FACT or FICTION: Are GERMAN Cars Reliability REALLY Improving?

It's not just the reliability that made Lexus successful. It's the total cost of maintenance. Replacing parts on a Bimmer, Benz, or Audi is gonna put you back quite a bit. It'd probably get a German car NEW, but not second-hand... not worth the headache, and I probably couldn't afford it either way.

*ahem* The Porsche 911/Boxster are among the MOST RELIABLE cars you can buy, regardless of price or origin. The OTHER German cars may be less reliable, just like OTHER Japanese cars not Toyota/Honda are of average reliability.

So your generalization that German cars need to improve in reliability is a bit misleading when the car consistently ranked in the Top 2 for reliability has been Porsche over the last several years. Maybe you should just specify VW/BMW/MB just like you could specify Mitsu/Subie/Isuzu as these 3 don't compare to Toyotas either.

Badgewhore is correct. Porsche was teetering on the edge before it went to Toyota for help in streamlining production costs.

Are German cars reliability improving


absolutely the entire industry has improved and with more time will only get better..

Only time will tell about that, and why can't German automakers use the same electronics like on Japanese cars to improve reliability overall and less electronic gadetry and more focused on the driver?

That would lead to more recalls! No, let the germans use their own electronic devices.

Prior to the mid 1990s some German brands, notably Mercedes-Benz, built some of the most reliable cars out there.

Also, the fact that we have a new generation of people born in the 1990s who grew up with the myth that "Japanese = reliable / European = unreliable" doesn't help either. It's a shame to see so many idiots out there who think anything made by Europeans is of poor design. For example, I recently saw several comments in an Infiniti forum regarding the rumor that the next-generation G and M could be based on the E class platform. These comments literally claimed that because of this platform, these cars would now become unreliable. Big FAIL.

Porsche had help from Toyota to get where they are in terms of quality..

Sure...

or VW ?

What rating scale are you going off of? The one I'm familiar with is
A+=4.3
A=4.0
A-=3.7
B+=3.3
B=3.0
B-=2.7
C+=2.3
C=2.0
C-=1.7
D+=1.3
D=1.0
F=0

Which would give your ratings...
Germans = 1.66
Koreans = 2.7
Japanese = 2.15
Americans = 2.66

Also, I can't find these grades on the JD Power site. I can find some 5 star ratings for the 2010 VDS study on each of the manufacturers... using them... and considering
A+=20 stars
A=19 stars
A-=18 stars
B+=17 stars
B=16 stars
B-=15 stars
C+=14 stars
C=13 stars
C-=12 stars
D+=11 stars
F=10 or lower stars

I get

Germany
Audi D+
BMW C-
Mercedes Benz C+
Mini F
Porsche A
VW D+
GPA=1.77

Korea
Hyundai C
Kia D+
GPA 1.65

Japan
Acura B-
Honda B+
Infinity C
Lexus A-
Mazda F
Mitsubishi F
Nissan D+
Scion D+
Subaru C-
Suzuki F
Toyota B+
GPA 1.75

America
Buick A
Cadillac C-
Chevrolet C-
Chrysler C-
Dodge D
Ford C+
GMC C-
Jeep F
Lincoln A+
Mercury B+
GPA 2.17

Basically showing Korea is at the bottom of the bunch, Germany a little more reliable then Japan, and America the being the leader. If you include
Hummer D+
Pontiac F
Saturn C-
Then America's lead drops as the GPA goes down to 1.9...

Joe_Limon

great post
the problem with JD power reports is the problem of any report
I am sure the driver of a Buick is not as critical if issues as a BMW or Audi customer.

And I'm not sure a person forking the cash out for the Porsche badge is going to want to admit to their vehicles having faults.

Your list is seriously flawed, since when was Toyota more reliable that Honda?

Joe Lemon, with all of the Toyota recalls you still rate the Toyota as high as the Honda? Have you ever googled Toyota engine sludge? Try it, you will change your chart.

those aren't my ratings, those are jd power ratings, and Toyota is on par with honda according to them.

Unfortunately the VDS scores are a poor barometer of reliability.

The reason is the scores are not based on reliability at all, it is more of a very loose QA score.

A poorly fitted piece of trim counts on a VDS score even though that has nothing to do with reliability. It does however factor into a dealer visit.

The best anyone can figure the VDS score best equates to dealer visits per 100 cars. So a Lexus at 115 means you have a 1.15 dealer visits average over 3 years. A BMW is below average at 165 or 1.65 dealer visits over 3 years.

Now no matter how you figure it by either rounding up or down A BMW will average at most one more visit over 3 years.

You have far greater anomalies between say a Lexus ES and the IS than that. So your risk really need to be assessed by the model to model comparison rather than a brand comparison.

Also recalls typically are NOT included in these scores.

So my gradings are wrong? I used the following data, and even specified how much each grading was worth.
http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/dependability-ratings-by-brand

Where do you get this flawed info? Toyota A? where have you been the past few years? Do you read auto spies?

I would love to own a M5, or a Tourage, the reliability is one thing that would just barely keep me away, then again if I had more money I wouldn't worry about it in the shop once in a while.

Huyndia Smoke is back we will now see post and post of huyndia stuff o lord.

Willis..

A Known fact, in the early 90s Porsche were in dire straits and they hired Toyota as consultants to help with quality issues in their Porsche manufactoring plants..

Yet another Flame Bait by "00R". I'm looking forward to you digging up some REAL auto news. Real soon now.

I'm not going to completely deny that German cars in general don't suffer from a bit of overengineering to the point of having some issues do to complexity. In their defence, however, many buyers (esp American buyers) simply do not understand the technology they ahve purchased and that certain things they complain about are what can be classified as "ghost" issues. In other words, something that is deemed a problem but is really just the normal function of the vehicle. A simple and all too common example of this can be Xenon headlights. Many clients come in to complain that the headlights are out of align on delivery. When they pull into the garage for the first time in their new BMW with Xenons, they can clearly see that the driver's side headlight is pointed lower than the passenger side. Unfortunately, they drive it into service after a day or two and file a complaint with a service advisor. If the client has never had a vehicle equiped with this type of lighting system, they may not know that in order to prevent the blinding of oncoming traffic, the driver's side headlight is purposely aimed lower to prevent this. Xenons produce approx 1000cp vs 400cp for a halogen lamp. The aim is critical therefor noticable on the back wall of one's garage. I'm just giving an easy example. Yes I know that both Asian and domestic cars have Xenons more commonly these days. Is anyone here willing to concede that Porsche buyers may be more knowledgable about their vehicle purchase than the avg consumer? This could explain why the scores for that brand are so good.

Who taught the Japanese all they know about 6Sigma quality, AMERICANS. So let's not credit the Japanese for any creativity. All they do good is take something existing and improve it, thanks to American ingenuity.

The sad part is that American companies did not believe in 6Sigma at the time... and the rest is history.

Lastly, the topic of reliability these days is almost senseless. We are discussing who is in the lead when most manufacturers make good enough quality to satisfy anyone. Breaking down the list of complaints to only those that are critical and ignoring those "moron factors" such as "my outside mirror makes too much wind noise" or "the sound of my door closing is too loud" or "the wipers are too squeeky" then most cars have reached a level where quality is excellent compared to 10 years ago. Today, we almost have to make up new items on the list to differentiate quality. Pick a leading brand (or excluding bad brands is probably easier... Subaru, Mazda, Mercury, Hummer, Land Rover, Chevrolet, Kia) and you'll find reliability has reached a plateau.
Cars are better differentiated in quality, refinement, comfort, features, styling and performance. Does it really make a difference if your car has a 56 parts per 1000 rel rating vs a 67 /1000? we're talking about the last 0.5%!!!
Companies stand to profit from these rankings and thus this fact gets buried somewhere. I;ve stopped looking at reliability years ago, and focused on other more relevant factors.