There is zero chance that Dodge and Chevy have real world reliability greater than makes like Toyota, Honda and Mazda.
They also play games like counting “problems” without a weight. Infotainment problem fixed in firmware and transmission problem both increment the count by 1?
The J.D. Power article notes that the "initial quality" of cars is slipping, meaning problems reported in the first 90 days.
It's very possible for Dodge and Chevy to have greater initial quality (meaning fewer reported problems) but worse real-world reliability than their Japanese counterparts. Dodge, for example, is notorious for using parts that wear down quickly. Also, Dodge and Chevy have more vehicles that target the low end of the market, where people are more likely to just accept small problems with the car as part of the cheap car experience.
Initial quality always seemed like a silly measure to me. I'm more interested in total cost of ownership through 150k-200k miles. Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results, IMO.
Back in the 70s and 80s, it was common to buy a new American car with a double-digit number of serious defects right off the line; Japanese cars had their initial success in the States when they were generally fine at purchase. Overall quality has been greatly improved since those terrible days, but it's still a useful measure. Nobody wants to have to keep taking their brand new car into the shop.
Also, if you wait until you get any substantial real-world numbers on TCO from owners at 150k-200k miles - collecting several years of data - any given car will likely have been redesigned and have a different quality profile. You can extrapolate by manufacturer, but given the extended timeframe it isn't all that helpful - or even more helpful than initial quality - when buying a brand new car.
Unfortunately, product quality after 150k miles of life doesn't tell you anything about what's coming off the line right now. Most of the company will have churned over in the intervening decade. The car which was built 10 years ago won't even be on the market right now. Even if the brand name is still the same (eg, long-lived pickup truck names like the F150), the vehicle itself will be completely different.
So you might be interested in mid-life or end-of-life quality, but you can't measure it early in the vehicle's life without an accelerated life test of some kind, and you can't measure it statistically without doing so on many vehicles. JD Power's initial quality survey is just that: A simple consumer survey of defects reported early in the vehicle's life. Hence the name: initial quality.
JD Power doesn't create awards categories because they are in the interest of the consumer, they create award categories so that they can sell them to their customers to use in their marketing. They're a marketing data company, not a consumer advocacy group.
I look at the drivetrain as the biggest barometer. When Toyota does iterative design, such as from 20r to 22re to 2rz, they typically make small improvements based on the flaws of prior generations-- so a 250k mile engine may become a 300k mile engine. When manufacturers just start from scratch each generation and skimp on R&D, that is way riskier.
When you look at how many HF3.6 engine vehicles GM sold over the past 15 years vs how many you see on the road now, reliability (or lack of) becomes obvious. There will obviously be outliers, but the fat part of the curve (in terms of miles at failure) is what is relevant. Even when constraining for things like profile of buyer (e.g. subprime buyers will probably skimp on preventative maintenance), it becomes obvious which companies want to make quality cars and those that are mostly subprime finance companies that happen to sell cars (Stellantis, Nissan to a degree).
> Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results
This was not our experience with a brand new GMC we had a few years back, which was about as reliable as the previous one, which we got rid of at ~15 years / 250K+ miles. The older one broke down every year or so, but we'd beaten the heck out of it. The newer one experienced multiple major failures in two years, including stranding itself. The old one only stranded itself once through its entire lifespan.
Initial quality isn't silly. It makes a difference in the ownership experience. If you keep having to take your new car in for service it's a huge hassle, even when the manufacturer fixes it under warranty and gives you a loaner to drive. Considering the average new car price is over $40K now, the lack of attention to quality is just sad. It's pure laziness and incompetence, but I guess consumers are willing to put up with it so nothing will improve.
Reality is that no one owns a car for 200k miles anymore. There are of course outliers, but the vast majority of people are either buying/leasing/trading every 3-4 years, or are at the opposite end of the spectrum buying whatever cheap rust heap they can keep running.
> Reality is that no one owns a car for 200k miles anymore.
Do you have statistics on that?
I purchased my previous car (a Dodge) when it had 8k miles and had it as my primary car until 240k miles. It only started to have serious maintenance issues at 220k miles. I not only paid it off, but saved enough money to be able to pay for a new car in full. I would recommend to anyone, as it is really nice to not have a car payment.
My anecdata says your anecdata is wrong. Everyone buys a car new and keeps it going for 10+ years until the cost to maintain it gets too high. Then they sell it for scrap or donate it for scrap and get a new car. The one person who trades in their car while getting a new one is the outlier in any group of people.
Also, it's not just cost. Sometimes newer models are just worse. There is one car that I thought about getting a little while ago, but the model changed dramatically 5 years earlier (the older version was what I used on a vacation that got me interested), so I had to look at getting a 5 year old car or a different model.
I don't think that's true at all. My experience (which appears to be the same level of 'fact' as you present) is that there are people who lease, who trade out cars every X years like clockwork, and people who buy who keep the car until something happens that clicks 'that isn't worth fixing', which these days is often way down the road. Possible not 200k miles, but far more than 3-4 years.
FWIW, other than one car I bought new, every car I've had I purchased off-lease (so lowish miles and 2-3 years old) and kept it for at least 7-10 years, often getting to 200k miles.
Almost everyone derives value from existing cars either by using or selling it.
I also would need concrete data to believe most people are swapping cars willy nilly. Based on income/wealth statistics, most Americans most certainly cannot afford to.
Of all my friends and extended family, including my wife's family, I know a single person who does this.
The only source I could find said: "The percentage of consumers that are leasing their vehicles has dropped due to the inventory shortage. In December 2021, only 20% of new-car shoppers leased a vehicle, compared to December 2019, when 30% chose to lease, according to Jominy."
What difference does it make if 1 or 4 owners take the car to 200K miles? The cheaper-to-run car is likely to be worth more to the initial and subsequent resales.
I would be shocked if that's true. 30 years ago I remember it being a big deal when the family car reached 100,000 miles. If you kept a car running long enough to get it to 200,000 miles you'd probably get an short article written about it in the local newspaper.
I bought a few new cars. Never again; I don't want to deal with the elevated failure rates in the first 12-24 months. Our most recent car is a used, low-milage previously-leased vehicle. No problems so far. knock on wood
These type of articles that do not breakdown the type of complaints are worthless.
The trend of increased complaints has been present for a few years now, but when broken down the increase comes vastly from infotainment and SW related issues.
And it is expected, SW complexity in the infotainment part has skyrocketed and automotive companies are in their core HW companies, not SW companies and are slow to adapt.
I wouldn't consider infotainment complaints to be a sign of drop in reliability.
Yeah; the infotainment system in our Ram has only had one major issue. So did the transmission, tailgate, exhaust manifold, and cruise control. Two of those five issues were life threatening, and one could strand the car.
The infotainment problem is comparatively minor: Sometimes it corrupts the GPS azimuth(?) data.
Infotainment complaints are not necessarily an issue with the car, either. They could just as easily be someone who has an issue with their phone, or someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Electric vehicles (EVs) performed worse than gas-powered models in the study. EVs had 240 complaints per 100 vehicles on average, plug-in hybrid vehicles had 239, and gas-powered cars averaged 175.
This never fails to baffle me. An ICE vehicle has a hundred times as many moving parts as a BeV. Just how much lower is the BeV production quality to give them more problems?
The issue with these types of surveys is that they don't differentiate between complaints of different severities (or validities). EVs sold in the US tend to have a lot of infotainment features, and as the article mentions:
> The most common complaint? Trouble connecting to Apple Carplay or Android Auto.
They are equating the number of complaints with "car quality" but really what they are directly measuring is the number of times an owner complains.
ICE vehicles have 100 years of improvement and refinement behind them. A significant number of ICE power trains in current vehicles have direct lineages going back to the 90s and total production numbers in the 100s of millions.
The limiting factor in the durability of an ICE is maintenance. Friction will eventually wear an engine beyond operating tolerances. But proper maintenance can keep an ICE going for a very long time. 100 years is totally possible so long as wear components are properly greased and rubbers are replaced every 10 or so years.
Right, but claims like that are harder to substantiate because they often rely on circumstantial information, like shares bore centers or ancillary components, which could be the result of company policy and not indicative of direct lineage.
Whereas, tracing the lineage of a Nissan VQ, GM L-series, or VAG EA motor back to the 90s is very easy.
Choosing 90s was basically a CYA for a "citation needed" claim.
Consider the number of revisions to each design, as well as the number of years experience in designing and manufacturing both.
Compared to ICE, EV designs and their manufacturing and supporting processes are new.
Plus some EV makes are playing games with requiring in house repairs, which incentivizes (in the near term) getting cars out the door and fixing them later
While ICE are more complicated, they’ve been around longer. The QA process for ICE vehicles is probably better established. As more data is collected on common BeV issues, more defects will be able to be caught by the factory.
The caveat pointed out in the next paragraph might help explain the numbers:
"Those numbers are complicated by the fact that Tesla vehicles weren’t counted in the study. Fully 75% of the EVs sold in the U.S. last quarter were Tesla products."
The anecdotal experience I've observed among friends is that Tesla owners are happy with the Supercharger network and better software, while other electric makers still are figuring it out, lots of buggy software, slow charging, etc.
Tesla owners tend to be happier with the supercharger network and the software, but less happy about the build quality and the car physically falling apart at 8,000 miles. They're also less happy about paying five figures for a software product it's looking like most won't get to use before they sell their car. And the software doesn't transfer.
I am happy with the supercharger network and software. My car didn't fall apart at 8,000 miles and the build quality is good. I did have one minor issue with a window that stopped going up and down smoothly and a Tesla tech came to my house and fixed it with an easy to book appointment. I didn't buy FSD, but I would be unhappy if I did because I don't understand the appeal of pre-paying for something that isn't here yet.
You seem to have gotten a good Tesla. Maybe they got better or worse over the years. But the ones I've seen seem to have what I would term serious cosmetic and fit/finish wear for such young cars.
For me, the 17" touchscreen is a dealbreaker. So I know I'm not their target market. I have no desire to make my car a computer.
I've seen assertions that it's basically always been like this, but until recently the Musk RDF has helped maintain extremely high reported-satisfaction numbers, despite problems that would never be tolerated on any other vehicle, much less other vehicles in that price point.
But it's definitely changing as they try to go mass market. Some rich cat buying a Model S as their third or fourth vehicle has very different expectations/needs than a middle class family getting a Model 3 to be their only car and a daily driver.
I have a few friends/neighbours interested in going electric who have recognized this and explicitly chosen to go with the offerings from traditional manufacturers over Tesla— the Kia Soul, Polestar, and in one case a Taycan. Maybe there isn't folksy stuff like plaid mode, farting seats, and biohazard protection, but that long-standing design experience does seem lead to more solid basics like safe, functional interiors, doors and windows that work, and no surprise OTA updates that move around important features in the glass cockpit.
My 2014 WRX has had a myriad of reliability issues. Bone stock, always maintained, and just constantly going into the dealer for issues. Thankfully I have an extended warranty.
Issue #1: 19k miles - OEM turbo blows. Subaru FSE determines a bearing seized prematurely. Turbo replaced.
Issue #2: 23k miles - Replacement turbo starts making more sounds mimicking the same noises the OEM turbo made before it blew. Subaru replaces it again.
Issue #3: 28k miles - Third turbo goes bad yet again. I cause more of a ruckus at Subaru and they call in an another FSE. FSE determined that all of the turbos blowing caused metal shards to shoot into the engine and that's why the turbos keep blowing. They ended up replacing the long block as well.
Issue #4: 8/1/16 - Car goes back after I keep hearing a rasp. Subaru determined that it wasn't the exhaust shields as suspected and called in an yet another FSE. The FSE determined that the clutch that went bad prematurely. Other misc issues they addressed during this visit:
- Rear seat driver side window has some sort of regulator issue/noise
- Plastic bezel on the radio is peeling
- Creaky clutch and brake pedal
Issue #5: Burning odor from transmission. Subaru says its not an issue.
Issue #6: Yesterday, driving home from Burlington VT to NYC. Reverse gear fails. No reverse option. Third gear also pops out.
It's one of the most fun cars I have ever driven but Jesus it's a nightmare to go to Subaru non-stop. I am contemplating getting a 2022 WRX and attributing all the issues to it being a Lemon...
Your WRX makes 265hp from a 4 cylinder engine, that's as much power as Porsche was getting out of their 6 cylinder 2.7 engines at the time, in cars that cost far more...
The WRX is a really cheap family car with a small 4 cylinder engine tuned to the absolute performance limit with TONS of turbo boost, and the corresponding massive amounts of heat and stress that includes. I would expect it to be incredibly unreliable! Just a little unreliable is impressive. I'm always impressed about the interesting cars Subaru is willing to sell to the public (XT anyone?).
Ah, the Subaru exhaust rattle. We had it in our Outback and I hear it in every Subaru over a couple of years old here in Western Massachusetts. It is as distinctive as the exhaust note on MGs used to be.
My favorite was my 2000-ish Impreza "Outback Sport" which lost all four hubcaps in pretty short order. Looking around, I could see that the problem was common for that model and year. Still, the only serious issues I had in almost 10 years and ~60K miles were one CV joint and one muffler, both relatively cheap to replace. My wife's much later Forester, on the other hand, succumbed to frame rot much sooner than it should have considering its usage and maintenance. I think they do pretty well on TCO for the budget segment, but anything more upscale not so much.
The word among mechanics I've talked to is that yes, Subarus break down more often than other Japanese brands, but they're also cheap and easy to repair so the total cost is similar. The repair cost for even basic stuff on a Toyota is eye-watering.
Subaru just called me and said my shift fork and synchronizer, need to be replaced. Ironically, my extended warranty expired in Nov 2020 and I now have to pay nearly $5k to fix it! Better off getting a new tranny!
Yep, my alternative which I don't even know if its a good idea or not is to get a used E350 off BringATrailer or if I really want reliability I should probably get a 1980s Mercedes 300D. The W123s are insanely reliable.
Or basically any pre-2004 diesel from VW, Ford, Mercedes, or Dodge :)
Edit/addendum: I personally strongly encourage the use of biodiesel or appropriate diesel alternatives where applicable, pre 2004 are often more compatible with biodiesel. Would still take any diesel vehicle over gas
Mo' tech mo' problems. Just give me a car that goes forward, backwards, left and right with a roof, windows, seats with few luxuries: air conditioning, power locks/windows, remote start (winter savior). For safety I will take ABS, maybe ESP. Leave me an industry standard DIN or double DIN opening for a radio and speaker locations; factory options always suck. Transmission can be manual or automatic. The rest is fluff that easily breaks.
This why the late 90's to early 2000s was objectively the greatest era for reliable good cars. You had everything that makes a modern car great; standard ABS, disc brakes, cruise control, power locks/windows, reliable traditional automatic transmissions, ECU/fuel injection, airbags, etc. without all of the unnecessary nonsense that has made cars insanely expensive over the last 20 years
Then again, I remember when your list of "great" features was exactly what was perceived as making "cars insanely expensive" and unreliable at the time. And a generation or two earlier, it was seatbelts, headrests, fuel injectors replacing carburetors, power windows, digital clocks instead of mechanical(!), digital radio tuning instead of mechanical(!!), etc., all of which many folks complained were just being added to drive up the MSRP.
On the flip side, having experienced post-2000 adaptive cruise control, rear-view camera, blind-spot indicators in side-view mirrors, auto-release emergency brake, integration with phone for Waze and such, etc., I would not want to go back. Indeed, I find myself noticeably annoyed when a car rental is missing any of these features.
Anecdotally, I don't know anyone - outside of car enthusiasts - who drive a manual. Not only would they not consider it, a manual would be a non-starter.
Note: I used to drive a manual, and I am in the first half of my lifespan.
I am looking for a new car big enough for a family and capable of pulling a loaded utility trailer, but without the extras. Basically exactly what's on your list, but I don't need power windows and locks or remote start. Does it exist?
How big is your family? The Toyota Sienna is available with a tow package (larger radiator, alternator, and transmission oil cooler) and can tow up to 3500 lbs.
So very true...thank's for the chuckle at those memories. And back then, oil spot on the driveway the size of a dinner plate meant 'put more oil in...it'll be fine'. Now a single drop of oil on the driveway means 'omfg get it to the shop'.
I think that the base claim that "Car quality is slipping" is generally true. But I think that this is a trend that began a decade ago. Comparing the track records of the vehicles I've owned:
2002 Corolla (used) - rock solid reliability, only cosmetic issues with vinyl and a need for break pads.
2013 Elantra (brand new) - reliable, except for an electrical issue caused by an off-brand Rocket Fish (Best Buy in-house brand) car charger for my phone. The charger would send dirty electrical signals back into the car, and the new 1st generation power system would trip up... and I wouldn't have climate controls, defrost, wipers, stereo, etc for a random amount of time. I eventually reproduced it for the dealership, but was told by Hyundai that they wouldn't do anything since it wasn't a "defect". I traded it in ASAP for the next car, while it still had trade-in value.
2013 Civic (used, current daily driver) - so far rock solid, except for a tendency to burn up the brake's rotors. I had to replace calipers, pads, and rotors shortly after purchase of the vehicle (they were brand new at purchase IIRC). Occasional power system (maybe the battery?) issue where the airbag system shuts off randomly at start up.
I'm definitely cautious about buying a newer car now. I always try to review the lists at CarComplaints.com when considering what I might want to look for.
I have a 2017 Civic. Will never consider Honda again (had a 2001 Oddesy). Has a recall, yet to be done due to the inconvenience, that causes the car to jerk around in the lane on the hiway. Wife is constantly bringing up some "weird noise" or it's "acting weird."
In general, it is just a crappy, uncomfortable car with far too many complex systems onboard. I should have learned my lesson with the van. Really expensive, totally meh build quality, horrid suspension, and garbage sound system. Disgrace for a company with the repute of Honda.
I think it's important to keep in mind that 1) ICEs are many generations beyond EVs so it's natural to expect more issues but also 2) ICE vehicles came into being in an age where maintenance was assumed to be inherited with the vehicle (and a lot of it if not all of it could be done by the owner or a neighborhood mechanic) while PHEVs were born into the "weld the hood shut" generation of owners and can only really be worked on by dealers and certified professionals.
I'm very handy with cars but when I bought my PHEV for the first time ever I also bought the extended warranty and any time anything happens that car goes straight to the dealer because not only is the process for fixing EV components alien to me, but they're also not built to be user-serviceable in the first place and there's limited to no documentation out there.
I agree with you but didn’t Toyota have a recent recall due to wheels having the potential of falling off?
This is probably quite an exception but still very unacceptable.
Think it’s on an ICE model but may have impacts on an EV line
We own a 2018 Pacifica minivan, when we bought it the manager told us the electronics were the most added parts on the vehicle. I purchased the upgraded warranty, which I never do. Thank God I did! The Uconnect system is wanky, we had battery problems almost from the start. The last recall for the ESS seems to have fixed the problem. Many people online have given up and said they dumped the van. The van itself is really an awesome vehicle, the electronics side still needs some sorting out. I can't help but feel that Chrysler made us owners guinea pigs.
A “problem” can be that your car breaks down or that you don’t know how to use the infotainment system. That’s a pretty wide berth. JD power has bad incentives to track these things.
IME the overall quality of pretty anything is falling, not just cars, the race toward cost-cutting have reached the point of no-return in general assembly output quality.
New stuff, not EV in particular, have bigger problems in mean just because they are sold as production ready while are just beta quality prototypes.
For cars, not EVs in particular, the issue is in target mismatch: cars now are pushed to be services, rolling infotainment stuff, while people actually tend to need and desire vehicles so less crappy crapware, less surveillance capitalism stuff, less useless interfaces and more effective tools. As a result the end product is bad. It's the mix of some managers and engineers and customers deeply divergent views.
Not really fair to compare average cars to literally the best car <$100k USD...
More seriously, my leased CX-30 has a ton of features and fit&finish improvements over most "mid-range" brands at a very competitive price. I was deeply unimpressed with the Subaru Crosstrek and Honda CRV specifically.
There is zero chance that Dodge and Chevy have real world reliability greater than makes like Toyota, Honda and Mazda.
They also play games like counting “problems” without a weight. Infotainment problem fixed in firmware and transmission problem both increment the count by 1?