2006 Jetta VS Honda Accord

reliability, too early to say since it's only been out a few months. But so far they been good with only a few minor bugs.

LOL! I AM reading between the lines on this one. :-)

VW parts generally have not changed in design since the starting of the watercooled days. IMO, the issue with reliability comes to question when the newer cars get heavier and out spec the old designed parts. This will create premature wear issues as the vehicle gets older.

Eventually VW does compensate with a redesign but only after the fact. The older experienced designers leave VW, as in retire, pass away. etc. The building block of the base design becomes out speced due to newbie flash which creates extra weight and hardware issues. Granted, most all OEM vehicles are getting heavier. With the gas prices already getting gouged around $6 a gallon in some parts of the USA, I ask why not lighten up the vehicles and get rid of the heavy issues.

OTi, an example of this case is SUV and Truck repair. Those of you who own F-250 (3/4 Ton) and above type trucks and SUV know what I mean. The cost in brake work and other repair is enormous. Suspensions get out of spec much faster in these kind of vehicles especially 4x4s. You can see it in the tire wear. It's horrible. Ball joint jobs, warped discs, etc. All due to weight and abuse. The OEM product sucks in this case, Ford with the poor ball joints needs replacing unless you use third party replacement parts which helps.

Back to VWs. What gets me is the trannies are still OEM'ed with the cheaper rivets and not with the reman bolt kits. Is this still the case?

Honda's are having their share of spec issues now too since they too are losing the good generations in the designs.

I look at an auto OEM as a bell curve. In the beginning the cars have issues due to being new in the market. These issues get resolved and the quality gets better. This is where Hyundai and Kia are currently at.

The quality eventually climbs to the top of the bell curve. This is where the OEM has the least issues and best reliability. I put Toyota in this one. Honda, maybe on the downslope of the bell curve, starting last year.

The downslope. Lots of OEMs here including VW, Daimler Chrysler, GM, Ford.

Other issues are changing the catagory of the OEM. VW is trying to compete with highline OEMs and so the apple turns into an orange...

JMO. I still like VW, but I realize that they are not the same just as the other OEMs have changed their models. The heart of the VW is still good IMO, they should last. Not as long as the original A1 but still get 150K+ miles out of the new more plastic A4s.

I think most people would agree that the Accord is more reliable than previous Jettas, though the reliability of the new Jetta remains to be seen. The safety of the '06 Jetta is excellent according to the testing data I've read.

VW seems to have a host of top management and labor problems right now. Here's an example posted today; headline is "Volkswagen could cut

10,000 German jobs": OT: I think VW could grab some market share if they'd bring more TDI diesels to the USA market. The time is ripe with gas prices going up.

cnuheymikey wrote:

Good point. I forgot about the new safety rating and was surprised to hear this when I first read it.

At least they are not using american parts like Diamler Chrysler is usig for the Benz. The MB recently has been going downhill due to using cheap Chrysler parts.

I think they could do just that and bring over some normal folks vehicles like the Polo and the Lupo. This could only happen if the US gets rid of those big 18 wheelers and goes to the more efficient smaller diesel trucks that they use in Europe. The safety standards are here so small passenger vehicles have a chance to survive against the monsters they have to drive next to.

They'd have to become legal in CA/NY/MA/NJ/etc., first, which isn't going to happen until the EPA mandates cleaner diesel fuel.

-- Mike Smith

The 06 is a totally re birth from the bottom up. about 95% of the electrics are controlled by computers and they all are on a network. All the exterior lights are now computer controlled.

Sounds like a new generation of designers trying to make their mark.

:-)

Actually it's a weight (and cost) reduction measure.

They are using mexican parts, and for a long time :) As for layoffs in germany, they just want to produce cheaper, so they move their production to the "cheaper" countries, such as Mexico, Poland or Slowakia.

Are you sure? Which ones for example?

As far as I know, it's the opposite. For example, the Crysler Crossfire is nothing else as previous generation of Mercedes SLK.

The reliability problems of Mercedes are homegrown, they started much earlier (~10 years ago), long before the crysler merger. It's the direct problem of the management: they cut the development costs ("increased the effciency" in bean counter's speak), and set very ambitious engineering goals at the same time. So, it's not surprising, that they got what they ordered: some very sophisticated but unfortunalely unfinished modules, which are not developed enough to withstand the "real life". But it does not matter, as the management already got it's bonuses, and the reliability problems of future.... well they are in the future, for the future management :)

Yes, but in order to do it, you need to _produce_ more TDI's :) And this is not something you can do in one day, as it involves all that complicated compnent supply chains.

Lupo is being canceled due to the lack of sales, because it was small and relatively expensive (given the size). Wish yourself the brasilian Fox instead :)

Yep, in my opinion most car makers don't change something unless it saves production $$$$$$$!

Brake parts...

Depends on your point of view... IMO the merge has diluted the Mercedes quality while enhancing the Chrysler product.

Too bad, I liked the Lupo. I don't know about the brasilian Fox.

Wow. Does the (in-)famous SBC was first used by Chrysler? I always thought, that this super advanced intelligent braking system was developed by BOSCH and first appeared in mercedes :)

As as the common knowledge says, "the debugging is about 10x more difficult as an engineering, so never ever engineer something close to your limits, as such a system will be impossible to debug" :) It looks, like SBC was a bit over the limit :) Luckily it is said to be "canceled" and the future models will have the normal brakes again.

In some way - yes, the merge have sucked a lot of money out of Mercedes, so these funds could not be directed towards a R&D. But it will affect the future models, for the currently selling models it was already too late, as they were engineered before that merger with Chrysler. Ok, it was not the first disaster of this sort - Mitsubishi & Smart eated a lot of Mercedes money too.

And by the way, the quality was constantly sinking for the last ~10 years, long before the merger. For example, the previous E-klasse W210 (started ~10 years ago) started to show rust in very unusual places just in 3-4 years, which is absolutely inacceptable. The electronics are not very reliable too.

And oh, there was a Mercedes 190 (baby-benz), the grandpa of the C-class. It had a little of eletronics, so there was not much to go bananas, but the corrosion of the body was exceptionally quick and fatal :)

So, it's a long tradition of Mercedes. The last reliable mercedes which did not rusted was a W123 with diesel engine :)

Here it is:

The ratio of accidents far favors passenger vehicle or individual vehicle accidents over truck-related. Using smaller trucks won't make enough of a difference to matter. As for more efficient, that also sounds bogus.