Vehicle Dependability Ratings

Technocrat

Vehicle Dependability Ratings

zogger

Thu Aug 07 10:55:00 -0700 2008

Mechanics

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JD Power has released their dependability ratings for cars today, looking at overall issues with 2005 model year cars now that they all have some miles on them. As to brands, Toyota's Lexus comes in on top for cars, Ford Ranger for midsize pickups and back to Toyota for their Tundra at full size.

"The gains in dependability for compact and midsize vehicles are good news for consumers who are downsizing their vehicles due to increasing fuel prices," said Sargent. "Consumers who purchase these smaller vehicles benefit not only from immediate gains in fuel economy, but also from improvements in long-term dependability, compared with previous years." ed.z.: that's their press release, links in that to go look at more detail, and you can look up any particular vehicle as well. Toyota and Lexus is *clearly* the overall winner in overall reliability.

Vehicle Dependability Ratings

Nathan Smith

Thu Aug 07 11:45:03 -0700 2008
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Which is why we bought from Toyota this year. My wife comes from a Ford family, but we could not justify such a purpose, even if Ford is putting better products on the road. They need to win back some trust.

Buy American, Buy Japanese!

Bruce Perens

Thu Aug 07 11:56:08 -0700 2008
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Toyota partners in our local car factory while our local government is spending millions to rehabilitate a closed Ford plant. Buying Toyota is better for local jobs than Ford. The same is true over much of the country.

Buy American, Buy Japanese!

archanoid

Thu Aug 07 13:27:07 -0700 2008
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I live in Columbus, OH. There is a huge Honda plant in Marysville, just up the road. They employ many people in the area and have done a lot of good things for the local economy.

Honda & Toyota have been investing a lot into US plants while GM, Dodge, & Ford keep shutting 'em down and moving their plants out of the country.

And, given the makeup of cars with parts from so many different places, it's hard to really say what an "American made" car is nowadays.

So what it really boils down to is quality. If Ford/GM/Dodge built cars as good as Hondas/Toyotas, they'd be a lot better off. It's pretty simple, really. I don't understand why their management teams don't get that.

Vehicle Dependability Ratings

stephen

Thu Aug 07 13:36:51 -0700 2008
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They come up with the ratings by asking people who own the cars, which is probably not an accurate way to assess dependability.

Since we're talking about cars, I'll use a computer analogy: Folks reading Technocrat are probably fairly critical of their own computer's security, and any holes (e.g. the Debian SSL issue from a few months back) will really damage their opinion of their computer's security. Joe six-pack probably thinks his computer is fine as long as his identity has not been stolen. Joe CEO probably thinks his computer is fine, even after it was stolen, because it was "protected" by not one but two passwords. Similarly, you may think your computer is slow because it takes 32 minutes to compile xorg, but Joe six-pack thinks his computer is really fast because he can load www.google.com in less than a second.

My mother thinks her 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt is a great car because it has never broken down, and only had to go into the shop once for new tie rods and front tires because the tie rod ends were poorly designed. If my '07 Subaru Impreza had needed service in the first year, I'd have been quite annoyed.

The results are heavily affected by what type of people purchase which cars, and their relationship with their cars. "People who buy Toyotas most happy with their car's dependability" would be a more accurate conclusion.