Lexus no longer Number 1 on JD Power
03-20-2009, 02:34 PM
#46
Banned
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 213
That sentence needs more detail/qualification. As long as you can rely on it to what? Get you to your destination without a break down? That's a very low bar of expectations in this day and age and possibly by you don't seem to find as much fault with some of the garbage GM has put out in the 80s, 90s, and 00s as most others do.
Let me complete that sentence for myself...
I would like to be able to rely on my car to provide me with all of the creature comforts and capabilities that I paid tens of thousands of dollars for without necessitating multiple headache inducing trips to the dealership to keep them functional. I rely on my car to perform in all ways just as it did from the showroom floor, especially in the first few years of ownership. If my stereo stops working, I obviously can't rely on it to work, can I? My 335i's vapor shield in the driver's side door was improperly seated and let water leak inside my driver's side footwell during a storm. I made it home just fine but I wasn't able to rely on my car to stay dry during a storm. These are all reasonable expectations that I rely on from a new car and when they fail me, the car has become unreliable. No I'm not going to be as frustrated by a leak in my door as I would be by the engine blowing up on me, but they're just different degrees of unreliability.
Let me complete that sentence for myself...
I would like to be able to rely on my car to provide me with all of the creature comforts and capabilities that I paid tens of thousands of dollars for without necessitating multiple headache inducing trips to the dealership to keep them functional. I rely on my car to perform in all ways just as it did from the showroom floor, especially in the first few years of ownership. If my stereo stops working, I obviously can't rely on it to work, can I? My 335i's vapor shield in the driver's side door was improperly seated and let water leak inside my driver's side footwell during a storm. I made it home just fine but I wasn't able to rely on my car to stay dry during a storm. These are all reasonable expectations that I rely on from a new car and when they fail me, the car has become unreliable. No I'm not going to be as frustrated by a leak in my door as I would be by the engine blowing up on me, but they're just different degrees of unreliability.
03-20-2009, 04:02 PM
#47
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: City of Champions, MA, USA
Posts: 1,214
I'm sorry but some of you people are amazingly dense.
Let me describe this to you with this example.
You sit in Lexus LS460s number 1 through 10 and experience essentially the same level of wind noise in all of them. Then you sit in number 11 and experience 5 times that amount of wind noise and the large majority of it is coming from the passenger side rear door. You then take number 11 to the dealership and have them replace one of the window seals which was probably either improperly installed at the factory, improperly shaped, or the rubber degraded.
That is excessive wind noise as defined in the context of JD Power's reliability survey.
Getting in Lexus LS460 #1 and saying it has too much wind noise and then driving 2 through 10 and finding that they all have that same amount of wind noise would be a pretty solid indicator that nothing on the car failed, it's just a design that doesn't meet your standards. That would NOT be a reliability (or to Jake Robb, a quality) issue.
Jake Robb, on the other hand, could have his brand new Chevrolet's HVAC system fail, radio break, dash lights constantly flickering, tachometer stops working, seat heaters and lumbar stop working, leather on the seats tear at the seams to expose foam, and glove box can't stay latched shut, but he'd still call the car reliable.
Let me describe this to you with this example.
You sit in Lexus LS460s number 1 through 10 and experience essentially the same level of wind noise in all of them. Then you sit in number 11 and experience 5 times that amount of wind noise and the large majority of it is coming from the passenger side rear door. You then take number 11 to the dealership and have them replace one of the window seals which was probably either improperly installed at the factory, improperly shaped, or the rubber degraded.
That is excessive wind noise as defined in the context of JD Power's reliability survey.
Getting in Lexus LS460 #1 and saying it has too much wind noise and then driving 2 through 10 and finding that they all have that same amount of wind noise would be a pretty solid indicator that nothing on the car failed, it's just a design that doesn't meet your standards. That would NOT be a reliability (or to Jake Robb, a quality) issue.
Jake Robb, on the other hand, could have his brand new Chevrolet's HVAC system fail, radio break, dash lights constantly flickering, tachometer stops working, seat heaters and lumbar stop working, leather on the seats tear at the seams to expose foam, and glove box can't stay latched shut, but he'd still call the car reliable.
Whats amazing is your the dense one.
If my window falls into the door we both can agree it fell into the door and the window is no longer reliable. As a matter of fact I am willing to bet that ANY two people off the street will agree that the window is no longer reliable.
Rather than stick the same person in 10 different cars, stick 10 different people in the same car. I guarantee that a certain number will say, "What wind noise?" While others will say, "OMG its so noisey in here."
That is why it makes it a BS reliability issue because it is something that is going to based on an individual's OPINION. If the radio stops working or the tranny or the motor then there is no arguing it. How do we know they weren't driving on a real windy day? Down in a valley? Its the type of situation that will have WAY too many variables. Maybe he/she put their hand on the top of the door getting their fat @$$ in the car and disrupted the seal.
Last edited by super83Z; 03-20-2009 at 04:04 PM.
03-20-2009, 04:11 PM
#48
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 1998
Location: Memphis
Posts: 4,338
My the dense one?
I already addressed the potential for a survey taker to mistakenly identify normal wind noise as excessive in one of my later posts. That doesn't mean that a truly defective door seal isn't a valid complaint for a reliability survey, it just addresses the potential for flaws in the survey in general, which is why as another poster mentioned, you need to make sure your survey is of a truly large sample of the population so that you smooth out those irregularities equally among all models.
If my window falls into the door we both can agree it fell into the door and the window is no longer reliable. As a matter of fact I am willing to bet that ANY two people off the street will agree that the window is no longer reliable.
Rather than stick the same person in 10 different cars, stick 10 different people in the same car. I guarantee that a certain number will say, "What wind noise?" While others will say, "OMG its so noisey in here."
That is why it makes it a BS reliability issue because it is something that is going to based on an individual's OPINION. If the radio stops working or the tranny or the motor then there is no arguing it. How do we know they weren't driving on a real windy day? Down in a valley? Its the type of situation that will have WAY too many variables. Maybe he/she put their hand on the top of the door getting their fat @$$ in the car and disrupted the seal.
Rather than stick the same person in 10 different cars, stick 10 different people in the same car. I guarantee that a certain number will say, "What wind noise?" While others will say, "OMG its so noisey in here."
That is why it makes it a BS reliability issue because it is something that is going to based on an individual's OPINION. If the radio stops working or the tranny or the motor then there is no arguing it. How do we know they weren't driving on a real windy day? Down in a valley? Its the type of situation that will have WAY too many variables. Maybe he/she put their hand on the top of the door getting their fat @$$ in the car and disrupted the seal.
03-20-2009, 04:23 PM
#49
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: City of Champions, MA, USA
Posts: 1,214
My the dense one?
I already addressed the potential for a survey taker to mistakenly identify normal wind noise as excessive in one of my later posts. That doesn't mean that a truly defective door seal isn't a valid complaint for a reliability survey, it just addresses the potential for flaws in the survey in general, which is why as another poster mentioned, you need to make sure your survey is of a truly large sample of the population so that you smooth out those irregularities equally among all models.
I already addressed the potential for a survey taker to mistakenly identify normal wind noise as excessive in one of my later posts. That doesn't mean that a truly defective door seal isn't a valid complaint for a reliability survey, it just addresses the potential for flaws in the survey in general, which is why as another poster mentioned, you need to make sure your survey is of a truly large sample of the population so that you smooth out those irregularities equally among all models.
So in order to appear not dense, you said both sides of the argument yet still disagree with a point you presented.
03-20-2009, 04:29 PM
#50
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Anchorage, AK
Posts: 639
Sure are a lot of folks on a mostly GM site defending Lexus... 
Bottom line is every car was put to the same test. Lexus got beat in an aspect that people cared about. Period.
Who knows....maybe "excssive wind noise" is what prevented other brands from moving up the last few years.
Bottom line is every car was put to the same test. Lexus got beat in an aspect that people cared about. Period.
Who knows....maybe "excssive wind noise" is what prevented other brands from moving up the last few years.
03-20-2009, 04:41 PM
#51
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 1998
Location: Memphis
Posts: 4,338
In this case I'm agreeing that there's room for error in this survey, but that's not reason enough to exclude excessive wind noise as a problem area in a car as it is, when properly diagnosed, a real reliability issue.
03-20-2009, 09:44 PM
#52
Super Moderator
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Okemos, MI
Posts: 9,485
To be honest, I don't care what counts as a reliability issue vs. what doesn't. I know how I feel about it, and I've been clear about that.
The original point I was trying to make was that most people, when they see the results of a "reliability survey," aren't going to immediately assume that the top nameplates on that survey were low on wind noise. To paraphrase one of my favorite movies:
"You keep on using those survey results. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."
The original point I was trying to make was that most people, when they see the results of a "reliability survey," aren't going to immediately assume that the top nameplates on that survey were low on wind noise. To paraphrase one of my favorite movies:
"You keep on using those survey results. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."
03-21-2009, 06:10 AM
#54
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: City of Champions, MA, USA
Posts: 1,214
I like how MSN.com reported it. The title was "Move over Lexus there is a new number one"
Then it talked about how a British Luxury carmaker took the number one spot. Then they mention something about tying with Buick and then called them both new upstarts to the survey.
Then it talked about how a British Luxury carmaker took the number one spot. Then they mention something about tying with Buick and then called them both new upstarts to the survey.
03-21-2009, 08:32 AM
#56
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 1998
Location: Memphis
Posts: 4,338
Unfortunately Buick and Jaguar's lineups were both mostly in the stone age in 2006, which helps reliability out quite a bit since they've had plenty of time to work out all of the kinks in their designs.
Jaguar I already know is going to be slipping substantially with their newest cars like the XK and XF. And it's almost inevitable that Buick will as well... though by how much is the question.
Jaguar I already know is going to be slipping substantially with their newest cars like the XK and XF. And it's almost inevitable that Buick will as well... though by how much is the question.
03-22-2009, 11:27 AM
#57
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 429
To be honest, I don't care what counts as a reliability issue vs. what doesn't. I know how I feel about it, and I've been clear about that.
The original point I was trying to make was that most people, when they see the results of a "reliability survey," aren't going to immediately assume that the top nameplates on that survey were low on wind noise. To paraphrase one of my favorite movies:
"You keep on using those survey results. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."
The original point I was trying to make was that most people, when they see the results of a "reliability survey," aren't going to immediately assume that the top nameplates on that survey were low on wind noise. To paraphrase one of my favorite movies:
"You keep on using those survey results. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."
03-22-2009, 12:02 PM
#58
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 1,873
JD Power is in this business to make money, not provide a public service. They run surveys to determine what customers are think and are experiencing with their cars. They then publish the results to the media. Later, they offer to sell detailed results information to the automakers so they can use it to "improve their scores."
Whether or not wind noise is an actual defect, people are hearing it and don't like it.
By the way, wind noise seems to be a complaint generator when there is one area of the vehicle that is "louder" than the ambient noise experienced when driving. This could be a mirror, or around the a-pillar, for example. So the owner of a Lexus might complain about some noise around a mirror that is clearly audible over the ambient cabin noise, while the owner of a soft top Jeep wrangler might not complain about wind noise if nothing stands out, even though the ambient noise level is much higher. In either case, the vehicle need not to have a "defective" component.... they could "all be like that." What matters is that people complain.
Whether or not wind noise is an actual defect, people are hearing it and don't like it.
By the way, wind noise seems to be a complaint generator when there is one area of the vehicle that is "louder" than the ambient noise experienced when driving. This could be a mirror, or around the a-pillar, for example. So the owner of a Lexus might complain about some noise around a mirror that is clearly audible over the ambient cabin noise, while the owner of a soft top Jeep wrangler might not complain about wind noise if nothing stands out, even though the ambient noise level is much higher. In either case, the vehicle need not to have a "defective" component.... they could "all be like that." What matters is that people complain.
03-22-2009, 03:08 PM
#59
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Annapolis Md. USA
Posts: 754
I don't understand what sort of scope you are defining "reliability" with. Are you going to tell me if it doesn't affect your ability to get from point A to point B then it's not a reliability issue?
To me, if the manufacturer designs a car with "X" requirement for wind noise levels, and a window seal that goes bad causes 5 times "X" wind noise to occur, then the window seal failed to reliably perform its intended function.
To me, if the manufacturer designs a car with "X" requirement for wind noise levels, and a window seal that goes bad causes 5 times "X" wind noise to occur, then the window seal failed to reliably perform its intended function.
wind noises can be a total nightmare to deal with.
03-22-2009, 05:07 PM
#60
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 3,123
Dictionary.com: reliable adjective that may be relied on; dependable in achievement, accuracy, honesty.
I would have thought that "wind noise" is a noun and not an adjective.
Being pedantic.