Have Cars Reach the Max in Reliability, is this the best it can be?
This is as good as it gets for auto buyers and owners, so says Consumer Reports. It had the Honda Civic, Accord and Ridgeline amoung CR's top pick in vehicles and it seems it cant get any better. The top brands have stopped getting better and the others have stopped or are reaching a peak in reliability, the magazine's data for the past five years show.
"It could indicate that the most-reliable new cars have reached a practical limit as to how trouble-free they can become," according to Consumer Reports April auto issue.
Have we reached perfection to the Nth degree and cant get no farther in terms of level of quality, well thats what it looks like, check it out.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-03-01-consumer-reports-reliability_x.ht- m
"It could indicate that the most-reliable new cars have reached a practical limit as to how trouble-free they can become," according to Consumer Reports April auto issue.
Have we reached perfection to the Nth degree and cant get no farther in terms of level of quality, well thats what it looks like, check it out.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-03-01-consumer-reports-reliability_x.ht- m
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Reliability to a price point? Yes, some builders have gone about as far as they can go in the current automaking environment.
Now, a 1977 Impala was a pretty damned good car for the time in which it was produced, but just imagine if we took the same attitude back then, thinking that cars had gotten as good as they will ever get! Now for awhile they actuall got WORSE!! Like later in the 70's and a good deal of the 80's, and even some stragglers in the 90's.
Basically it depends on what you want, though. You could nurse those old cars along almost indefinitely, because even the most expensive components, like the engines and trannies, usually weren't that costl to replace. And they were relatively simple. They could go on forever, but nickel and dime you to death along the way. Cars today are just the opposite. They can last a long time, and usually don't break down nearly as often, but when they do it usually hits the wallet hard.
Things look great, but they can always be better.
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Now in some respects, cars may have gotten about as good as they're going to be. For instance, you can only make a car take off so fast because of the laws of physics and time. It simply gets harder to accomplish each additional increment in speed. For example, it's not that hard to take a car that does 0-60 in 10 seconds and redesign it for 9. but then, going from 9 to 8 is harder. Harder still from 8 to 7, 7 to 6, and from 6 to 5. Taking a 5 second car and turning it into a 4 second car is probably damned near impossible. And then going to a 3 second car would probably kill you!
Likewise with fuel economy. In the 70's it was rare to find a big V-8 car that could break 20 mpg on the highway. Today it's common to find a large-ish V-6 car that can hit 30, and outperform those 20 mpg V-8's of days gone by (and even many of the <10 mpg V-8's!). But then, let's see how much it takes to get something like a Lucerne, Avalon, 500, or Chrysler 300 to break the 40 mpg barrier! AND still retain some semblance of performance. AND do it cost-effectively.
Reliability will always be a funny thing, partly because people mix it up with durability. And also, not all examples of the same model are equally reliable. For example, when they say the Toyota Camry is rated "much better than average", there are still a certain percent of them, no matter how small, that will merely be average. And a few of them will be total pieces of junk. Cars have always been like this.
So it's entirely possible for me to go from my 2000 Intrepid, which CR usually rated around average for that year, to a new Camry which consistently gets high marks, yet still end up with an inferior car. How? Well, my Camry could be one of the few that happens to sludge up, or drops its tranny prematurely or whatever.
It's instances like this that make people think stuff like "Oh, they don't build 'em like they used to" or "CR is full of poop", etc.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
In contrast, the last time I had to buy one of those old-fashioned, big, bulky, one-piece rotor was back in 1997, for a '79 Newport. Suckers were around $90 apiece. Plus the labor to put them on. I didn't want to deal with repacking the wheel bearing and making sure everything was just right. But with these newer 2-piece assemblies, you just pop off two little clips and the rotor slides off as easy as a tire.
I'm sure there are plenty of instances though, where the cost cutting has no up-side. I know this is a stupid little nitpick, but it pisses me off that the new Charger has a hood prop! I have NEVER owned a Mopar with a hood prop! :mad: Actually, I take that back, I think my '88 LeBaron had a prop rod, but hell that wasn't a real Mopar anyway. :P
But improvements may plateau over the short run, cost-cutting measures may contribute to that leveling effect, and the rate of improvement may slow significantly from what it once was. In time, the improvements may be so modest that they vary very little from year to year. If we reach that point soon, we may find ourselves benefiting from a new renaissance in design, as manufacuturers may no longer be able to use quality as a unique competitive advantage. (If everyone's quality becomes roughly equal, quality won't be a way to distinguish one's self from one's rivals.)
I think we've already sailed well past that point. The major Japanese makes hit it about 15 years ago, and the domestics about four decades ago.
I wish I were more familiar with the exact numbers. I am willing to bet that Toyota and Honda have not improved their actual rate of defects and repairs more than a few percent since, say, 1995. Many of the other manufacturers have gradually caught up, while Nissan went through hard times and its numbers dropped way down.
I expect that from here on out other companies will bounce around on the list as they make good cost-cutting decisions followed by bad ones, while Toyota and Honda will stay fairly consistently at the top of the list, but stagnating in actual defect rates.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
The problem with numbers is the type of features my mother referred to as "fru-fru", meaningless to the operation of the product. If your seat warmer breaks down, is it less reliable than a car that never had one?
Ask yourself what is more likely?
1) auto companies wantto make a car so reliable no one buys new and they go out of business.
2) auto companies will deliberately design in just enough defects (*cough* FORD *cough*) and fast wearing parts to make you want to get rid of it at 150k and buy another one.
Number 2 was the case when your basic choice was limited to the Big Three, but those days are long gone. Now after your problematic Ford (or VW), you will go with Toyota and Honda.
I myself sold a very reliable car when it was still going strong (a '97 Camry with 111K miles) to get an '04 Camry with side curtain airbags (unavailable on the '97).
It's a balance between reliability and sophistication. Over time both do increase together, but if you increase one quickly, the other is likely to decrease.
Lemko, were you the authors contact to this article ??? :P
Rocky
Another factor is that people tend to drive more, so issues that are more age-related than mileage-related tend to happen at a higher mileage. And issues that arise from NOT being driven, like moisture, dry rot, fluids settling and getting contaminants in them, etc, don't come up as often.
They've also learned a few tricks with regards to building cars that are less prone to rusting. It's not just improved rustproofing techniques, but cars built with fewer nooks and crannies for water and debris to gather, trap moisture, and cause rust. For example, trunk floors no longer have those little drop-offs on either side, where junk and moisture can collect down in the quarter panel. These days, the quarter panel usually ends at trunk level, and anything below it is just plastic from the wraparound rear fascia. And all that chrome they used to put on cars was attached with clips, bolts, holes drilled through the sheetmetal, etc. It would trap moisture, dirt, etc, but also the chrome would actually cause a chemical reaction with the sheetmetal, causing it to rust. Vinyl tops were also notorious for trapping moisture underneath, or at the trim around the edges of the vinyl.
Garages are also much more commonplace today than in years gone by, although their effect on making cars last longer is dubious at best, as many garages end up filled with junk, while the cars sit out in the driveway.