Foreign and Luxury cars have worst quality?!?!

According to JD Powers they do!!!

After all the good conversations we have had in here recently about how the foreign car owners are in hypnosis over the "superior quality of imports", I was amazed to find this article on todays "front page" of the Yahoo news group.

Headline - "Fancy cars spend more time in the shop, study says".

Although the article was aimed at "luxury" cars' quality deficits, I found it most interesting that most luxury cars listed were also foreign, namely Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover, etc.

KUDOS :bow: to Buick for getting the best marks in the "luxury" satisfaction test.

Here's the article. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=677&e=15&u=/usatoday/11452433)

Now let's have some good conversation about how well those imports and fancy cars are compared to good 'ol American iron... eh?
:usa: gimme my Mustang or Camaro anyday :usa:

Good conversation? I only have a little time. How about the facts.

Imports=HYPE
Domestics=Just as good if not better than imports, sans import shopper mentality
Buy American :usa:

The typical high-end luxury car is a far more complex vehicle than a mainstream family grocery getter. There's simply more things, and more complicated things, to go wrong with a 500SL than there is with a Buick Century.

Also, these surveys are notoriously fickle when it comes to what gets reported. As the last two paragraphs said,

Aggravating the problem for luxury brands is that buyers finally able to afford their dream cars have higher expectations of the vehicles, says Art Spinella of CNW Market/Research.

"If you have a rattle in your Chevrolet, it's OK. But if you have a rattle in your Mercedes, you go back to the dealership," he says.

The things people send their cars back to the dealer for may not have any impact at all on durabilty or lasting quality of the car. I personally put very little faith in these surveys.

I don't put too much stock in stuff like this either..........but, this report is not a bad thing. It is not skewed in the other direction stating that American cars are the ones in the shop. Maybe it will do a little good in trying to break the negative stereotype.

On a side note, luxury cars are more complicated, BUT they cost a hell of a lot more and should be built accordingly and at a level that things don't have a habit of going wrong even if there are more potential problems..

"If you have a rattle in your Chevrolet, it's OK. But if you have a rattle in your Mercedes, you go back to the dealership," he says.
Nah, It's more like, "If you have a rattle in your Toyota, it must be like that because it is supposed to do that, because imports are perfect.";)

Originally posted by R377
The typical high-end luxury car is a far more complex vehicle than a mainstream family grocery getter. There's simply more things, and more complicated things, to go wrong with a 500SL than there is with a Buick Century.


Bingo. The Germans are going through the same teething pain that GM felt with the C4, the Allante, and the Reatta. Betcha the majority of the problems have to deal with electronic foo-foo crap like nav systems and fancy AV setups. That'd be my biggest fear with buying a high-end luxury car, especially a used one.

Domestic cars for me always. :cool: Unless it's a Lamborghini or Ferrari. :)

I don't know why, but this comment rubs me wrong too.

"Power provided the results only to automakers. USA TODAY obtained one of the automaker reports."

Ummm, how interesting. So they do all this work and don't want to publish or share it with the general public...:no:
I'm missing something here - like maybe the kickbacks!:o :D

As for the comments about more luxury = more complex and more likely to have problems... I agree. My old man used to gripe about how power windows and door locks were just "something else to go wrong on the car so they can rape you for replacement parts with". I thought he was being cynnical - and he was - but there was some truth in his words. Well try to find a car today - low-end or top of the line - that doesn't offer PW, PB, PL, and A/C, and most of it on the base unit. You have to option them out if you don't want them. So what was once luxury features has become the status-quo today.

I don't think that justifies having excessive dealer service requirements. If you were the sales guy and you told me that I should expect to have monthly visits to the dealer to have my nav system serviced or my HUD system replaced on my brand new $50k-dollar car, I'd tell you to go jump in a lake. They shouldn't offer the stuff to the public until it's bulletproof IMO, and lame-legging the public into funding your developmental work is a sorry way to do business.

Again, if those folks can afford the cars, and they don't mind the incumberances of frequent repair visits on top of routine service visits - more power to them. BUT...
1) Don't preach to me how "superior" their foreign/luxury cars are in every detail,
2) Don't belittle my American car when it's me you always come to for a ride back to the office from the Mercedes dealership, and
3) Throw some of your unimportant, excess, wasteable, free-found money my way... I need some new Michelins on my '89 Mustang with 188K miles on it.;)

I refuse to try to make ANY excuses for why a Benz or BMW needs more frequent trips to the dealer for repairs than a Cavi or Focus. You should get what you pay for - ESPECIALLY with top-end cars.

Might as well throw in a link to a story that shows the scores for all the different brands.

Scores (http://www.detnews.com/2003/autosinsider/0307/30/business-231761.htm)

Originally posted by R377
The typical high-end luxury car is a far more complex vehicle than a mainstream family grocery getter. There's simply more things, and more complicated things, to go wrong with a 500SL than there is with a Buick Century.

Also, these surveys are notoriously fickle when it comes to what gets reported. As the last two paragraphs said,



The things people send their cars back to the dealer for may not have any impact at all on durabilty or lasting quality of the car. I personally put very little faith in these surveys.

Ditto! Let's talk again when Buick has ABC active suspension and ESP stability control, distronic cruise control, heated steering wheel, pleasant LCD screens for climate readings (instead of knobs and giant round buttons), as well as satellite navigation system. That will have to be 2018 because Buick seems to be behind by about 15 years when it comes to incorporating such technologies and consumer convenience items into their cars.

What I agree with is that because true ol' american Buick lacks the technical sophistication of many luxury models - it is more reliable as a result. Less electronics, less sensors, more mechanical operation... I will never convince my father that power windows are better than conventional, simple roll-them-ups. And he is right - old mechanical things work more reliably than new eletrical things. Most, anyways.

Originally posted by muckz
That will have to be 2018 because Buick seems to be behind by about 15 years when it comes to incorporating such technologies and consumer convenience items into their cars.


Considering the the average Buick buyer is somewhere north of 60 it isn't surprising (no, actually smart) that Buick isn't incorporating too much "latest-tech" stuff in their cars. The seniors will be throwing fits.

I understand that more gadgetry causes more headaches sometimes, but the point is that if I'm paying $70,000+ for a Benz luxury sedan then yeah, I would expect this great new stuff to function without a hitch. When I'm laying down that kind of cash I expect to get what I pay for...and if the technology has flaws or isn't perfected yet, maybe you better take it back to the drawing board before you charge me a premium and send me on my way. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Z28Wilson
I understand that more gadgetry causes more headaches sometimes, but the point is that if I'm paying $70,000+ for a Benz luxury sedan then yeah, I would expect this great new stuff to function without a hitch. When I'm laying down that kind of cash I expect to get what I pay for...and if the technology has flaws or isn't perfected yet, maybe you better take it back to the drawing board before you charge me a premium and send me on my way. :rolleyes:

THANK YOU.:bow:

I wish this "survey" had more specific numbers and stats on exactly what the repairs or complaints were that caused the cars to be brought in. It seems to me that many of us have in our minds that the exotic gadgetry (like HUD or Nav systems) were the causes of these complaints, but I have seen or read nothing to claim this is so. The Benz' and BMW's may have been brought in for "squeaks and rattles", or loose seats, or lights in the dash that didn't work, or piston slap, ot leaking transmissions, or anything else under the sun. Who knows?

My point is, even if the service was for "gadgetry", it still shouldn't have been necessary because the systems should have been bullet-proofed before they were rolled out to the public. But moreover, if the service calls were for basic, fundamental design or assembly shortcomings, then DOUBLE-SHAME on the luxury carmakers.:o :shame: Like Z28Wilson said, "What DID I just pay all that money for?"

Just imagine if NASA, Boeing, or Lockheed-Martin ran their organizations the same way...:no:

I take these surveys with a huge grain of salt.....

Its also true on the lux owners that bring their car back on every little quibble, like rattles in speakers, which would raise the stats a bit..


Only thing I give to more expensive cars are they sound, feel, and look alot nicer...

Originally posted by Z28Wilson
Considering the the average Buick buyer is somewhere north of 60 it isn't surprising (no, actually smart) that Buick isn't incorporating too much "latest-tech" stuff in their cars. The seniors will be throwing fits.

I understand that more gadgetry causes more headaches sometimes, but the point is that if I'm paying $70,000+ for a Benz luxury sedan then yeah, I would expect this great new stuff to function without a hitch. When I'm laying down that kind of cash I expect to get what I pay for...and if the technology has flaws or isn't perfected yet, maybe you better take it back to the drawing board before you charge me a premium and send me on my way. :rolleyes:


I'd like to throw in one more angle, here.

The study doesn't really quantify the nature of the repairs that the vehicles were brought in for. One can't necesarily draw the conclusion that there is a direct correlation between vehicle complexity and warranty repairs. It could be build quality issues, fit/finish issues, paint defects, etc, etc.

Because of that, I don't believe the comparison between the high-end mercedes and a buick regal may not be unfair. Consider this: The engineering efforts and manpower poured into the development, testing, and assembly of a mercedes is {probably} a factor of 10 compared to a buick. The sophistication of equipment, build tolerances, and quality expectations are of the same magnitude difference. The assembly process of the two products are night and day, with the buicks being pumped out at 60+ vehicles and hour (one a minute!) while the mercedes are lucky to get 15+ an hour.

So, I agree with Z28, one should expect nothing but stellar performance from a high-end luxury vehicle, AS WELL AS THE BUICK!

A proportional [amount of resources/level of complexity] goes into both vehicles, so therefore the playing field should be level! ;)

More problems? Quite possibly.

Worse quality? Not a chance.

As mentioned, the import luxury cars have so many complex functions going on that it's easy for one thing to go bad and trip up the rest.

I'm also a strong subscriber to the theory that people with high-end luxury cars are more inclined to nit-pick about every last detail, whereas somebody who drives a Chevy or a Buick would never even notice it, much less think of taking it to the dealer to get fixed.

So high-end cars have two things against them: more things to go wrong, and more picky owners.

But when it comes down to it, you're taking your Ford in to get the transmission replaced, 8 rattles fixed, and a power steering rack readjusted... while the BMW guy is bringing his car in to get the air suspension adjustment computer to quit its intermitant lag and the slight oxidation on the lower right rear quarter panel smoothed over.

You mention "import" luxury brands with all these gizmos, but don't forget that Cadillac has all that same stuff on thier cars as well and they still placed higher than just about every luxury brand. One could also make an assumption that since Cadillac buyers(up until recently) have been mostly the elderly, they are more nitpicky and even when the slightest thing that doesn't seem absolutly perfect, they bring it in to be checked. This is the case for my grandparents and some other elderly people that I know.

As mentioned, the import luxury cars have so many complex functions going on that it's easy for one thing to go bad and trip up the rest.

Many people have made statements like this throughout this thread. What a crock. Electronic components should be the most reliable components in a car. They aren't wear items like the suspension or the engine. Having been an Electrical Engineer for the last 4.5 years, there is nothing more reliable than electronic components if designed well. If the primary problems with higher end cars is electronic in nature such as navigation or more complex embedded control, this is due to poor design/manufacture, nothing else.

Originally posted by muckz
Ditto! Let's talk again when Buick has ABC active suspension and ESP stability control, distronic cruise control, heated steering wheel, pleasant LCD screens for climate readings (instead of knobs and giant round buttons), as well as satellite navigation system.

That's BS. If I'm paying a huge amount of money for that stuff, it had better as hell work! And if the stuff can't meet typical standards for reliability, then it has no place on the car. Heck, look at Lexus - they've got some fancy options and don't have problems like M-B.

dnovotny, I'm also a EE in the auto industry, and I agree with you 100%. My stuff works. However, in the benchmarking that I've done, I've found an unbelievable amount of crap out there, and from guys that should know better. With American cars, it seems that electrical problems are rarely the fault of a defective electronics module (it's usually something electromechanical like a switch, actuator, or harness assembly), where as some of our European friends are making some very avoidable mistakes in their module design and will appartently source the production of non-critical modules to any jackass with a picnic table and a soldering iron. The Japanese seem to ensure quality by avoiding complexity - not a bad thing to do if you're primarly concerned with going from Point A to Point B.

it's usually something electromechanical like a switch, actuator, or harness assembly

Since I live in the Bay Area, many of my friends and coworkers own Japanese cars. I think the commonality between all cars are failures with electromechanical components. This is an area I don't know much about, but I wonder if reliability would be improved if they stressed the part (like one burns-in a uP at high voltage and temperature) to weed out the marginal units. Of course, as always, that adds cost.

Originally posted by Eric Bryant
That's BS. If I'm paying a huge amount of money for that stuff, it had better as hell work! And if the stuff can't meet typical standards for reliability, then it has no place on the car. Heck, look at Lexus - they've got some fancy options and don't have problems like M-B..

They do have a lot of cool features, but MB and BMW always seem to be one-up on them. In other words, if you see a new technology in MB and/or BMW, it'll probably be 2-5 years before you see it in a competing Lexus model.

They get critisized a lot for that by the media and owners. But I think that's the very same reason they have such a good reliability reputation, they wait until the technology is near bullet-proof before they'll send it their customer's way.

Yes, the BMW and MB's may get the new equipment, but I don't think anyone wants to buy one of those just to be a guinea pig for their new technology until they get it right.

As for the complexity issue justifying the increase in repairs, think about this. The space shuttle is a complex machine, so, I guess we should just look the other way when one blows up, because it's very complex and that stuff is just going to happen. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by RoMaD
Yes, the BMW and MB's may get the new equipment, but I don't think anyone wants to buy one of those just to be a guinea pig for their new technology until they get it right.

They do test the technology extensively. However when you test for 100,000 hours in a test facility, it's still not going to point out NEARLY as many flaws as 100,000 vehicles driving all over the planet 15,000 miles a year per vehicle with all sorts of types of owners, driving styles, environments, etc. I guess they could give 100,000 cars away to people to test out before they released the 'finalized' product, but unfortunately unlike software and some other types of products, creating a large test fleet representative of the population gets to be cost prohibitive.


As for the complexity issue justifying the increase in repairs, think about this. The space shuttle is a complex machine, so, I guess we should just look the other way when one blows up, because it's very complex and that stuff is just going to happen. :rolleyes:
Do you have any idea how redundant and obssesive NASA is when they design space shuttles? Do you know what their R&D and quality control budget is? I don't know the exact numbers, but I think if you wanted a car company to build a car with similar design tolerances to NASA's space shuttle, you'd probably be buying a Ford Taurus for right around the price that a Bently or Rolls Royce costs today.

Originally posted by dnovotny
This is an area I don't know much about, but I wonder if reliability would be improved if they stressed the part (like one burns-in a uP at high voltage and temperature) to weed out the marginal units. Of course, as always, that adds cost.

Na - what you get with electromechanical components isn't really an infant mortality issue, but rather wear-out or degradation over time that results in a latent field failure. Most of the time, it's really a design flaw rather than a failure of the production process.

Threxx, you're pretty much dead-on with your assessment. The Japanese very rarely introduce a new technology to the market; that's not to say that they wait for others to act and then steal their ideas, but instead simply an indicator of their desire to see the maturation process all the way through. You're starting to see the same out of the American OEMs, after some of the notable disasters in the past 20 years or so.