CEO: Toyota vehicles lacked passion, must be more exciting

Reliability as reported by the owner is 100% subjective.

It's 100% reliable, Elmo, that you'll make an ass of yourself every time you post a message.

By that logic, why isn't doesn't Infinity have the same customer satisfaction ranking as Lexus? Obviously, there are other factors at play here.

Dealer experience is one of many factors. IMO, dealer experience is less important than the following:

- Reliability - Don't underestimate the anger and frustration people experience wasting time in a repair shop after spending many thousands of their hard earned dollars for a product. This includes "free" warrantee service.

- Design/Ergonomics - The product must work as intended, meet or exceed the customer's expectations and occasionally make them smile and in awe. It's important to note that, while you may have ambitions to be a race car driver, the average consumers defines the "driving experience" very differently than you do.

Car magazine road tests are good for data (e.g., handling, braking, noise level, etc.), but their opinions and rankings are far less useful because they are based on the priorities of the authors, which tend to be way more "hot rodish" than the average consumer.

Your priorities are different than mine. Nonetheless, my perfect car doesn't exist, either. So we have to choose amongst the options that the market offers.

Obviously that's silly, but there is certainly SOME subjectivity.

But when it comes to comparing across makes and models, we need not worry about that, unless there is a consistent tendency in reporting...

For example, would you expect Toyota customers to over-report reliability compared with, say, Ford owners?

If reliability is a '9' for Toyota and a '7' for Ford (just making up numbers of course), could you explain away the difference due to 'subjectivity'? If so, what would your argument be that Toyota owners are over-reporting the reliability of their cars?

I would expect Buick owners to over-report reliability compared to anyone.

That's because Buick owners buy their cars then store them in the garage.

Until and unless the "ownership reliability survey" is normalized for miles driven, age group, and use of the vehicle (kids, hauling, traveling salesman, taxi/courier, etc.), then it's just so much garbage.

And that's proven by Buick's consistent top ranking. There is no way the Buick, which is identical to the Chevy and is made by the same company and built in the same factories by the same union workers that are managed by the same GM management, is overall any better or more reliable than the identical Chevy model.

In message , C. E. White writes

In this months Which survey the order from most to least reliable is, Very Good,

Honda. Daihatsu. Toyota. Mazda. Suzuki. Good, Mitsubishi. Hyundai. Subaru. Porsche.

Average,

Mini. Nissan. Mercedes-Benz. Skoda. Ford. BMW. Chevrolet. Kia. Volvo. Jaguar. Seat. Daewoo. Proton.

Poor,

Volkswagen. Vauxhall. Smart. Citroen. Audi. Jeep.

Very Poor,

Peugeot. Saab. Fiat. MG. Alfa Romeo. Chrysler. Rover. Renault. Land Rover.

In message , Clive writes

GM must have really done a number on SAAB. The one I had back in the early 80's was a great car.

You know, even if NOTHING else were stupid about that list, the fact that Mitsubishi is in the "very good" category would render the whole thing suspect.

I think Mistu was in the "good" category. It's in approximately the same spot that Consumer Reports put it.

"Good" compared to what? A flaming bag of dog crap?

The fact that VW was rated "poor" while mitsu was rated "good" says to me that I can safely forget that entire list 5 seconds from now and my life will not be one bit poorer for it. (of course, VW dealers *are* often combusting anuses, but their products are darn good.)

nate

Except that they're not. Talk about flaming bags of dogshit.

VW products are no better than, and may be worse than, any GM product ever sold in the US.

For example, talk to any VW owner caught up in the coil pack issue.

I had that "issue." I bought my car from a (rare) good dealer, so it was hassle-free. I brought it in for a regularly scheduled (free) oil change and mentioned that it was idling a little rough. I got the car back and was told that they'd replaced the coil packs, no charge.

Now, I know that others had experiences that were not so happy. the problem was, similar to the window regulator issue, that a component supplier had provided not-to-spec parts. The *REAL* problem was that VW only had one supplier for the coil packs, so when they found out that nearly all the parts they were getting were shit, they didn't have anywhere to buy replacements. I got lucky in that the issue with my car didn't surface until after they'd already got another supplier ramped up and most of the supply problems were sorted.

But when I say that VW products are generally good, I mean that the basic design and mechanicals are so hell for stout that they make an old MoPar look positively weak and wimpy. Once you get one sorted out, you can drive a watercooled VW essentially indefinitely, with only regular maintenance.

nate

Compare that to the many thousands of owners who were stranded because VW didn't have enough supply on hand to take care of the issue.

...and regular wheel bearing replacement, and regular electrical problems, and...

the only wheel bearings I've had issues with were the rears; those are a little undersized in the later cars, but being completely conventional it's trivial to repack them with synthetic grease. Now a misadjusted parking brake will cause wheel bearing failure. Only had problems on two cars though - one was my mom's car which had a bad wheel bearing when she bought it, she drove it for another... oh... 15 years without any more issues. The other was my '84 GTI which ate a LR wheel bearing because the e-brake cable had rusted up. The fronts I've never had issues with - only replaced one, ever, and that was on a "barn car." No electrical problems, either. Drove nothing but well- used 80s VWs for a good 10 year period, until they started to become hard to find both used and in junkyards.

I keep hearing of people saying that VWs are so finicky and hard to keep going, but IME they're the spiritual successor to something like a slant-six Dart.

nate

But in reality, Mitsu is about as low on the list as you can get. I mean, even Yugo figured out how to keep the majority of the oil out of the combustion chambers.

I was an industrial mechanic for a while in the late '80s (forklifts and such). Mitsu was shit then. *New* liftrucks (under 1000 hrs) would drop valveguides or leak so much oil as to render them useless in a week of service.

I worked for a Datsun dealer. We replaced hundreds of Mitsus.

Try leaking oil in a carpet warehouse! They go nuts! "Fix this F**king thing before it ruins the inventory!"

Sorry... No Fix... Buy a better forklift...

True story. Al

Heh. Did they use the same heads as the V-6 POS engines they put in Chrysler minivans?

I mean really. How hard is it to spec a proper press fit...?

nate