Author Topic: Carwow - the 15 most RELIABLE cars revealed - buy these to avoid bills!  (Read 4117 times)

Jocko

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I worked for Lexmark for several years, and the thing that makes quality work is giving the operator on the line the authority to stop the line when needed. There is no point in the operator spotting something wrong, calling their supervisor who the calls an engineer if meanwhile, the faulty product is whistling by. Our operators, if they spotted something amiss, immediately stopped their production line. The same with quality checks. As soon as bottles came off at the end of the process, and the measurements were taken, that data was entered into the system, and if it was going out of spec, the process was stopped.

culzean

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Just in time is very hard on suppliers - as most suppliers do not have huge space to store finished car parts ( especially larger body pressing and suspension assemblies with extra fixings and welding etc. ) and car companies keep little stock on site. So the manufacturer literally makes the parts by 'loads' that are shipped out to car plant at various time of day ( and night ) at most times our factory had a queue of HGV with fork lift trucks around the lorries like bees around the queen bee - the Health and Safety insisted on putting speed governors on the FLT but soon had to take them off again as it was then taking far too long to load the lorries.  I worked for a first tier supplier who made parts for Toyota, Honda, JLR, Renault, Nissan to supply Sunderland plant and others like Saab,  and once when we had a breakdown on equipment making BMW Mini suspension sub-frames ( there is a lot of work in them, including machining after pressing and welding ) we literally had a a conveyor belt of Transit vans going from West Midlands to Oxford carrying parts to keep plant going - BMW have a penalty of £250,000 per hour if you stop their line....  Vehicle makers don't stop a production line when they find something not right, ( they work on just in time on assembly line as well, with parts for that particular car arriving on overhead conveyors at the right time and right workstation - the proper coloured and style of wheels and other special bits for that order - so taking a car off before end of line would disrupt all the automation) they take the car off the line at the end for rectification  - the dreaded words for us were 'car off line yesterday at XXXX and it was our fault - just one missing nut or stud caused a lot of problems and expense.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2020, 11:29:50 AM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

jazzaro

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"The Machine that Changed the World" is an interesting book by Messrs Womack Jones and Roos about the introduction of lean production in the automotive industry by Toyota, which had a lot to do with raising quality control methods throughout the world.  The book was first published 30 years ago, but I think the principles of lean production remain the same.  The construction industry has yet to be converted I think!  For "JIT" systems (just in time), substitute TFL (too something late).
I quote, nice book.

Downsizer

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Sounds interesting Downsizer. I've got it vaguely in my mind that Toyota pioneered "Quality Circles" - small groups working together to improve quality and production.
When Nissan set up in Sunderland in the 1980s they introduced “Kaizen” - continuous improvement.  Space was set aside throughout the plant for workgroups to meet together at the start of the shift to be briefed and also to discuss better ways of working.  They were all salaried staff and there were no bonuses.  The managers were all British and had experience in other auto plants where they had seen how things should not be done.  There was no stock of parts on site - they were all delivered to the line “Just in time” and there was no goods inward inspection or rectification area at the end of the line.  All quite revolutionary at the time!

andruec

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As an ex-Mk3 owner I struggle to believe that it's still highly rated. I mean, fair enough, it never failed to start or get me from A to B but:

* It sometimes struggled to start first time.
* For the first six months the infotainment unit would randomly crash then take a couple of minutes to reboot. I eventually fixed this by downloading a 'bootleg' firmware update and doing it myself because the dealer couldn't find it.
* After two years the door mirrors started randomly closing and opening while I drove.

Maybe mine was duff but that Mk3 was only vehicle I've owned in the last 15 years that exhibited any kind of fault. My attempts to raise the issues with the dealer and with Honda were futile so I did the sensible thing and bought a Toyota Corolla. Now I own a flawless car again. Even better I get helpful responses from the dealer and from Toyota to general questions.
Honda have, belatedly, acknowledged those bugs. Here's a mention of the starting problem https://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=11414.msg84419#msg84419 while I've encountered both the infotainment system slow start and random mirror folding issues with my HR-V. Both were conveniently not long before a service and still fresh in my mind. In each case the dealer had a fix. There was an update for the infotainment system which was only applied if the customer reported the problem while the mirror switch needed to be replaced.

That said, in an ideal world the problems would have never been there to start with but Honda also need a better system for problem reporting and fixing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Mk 4 Jazz has been more thoroughly debugged.
On the mirror front my dealer was no help at all. They said I'd have to wait either until they failed completely or else it was happening continuously so that they could investigate. Not the right attitude to take over door mirrors. Maybe if I reported that the steering wheel sometimes felt loose they'd tell me to wait until it fell off or the car no longer turned as needed.

peteo48

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It's interesting. When I had my Civic and was on the Civinfo forum, a recurring theme was the uselessness of Honda UK in dealing with issues that a dealer couldn't or wouldn't put right. That said, when I had my Golf and was on a VW forum, the VW UK outfit was regarded with complete contempt as well even by VW enthusiasts.

culzean

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It's interesting. When I had my Civic and was on the Civinfo forum, a recurring theme was the uselessness of Honda UK in dealing with issues that a dealer couldn't or wouldn't put right. That said, when I had my Golf and was on a VW forum, the VW UK outfit was regarded with complete contempt as well even by VW enthusiasts.

If you put people in a perfect place everything they could possibly need they would still moan - it is human nature,  some people think when they buy a car they have bought the whole company just to do their bidding, I know people that when they go out for a meal seem to think they have bought the whole restaurant for the day and moan about everything - I said to my niece once after she had been moaning 'if you were working long shifts on minimum wage would you really care if the coffee was a bit cold '?   I don't bother watching news anymore and hardly read newspapers,  it all seem to be full of people moaning how badly treated they have been by NHS or other organisation or company.  I would have more respect for the moaners if they just came out straight and said 'but if they give me money I will withdraw my complaint'...  As for people with 17 kids moaning about the size of their council house - don't get me started.

Nit picking about cars is a real first world problem, most people in the world will never get a car.

If you want problems and bugs look no further than Microsoft,  but they force people to have frequent updates to solve the problems ( which is why I moved over to Linux Ubuntu and Libre office).
« Last Edit: July 14, 2020, 11:25:36 AM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

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Think you are right about the "first world problem" thing. Right about Microsoft as well. That too is a first world problem but very annoying!

ColinB

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If you put people in a perfect place everything they could possibly need they would still moan - it is human nature,  some people think when they buy a car they have bought the whole company just to do their bidding, I know people that when they go out for a meal seem to think they have bought the whole restaurant for the day and moan about everything - I said to my niece once after she had been moaning 'if you were working long shifts on minimum wage would you really care if the coffee was a bit cold '?   I don't bother watching news anymore and hardly read newspapers,  it all seem to be full of people moaning how badly treated they have been by NHS or other organisation or company.  I would have more respect for the moaners if they just came out straight and said 'but if they give me money I will withdraw my complaint'...  As for people with 17 kids moaning about the size of their council house - don't get me started.

Nit picking about cars is a real first world problem, most people in the world will never get a car.

If you want problems and bugs look no further than Microsoft,  but they force people to have frequent updates to solve the problems ( which is why I moved over to Linux Ubuntu and Libre office).

I assume those comments are intended light-heartedly, and in the same spirit I suggest there’s a whole new concept right there, which I hereby dub “metamoaning”. Defined as the act of moaning about moaning, especially applicable when failing to spot the irony of moaning about other people’s moaning.   ;D

andruec

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Fair points about the moaning but if my door mirrors are randomly closing and opening as I drive along I'd expect something better than 'come back when they have failed completely'. And claiming there is no firmware update when I know that one exists is pretty rubbish as well.

I was a Honda owner for nearly 20 years and I dare say there's a feeling of betrayal for me as well. It's a lesson in how to destroy a lengthy business relationship if nothing else.

MicktheMonster

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These are fair complaints that any reasonable person would expect a dealer to resolve. I use my 2nd nearest dealer as my nearest one has a don't care attitude, this is the only dealer I've done this with in 30 plus years of driving, all cars can have faults but it's not unreasonable to expect the dealers to take 'ownership' of any faults and deal with them.

peteo48

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Fair points about the moaning but if my door mirrors are randomly closing and opening as I drive along I'd expect something better than 'come back when they have failed completely'. And claiming there is no firmware update when I know that one exists is pretty rubbish as well.

I was a Honda owner for nearly 20 years and I dare say there's a feeling of betrayal for me as well. It's a lesson in how to destroy a lengthy business relationship if nothing else.

Think you might have gone through a similar process to me with Volkswagen. After my 2005 Golf, I vowed never to buy a VW/Audi product again and I haven't. Prior to that I had 6 of their cars and had always come back to them after buying from another brand. I won't go into detail but VW bought some rubbish parts from Argentina as part of the ABS system. Failures were legion but VW refused to do any goodwill replacements outside of the warranty. Concerted pressure eventually lead to them acknowledging the problem but it took years of campaigning. I still get occasional posts from a Facebook support group.

So, I am moaning about other people moaning about other people's moaning about people moaning about their cars. ;D

I am pretty sure if I had a similar experience with Honda I would refuse to buy from them as well. Fortunately my experience has been 99.9% positive.

culzean

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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.

« Last Edit: July 15, 2020, 11:22:24 AM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

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I think a lot of unreliability problems are, indeed, due in part to the immense complexity of a modern car. "Which" reports have shown a correlation, not a 100% one, but a correlation nonetheless between high priced brands and unreliability. Spend £100,000 on a car and there will be an awful lot of tech to go wrong. Spend £10,000 on a new Dacia and there will be much less to fail. It's why a Dacia Duster is massively more reliable than a Range Rover.

But what is reliability? The state of the art sound system on my £100,000 car may develop a fault but the car will still get me from A to B. Our neighbour has a Range Rover Evoque and when I asked her how she found it she said there had been quite a few niggles but she loved the car and it had never let her down in the "stranded by the side of the motorway in pouring rain" sense.

Jocko

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I have never bought a new car and cannot see that changing in the future. The newest car I have ever bought was three years old straight from its first MOT. When I get a car, all the niggles have been sorted.
All the cars I have bought in the past 30 years (four in total) have been extremely reliable. Only one has broken down at the side of the road and had to be towed home. Two have had to have batteries replaced. Considering I pay about 10% of the price of a new car, I cannot complain.

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