When I look back at how much money and problems owning Honda has saved me over the years, and how many, many trouble free miles I can forgive them a lot, but to be honest I do all servicing and never really go back to dealer after I have bought the car ( normally a few years old - so maybe previous owner had the teething problems, I will never know ). My experiences have also been 99.99999% positive.
I used to work as technical manager for a company in Australia and over 95% of our equipment went all over the world in containers. Our MD used to think it was his duty to go into container and inspect the way the machines were tethered down inside containers ( after the blokes had sweated inside all day ) - I used to tell the blokes 'leave something obvious for him to find, otherwise he will keep looking until he finds something' - so they would leave a couple of straps slack or something similar easy to spot - sure enough MD would come to me after and say 'good job I checked, they had only left some straps slack' ( or similar ) - he would then be satisfied - that was the same bloke who looked over his ( top of the range ) company car with a fine tooth comb when it came back from service ( or maybe he had just sent it back in for a niggle to be fixed ) and would ring dealer to complain that they had left a bit of white wax on car when they cleaned it doing service. My point is, some people are born to moan ( and other like me are born to moan about them moaning because they don't know how well off they are )...
I suppose what I am really saying is that some people set very low standards for themselves but almost impossibly high ones for others.... modern cars are possibly the most complex thing that any normal person will ever own, they have to operate from the desert regions to the arctic circle, be outside in all weather and get bombarded with mud, stones and salt, survive potholes and bumping up and down kerbs, and fit everyone from 4' 8" to 6' 6", most people who drive a car know very little about how the car works, they get little TLC ( cleaning does not count ) - the opportunities for faults are many. Sure there are complex industrial equipment, but they are normally looked after by trained people and well maintained.
The profit margin on modern cars is really not very high, market is ultra competitive and they rely on very, very efficient production and lots of sales, one large recall can be a disaster and wipe out profits.