perception that the BMW is a higher quality piece.” Lutz has been beating the GM engineering community senseless over perceived quality. And he’s right on the money. Big ship, takes a long time to turn…
If you love the car, you will put up with a lot of crap. That’s why Toyota is taking their current quality crisis very seriously. Their mainstream cars don’t exactly get the pulse pounding, so if the cars aren’t rock solid reliable, you could easily be turned to something else.
The coolant in old 911s was black and leaked out of the valve cover gaskets on a regular basis. I’m an aircooled (they’re really oil cooled more than anything) Porsche and VW owner.
Also, old 911s were designed to cope with coolant leaks. The exhaust system was setup to “catch” this runoff and burn it off. You can really smell that system working.
Facts, look after your car it will look after you.
I am proud to converse with such people of quality here! I think several nails were hit on the head….
I have been lucky to be a CEO for many years, and am kind of a car guy… and constantly have a collection of 10-15 cars at different homes. My problems tend to come from NON-USE of the vehicles than anything else. By the way, I just turned 31, and am NOT AN OLD MAN, before you read on… anyway… ironically out of all the vehicles I have owned, my favorites have been my big domestic v-8 vehicles, lincolns, gm’s… I have owned them in their late cycles (after being made for 20 years or so, lol). To me, quality is like someone said, a good slam on the door, the fact that my ride home from work is aboslutely silent!, someone blowing a horn next to me seems like it’s barely noticeable, and the feeling that my town car is doing damage to potholes, rather than the other way around. The air conditioning can blow a hurricane and keep me cool when I’m hot and sweaty and fully dressed in a suit. When I have businesspeople in the car, we can talk quietly and be heard, ALL the luggage fits in the trunk, and no one’s body touches each other (an American no no).
Some of my young friends that are upwardly mobile have gone out and leased their fancy cars, but when we go out, they always want to go in one of the “big cars”. I don’t know how any other vehicles could be called “roomy” after sitting i none of these.
I’m not biased to foreign or domestic, because I’ve had about an equal experience with both of them at different times. I will also say that I have had good and bad experiences with both dealers as well, including bad experiences with lexus. I will say that the dealer charges at american dealers have made me faint, although the repairs on the imports have made me faint twice! I will say that parts availability, and “home” repairability has been better for my domestic vehicles. There are also more DIY materials available for the domestic vehicles like manuals, and cd-rom’s.
I agree with what someone wrote about about quality being partly *how* the vehicle is capable of being repaired. I am a car guy, and if I can, I enjoy tinkering with the vehicles myself (including my hobby with is limousine collecting and refitting). So I’ve had all kinds of vehicles apart, and marvel at differences in the servicibility. That’s why I jump at the chance to buy vehicles late in their cycle, a recent town car for instance, is much easier to service than earlier ones, and actually break less often. A temperature blend door that used to require dash removal now takes 5 minutes for instance (failing after 300k miles). p.s. – a LOT of the lincoln and GM limousines I’ve seen have 300k on original engines and chassis… and all kinds of parts are available, like replacement seats etc…. that you can’t get for other vehicles.
Quality can be located in different places. The interiors of some of my big americans have not been as nice as my audi flagship, but have you ever tried to lift a big domestic control arm? that thing is not going anywhere.
By the way, I think domestics try to up content their vehicles to compete with imports at the same price, loading up cheap cars with cheap amenities that will fail before the honda with manual windows does, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Why do I see so many old cavaliers driving around, but not many corollas from the same era (is it the demographic)?
The other thing I’d like to say is that I know for a fact that a lot of my friends are snobs about their vehicles, “My BMW is great”, “My mercedes is Flawless”, becuase they are embarassed to talk about it. I read a post above about how the bmw climate control buttons had problems “but that’s ok, becuase it’s a bmw”… I come across a lot of that. I really hear the horror stories from their wives about the repair bills of these vehicles. Otherwise I would have thought I was crazy and living in a dream world of bad luck that my 7 series and other expensive imports spent so much time in the shop. In the office I’ll hear “I’ve had no problems with the Land Rover”, then when we go out to lunch it’s “oops, don’t open that window or it won’t go back up”. duh…. I bet HE lied on his consumer reports survey too!
It is true what someone above said, when my 7 series spent 6 weeks in the shop, it was no big deal, becuase I just move on to the next vehicle in the driveway, and I think that definitely skews the demographics compared to someone driving their grand am as their only daily driver. You just call the dealer and say “this week?”….”no…” “ok….fine” “is it being garaged?” “yes..indoors” “ok fine, let me know”. Just like the fact that it’s easier to negotiate for a house at 3.4 mil than 300k…. what’s a few dec. points.
What I have to wonder about all manufacturers:
– it’s 2006, why do we have to replace window regulator at all??? We put people on the moon 30+ years ago and I have to replace window regulators?????
-If we do have to replace a regulator and take the door panel off… why is the assembly so cheap that they never go back exactly right, or do with great difficulty?
-Why does a fuel tank have to be dropped to replace a fuel pump?
-why have so many of my vehicles foreing and domestic had water leaks? Even without moonroofs?
-is the labor economy so bad that (like someone said) whole clusters have to be replaced when one guage goes bad…. why would a dealer change an entire cluster before checking the sender first (still under warranty)
-so many air conditioning systems leak at the condenser/exhanger… why do they still make this part so inaccessible in the dashes? One of the big RAM vans at my company has a nice little “box” in the engine compatment, it was changed in 10 minutes… why not???
– Why do my foreign cars with smaller engines almost always seem to burn oil after a few years (even with very low mileage on all my vehicles) and a limousine with 300k won’t, even at startup…..
– I think WE as a culture have changed the manufacturing perspective. Make things cheap, light, and inexpensive. A higher percentage will fail, but be cheap to replace. We want it to be cheap anyway, since we’ve had to extend our warranties so long to compete with others. Our customer won’t keep the car very long, especially with all the leases and smart buys… the used customer will expect there to be things wrong, and will have an expensive warranty anyway. Building things of quality will make the vehicle heavier, and if it does fail will be very expensive to replace.
I’ve blabbed enough for now….
tsofting:
Comparing a 626 with a Bimmer 5 is no fun, nor fair.
Why not compare the 626 with a Beetle and the 5 with a Lexus LS, since they are better matched in prices?
Bunny, my point was that both the domestic “traditional” cars I have owned (for example a then-brand-new 1979 Ford Country Squire), and newer Euro-rides (BMW, Volvo) – will not crumble from a careless slap of the hand. I don’t think there is a law of nature saying the body panels should be so flimsy that a kid could destroy the car just by walking into it. I haven’t had the occasion to check out the sturdiness of the body panels of newer Japanese cars – maybe they are tougher now.
Also – to jakeryan1974 – I did not mean to say breaking HVAC switches should be forgiven because it is a BMW, rather that all major components of my present BMW have been working flawlessly. Now, I am well aware that my E39 was made before BMW had the bright idea that more electronics would always be better!
I drive an ‘03 Civic Si hatchback that I bought last November with 46,000 miles. It’s my daily driver, but I push it rather hard on a regular basis, and I took it to autocross on several occasions. Simple things like oil changes and brake pad replacement I do at home, but otherwise maintenance is done at the Honda dealer.
This July I went on a road trip from Texas to Indianapolis, Chicago, Toronto, and Atlanta. 4,000+ miles in total. The trip went without any problems (other than the lower-than-expected mileage). So, to answer Frank’s question, this is what real-life reliability means to me: when setting off, I was confident that nothing would go wrong throughout my journey. And that’s exactly how it turned out.
To date, nothing (!) has broken on the car, nothing has malfunctioned. After nine months, the odometer is approaching 70,000! How is that for reliable?
“Are [reliability and quality] joined at the hip?â€
I guess reliability is the consequence of high build quality (and smart engineering). My Civic is well-built, even though the materials and the feel of it is not what I’d call high-quality.
P.S. Some of you folks may have seen me at the United States grand-prix on July 2nd. Hint: I was wearing a bright red Ferrari team shirt.
By the way, my previous car was a 1988 7-series Bimmer. Certainly had a unique character – I could swear the thing was alive! But it was the opposite of reliable. Things went wrong with it in a way that made no sense. Even allowing for the old age and over 200k miles at the time of buying (new engine somewhere along the way), it was just unreasonable. Expensive to fix, too.
Sometimes it was just funny. The little display below the tach and speedo reads LOW BEAM when you turn on the headlights. Well, now and then the car taught me a lesson in German: ABBLENDLICHT. Other times it was backwards: THCILDNELBBA. I kid you not, I’ve got pictures.
Still, that car has a warm place in my heart. It was, most of all, fun to drive, in the way that my Honda can never be.
My definition of a quality car is one that is “built to last.” That includes design/structure, sub-assemblies and the ever intangible “build quality.” My personal bete noir found in many of today’s cars, imports and domestics is cooling system components made of plastic. By definition, such parts cannot “last” and have an uncanny way of disabling a vehicle when you least expect it…
Buzz L, how come BMW owners are using cup holders? I have never used a cup holder. In my car, I drive. When I eat, I sit at a table covered with a linen table cloth, eating with silver cutley and drinking from crystal glasses.
Sincerly, nothing deteriorates a car interior faster than spilled drinks, pieces of icecream or pizza sauce. Please, use cars for driving and tables for eating.
Great discussion.
There are two fundamental qualties – one is rational (or mechanical) and the other is emotional.
Every product is a balance between these qualities (a bit like ying/yang).
This is why the Mini is such a hit.
In terms of performance, it does not offer more than competitive vehicles.
However, it engages the customer emotionally and this produces the strong desire to purchase in those who connect with it.
Once the consumer has made their purchase all the product needs to do is deliver competitive levels of performance in order to maintain satisfaction.
When vehicles fail to be competitive on either a rational or emotional level (especially emotional) the product elicits indifference from potential customers, ie. they are bland, passed over, not even considered.
This is the dilemma with many of the vehicles discussed at TTAC.
I am an engineer, so I guess my definition is different than most consumer:
Quality: this is how much you give to your customer when you deliver a product compare to their expectation. If you sell them a compact car that has a windup window and they get a windup window that works well, feels well, and makes them happy beyond their expectation, thats quality. If you sell them a power window that they get frustrated at every day (sounds like a duck, shake like a duck, but works) and they don’t think it is good enough, then it is not quality.
Reliability: this is how often your product work (priority) and how long it last (secondary) based on the customer’s expectation. If they buy a car expecting it to last 200k and they work perfectly to 230k and it die the second day after that, it is reliable. If you sell them a car that they expect to last 100k and it start falling apart after 60k, and need a rebuild every 60k to last till 300k (which it does at the end after all the works), it is not reliable.
Every product is designed and build with an expected life. It is how well it exceed the spec that defines quality (in terms of making people happy without getting the job done, like interior’s feel or the sound of engine), and reliability (in terms of getting the job done without making them happy, like rattle and squeak but start every morning).
Everyone has a different “spec”.
Every time I read or hear something about quality and reliability I have to wonder how much heat a brand takes for the lack thereof due to owner ignorance and abuse.
Minivans make a good case to this point. How many times do you see these things hauling around with their back ends sagging due to the shear amount of cargo and passengers loaded, or towing a trailer that is clearly beyond the GCWR spec let alone the max towing capacity, or both? Then, go to the various forums and review sites and see all sorts of posts about being upset because the transmission had to be replaced at 60-80k miles. Well, gee never saw that coming.
Then there’s the review posts where people complain about having to go back for one repair after another, or back and forth for the same problem. I have to wonder how much of that is the dealership or mechanic taking the person for a ride than anything to do with the true quality or reliability of the car in question. Then there’s the issue of poor quality car care, such as that often to be found and many of the quick lube chains.
Quality is such a catch-all term that it really defies a universal definition. To me, it comprises a few parts. Once part is the stuff from which the car is made. Is it cheap plastic that will crack, break, or fade in a couple years, or it is good stuff that will last the life of the car. What about the “fit and finish” of the paint job, alignment of doors, trunk lid, and other such parts? Will pieces of the interior start falling off (like they seem to do with GM)? Attention to detail in design or assembly can define quality. Or it could be something so sujbective as the overall “feel” of the vehicle.
Then there is reliability. That is how few times the car will fail to perform its job or be out of service. Will it start every time you turn the key. Will it not leave you stranded somewhere away from home?
“Built to last” defines durability. Ultimately, how many miles can one reasonably expect to get out of a vehicle before it reaches the end of it service life (major failure, repair expense beyond justification, etc.). An engine that will run 200k miles before an overhaul is very much durable, even if it’s gone through a dozen water pumps.
None of these facets strictly corrolate with each other. I had a VW Cabriolet that wasn’t the most reliable of cars sometimes, but was durable beyond belief. My new GTO seems to have excellent quality, but will it still be around after 100k miles? Who knows.
One concept of quality and reliability also has to do with how easy the car is to repair. That is, is the car laid out in such a manner that repairs are easily made rather then with difficulty and excess cost.
For example, to access the oil pan on my 1995 Olds Aurora (with a Northstar type V8 engine), you have two choices to replace the oil pan gasket when a leak occurs (and leaks are very common on Northstar engines):
1. Remove the engine to access the oil pan; or
2. Remove the transaxle to access the oil pan.
Either was is extremely labor intensive (and our local Mr. Goodwrench charges almost $80 per hour) just to replace a simple oil pan gasket.
This to me is a very good example of poor quality design and reliability.
I sometimes ask myself, Why would anyone in their right mind buy a GM car with a Northstar engine?
I would have more respect for the automotive companies if they would do the following:
1. Lower the price of replacement parts for their cars; and
2. Disclose warranty reporting information to the public about ALL models of cars they manufacture.
If the 2nd item was done, it would force the auto company to improve their quality and reliability of their products.
What do you think?
By the way, I just signed up at no charge at the TrueDelta website that is monitoring auto quality and reliability.
Their URL is:
http://www.truedelta.com/index.php
Reliability: you always get there.
Quality: you always get there, happy.
Why would anyone in their right mind buy a GM car with a Northstar engine?
Answer: they wouldn’t.
Comapnies need to start asking questions about quality and reliability, don’t just go by lowest-price buying. Stay clear of suppliers where price of service/product has no meaning without a way to measure quality.
From: http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2006/08/leadership-knowledge-management-people.html