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Pink Horror wrote:
Why all these little cars? I've always wanted to drive something like a dump truck, so an International CXT would be great, or if I'm willing to lower my standards and buy something totally impractical, a Hummer H2.

The more expensive, but more realistic vehicle I may actually buy someday if I could afford it, is a Mercedes GLS AMG. Horsepower, passenger space, cargo space, massage chairs, heated and cooled cupholders... if I am going to spend six figures on a vehicle, it better be comfortable.

I'll be honest, I've toyed worth the thought of turning a small dump ruck into a daily driver set up. Wouldn't be to bad on fuel either since my current truck gets about 13mpg anyways.

JD Power Dependability is just one of dozens of surveys on this. In that survey, there's no weighting assigned to the type of issues, its simply a defects per car reported. This can be a loose piece of trim, a bluetooth connection issue, or a blown engine. I was skeptical of that list seeing as Subaru was hiding near the bottom, when they're typically near the top in every other survey/index I've seen.

Best to cross reference and amalgamate results. As a Hyundai owner, I get bugged by my other car enthusiast friends for having an allegedly unreliable vehicle, despite every survey of the last 5 years pointing to a massive uptrend in Hyundai reliability. I've been eyeing the new Stinger as my new family car (the old Veloster Turbo won't cut it with the asymmetrical door design once the kid arrives) and some people wrinkle their face as the thought of buying a $50k Kia for fear of it being unreliable and shoddily built with no real evidence to support it. Unfortunately, reputations stick around and hard to shake in the auto industry. Buick is struggling to remain relevant when a lot of people see them as 'old people' cars, as one example.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
That is a definite plus. .. a buddy of mine lives/ works across the street from a Restoration shop in the Bay Area that specializes in Alfas (and euro sports cars in general, but the owner has a major spot for Alfas, and really knows his stuff there).

Around where I live there are highly reviewed specialist shops for different makes as well that, once I'm out of warranty I'm sure I'll make use of

Sweet. Yeah you definitely should look into them. I understand that little European sports cars sold/sell very well in California. Even MGs! Is there an MG specialist near you? Or Truimph or Jensen? I’m always fascinated by the British car industry, and how it all went horribly wrong. Sometimes I think about starting a thread about it but then I remember that it would only devolve into petty points scoring and passive aggressiveness.

Speaking of Jensens, I’d love to drive an Interceptor or a C-V8. Or a Mark II Jag...or a Rover P5 or P6...especially the latter. Because I know where one is. It looks rough, probably undriveable...but maybe it’s fixable.

 Blacksails wrote:
JD Power Dependability is just one of dozens of surveys on this. In that survey, there's no weighting assigned to the type of issues, its simply a defects per car reported. This can be a loose piece of trim, a bluetooth connection issue, or a blown engine. I was skeptical of that list seeing as Subaru was hiding near the bottom, when they're typically near the top in every other survey/index I've seen.

From experience, Subaru really is an "all or nothing" car brand. . . I may have mentioned earlier in this thread, but my wife formerly had a 2016 Impreza that, with under 30k miles we were already beginning to have major transmission problems.

The other "major" and ridiculously common problem among Subies is the head gasket thing, but depending on your view of things, and your skill/time at fixing things, that may not be so much of an issue.


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
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Sweet. Yeah you definitely should look into them. I understand that little European sports cars sold/sell very well in California. Even MGs! Is there an MG specialist near you? Or Truimph or Jensen? I’m always fascinated by the British car industry, and how it all went horribly wrong. Sometimes I think about starting a thread about it but then I remember that it would only devolve into petty points scoring and passive aggressiveness.

Speaking of Jensens, I’d love to drive an Interceptor or a C-V8. Or a Mark II Jag...or a Rover P5 or P6...especially the latter. Because I know where one is. It looks rough, probably undriveable...but maybe it’s fixable.

I don't live near him in the SF bay area. . . I live up in the Puget Sound area But as for specialists in MG's and the like up here near/in tacoma. . . I have not looked that up, but I have seen a few MG/Triumph style miniature convertibles driving around in the summer months, so either those guys do everything themselves, or there is some kind of specialist/generalist shop they trust.


But as for how things went "terribly wrong" for the british motor industry, I'd recommend James May's "Cars of the People" series, and I'm fairly sure theyve covered the issue in specials on Top Gear and the like as well.

I mentally removed Scoobies from my dream garage when I had to drive someone else's WRX STi WR1 (a limited edition to commemorate winning the World Rally Championship with the most powerful engine they ever factory fitted to that generation of Imprezas for those unfamiliar.)

It wasn't that it was unreliable or a bad car, but it was a near 100 mile round trip to get it main dealer serviced in preparation for sale. The sale being so the owner could pay for his wedding to my friend (an 8ft Viking Bezerker somehow stuffed into the body of someone who looks a bit like Kylie Minogue.)

I have never been so terrified, nor driven so carefully, in my entire life! After that stressful experience I'll just buy an Evo!

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
JD Power Dependability is just one of dozens of surveys on this. In that survey, there's no weighting assigned to the type of issues, its simply a defects per car reported. This can be a loose piece of trim, a bluetooth connection issue, or a blown engine. I was skeptical of that list seeing as Subaru was hiding near the bottom, when they're typically near the top in every other survey/index I've seen.

From experience, Subaru really is an "all or nothing" car brand. . . I may have mentioned earlier in this thread, but my wife formerly had a 2016 Impreza that, with under 30k miles we were already beginning to have major transmission problems.

The other "major" and ridiculously common problem among Subies is the head gasket thing, but depending on your view of things, and your skill/time at fixing things, that may not be so much of an issue.

Friend of mine just bought a new Impreza 5-door. Nice car, I'd get one if they still made the WRX or STi in the superior configuration (5 doors). Her Impreza unfortunately burns an alarming amount of oil. The dealership is monitoring the situation, and if it keeps up like for another month they'll swap the engine under warranty. Obviously anecdotal, but yeah, lemons exist in all brands. There was a video a while back of a guy who bought his dream car, a 911, and it was a super lemon. Unfortunately for that guy, the dealership refused to cooperate until he threatened a lawsuit, but still. Exceptions like that hardly taint my otherwise positive view of companies like Subaru and Porsche.

One of my dream cars to own now and daily is a new WRX or STi, but I can't make do with a sedan, so instead I angrily shake my fist at Subaru and ask them why they don't want my money. Granted, all I want is a new AWD, manual wagon with a minimum of 200hp, how hard is that?

Azreal13 wrote:I mentally removed Scoobies from my dream garage when I had to drive someone else's WRX STi WR1 (a limited edition to commemorate winning the World Rally Championship with the most powerful engine they ever factory fitted to that generation of Imprezas for those unfamiliar.)

It wasn't that it was unreliable or a bad car, but it was a near 100 mile round trip to get it main dealer serviced in preparation for sale. The sale being so the owner could pay for his wedding to my friend (an 8ft Viking Bezerker somehow stuffed into the body of someone who looks a bit like Kylie Minogue.)

I have never been so terrified, nor driven so carefully, in my entire life! After that stressful experience I'll just buy an Evo!

I'm pretty jealous, that would be a sweet car. Serious shame to sell it, a car like that would only appreciate in value.

All I've learned from working in the auto-industry is to basically ignore...all of those awards, lists, and nonsense. They're overwhelmingly poorly assembled and dependent on far too many factors which aren't considered. A better indicator is often resale value, or nowdays - go online and start reading actual reviews from owners (assuming you trust the location you're reading from).

Another thing to consider is that cars today are shockingly good compared to years past. I don't mean good as in high-quality or beautiful, or performance laden...I just mean generally speaking quality is incredible for even the worst car brands. It even shows in the links everyone has been posting.

The JD for instance with their rather silly Problems per 100 metric...the different between first spot and second spot is - on average - one problem. One problem: first place. Two problems: last place.

Brand identity and customer type are heavily, heavily biased in rankings like that. Brands which attract buyers who are cost-conscious or don't care about cars tend to do quite well, where companies who attract people via emotion or tech often do a bit more poor. Every brand is aware of their customer base, and what "zones" they fall into. There used to be metrics used by the industry to calculate who bought what and why - pretty interesting reads. People, for instance, who purchase a car based more on emotion are 10x more likely to report a problem than someone who just "needs a car" and goes with the cheapest deal. And that problem can be extremely minimal...but it matters to the consumer because they're more emotionally attached, invested, and "like" their car more than the other consumer.

The relationship between people and their cars is waaaay too complex to rely on lists and ratings - as they're incredibly skewed and biased. It's quite difficult to nail down a solid source for an actual read on any car.

 Azreal13 wrote:
They also get early, or even pre, production models.

Dad got a brand new Nissan, second iteration of the model so not even completely new to the market, and that must have been recalled at least 3 times, including once for an issue deemed potentially dangerous enough that the dealership held on to the car for 3 weeks and paid for a hire car while waiting for parts rather than simply book it in for a later date.

So it can happen to Japanese cars several years into their life cycle just as easily as brand new cars from allegedly unreliable manufacturer.

In fact, I've seen the car in question (a Qashquai) appear on both lists of the most and least reliable cars in the U.K, so it would appear there isn't even consensus about what reliable looks like.

Think Nissan/Mazda/Suzuki are seen as being at the bottom of the Japanese pantheon in terms of reliability. Don't have anything more than anecdotal for that (number of family members who have had careers in the motor trade, and would always buy a Honda or Toyota over those mentioned).

Very few of them actually made in Japan and some cars are made in concert in other companies: Had a friend who had a Samsung (yes really!) in South Korea, the same car is made by Nissan for Russia, Renault in France and EU. Exactly the same car. Very high volume of mass production, and probably aren't going to be on the same level as Honda, Toyota or especially Lexus (who still have parts of their cars hand-made, and have some ridiculous thing with specialised craftsmen assembling them. Which is probably why they are the top of the list).

But I don't think just being a Japanese car means now what it used to - starting first time and not having a pool of oil on the drive way - as the person above me has said, the general quality of cars has improved massively over the last 10-15 years.

Also car recalls are super common. For some reason just Toyota ones seem to make the news because its now become a 'thing' with the mainstream press, but again know someone who has recently had a recall on a 4-series BMW for a fuel line issue (apparently a possibility of an explosion! Although not sure what the set of circumstances would have to be).

 Blacksails wrote:

Azreal13 wrote:I mentally removed Scoobies from my dream garage when I had to drive someone else's WRX STi WR1 (a limited edition to commemorate winning the World Rally Championship with the most powerful engine they ever factory fitted to that generation of Imprezas for those unfamiliar.)

It wasn't that it was unreliable or a bad car, but it was a near 100 mile round trip to get it main dealer serviced in preparation for sale. The sale being so the owner could pay for his wedding to my friend (an 8ft Viking Bezerker somehow stuffed into the body of someone who looks a bit like Kylie Minogue.)

I have never been so terrified, nor driven so carefully, in my entire life! After that stressful experience I'll just buy an Evo!

I'm pretty jealous, that would be a sweet car. Serious shame to sell it, a car like that would only appreciate in value.

Then let me break your heart. The bloke he sold it to wrapped it around a lamppost and destroyed it within weeks.