Let’s talk reliability of new cars
Discussion
Hello everyone.
For the past 7-8 months I’m munching miles up and down the country in a HGV, therefore I see a lot of broken down cars on the motorway. Funny thing is they all seem to be new or nearly new (69 plate and above). Now there is a whole bunch of reasons why a car could be stranded on the hard shoulder or emergency area ranging from a flat tyre to God knows what.
According to my observation BMW leads the unreliability race, closely followed by VW and Mercedes. In these months I only ever saw two Lexuses broken down, one of them was about 25 years old.
So what’s the deal with all these new cars breaking down? I would’ve thought people are buying new cars for reliability and yet they keep breaking down?
For the past 7-8 months I’m munching miles up and down the country in a HGV, therefore I see a lot of broken down cars on the motorway. Funny thing is they all seem to be new or nearly new (69 plate and above). Now there is a whole bunch of reasons why a car could be stranded on the hard shoulder or emergency area ranging from a flat tyre to God knows what.
According to my observation BMW leads the unreliability race, closely followed by VW and Mercedes. In these months I only ever saw two Lexuses broken down, one of them was about 25 years old.
So what’s the deal with all these new cars breaking down? I would’ve thought people are buying new cars for reliability and yet they keep breaking down?
croyde said:
Of all the cars I've ever owned, my most expensive one was the most unreliable. Twice it even broke down on a family holiday and had to be towed home.
Land Rover Discovery 3.
Of all my watches, mainly costing £50 or so, my most expensive one kept breaking down.
A Tag Heuer.
I now drive a Dacia Duster, £10.5k new, and wear an automatic watch from Argos, £20, which has been going strong for 10 years.
So the answer, keep it simple.
Wow, I would be extra mad if my not-so-cheap-Swiss watch broke down multiple times Land Rover Discovery 3.
Of all my watches, mainly costing £50 or so, my most expensive one kept breaking down.
A Tag Heuer.
I now drive a Dacia Duster, £10.5k new, and wear an automatic watch from Argos, £20, which has been going strong for 10 years.
So the answer, keep it simple.
. And well you don’t buy a Land Rover for reliability they say
jamieduff1981 said:
I used to do 18k per year but have hardly driven the past 18 months. As per my Readers Cars thread I did drive from Aberdeenshire to Southampton and back a couple of weekends ago to buy a notoriously unreliable car. Over the weekend I started counting the broken down cars - there were 7 that we saw. 6 of them were German and newish. 3 of the 7 were obviously punctures and all three were on the A34(???) from Southampton to the M40.
It proves nothing of course.
However, having had new and old cars, my personal experience is that older cars develop faults more often, but they are usually simple to diagnose and cheap to fix. New cars are better engineered but intrinsically troublesome despite this due to grotesque complication. Diagnostics can be challenging if OBDII and a generic code reader doesn't yield the answer and the parts prices are laughable and the less said about the amount of a new car to be dismantled to access the broken thing right in the middle of it the better. Especially "desirable" ones (to normal people). Simple low spec Toyotas and Hondas etc are virtually unstoppable nowadays. Rolling infotainment centres with flashy badges and electric/adaptive everything should be crushed when the warranty expires.
Interesting. It proves nothing of course.
However, having had new and old cars, my personal experience is that older cars develop faults more often, but they are usually simple to diagnose and cheap to fix. New cars are better engineered but intrinsically troublesome despite this due to grotesque complication. Diagnostics can be challenging if OBDII and a generic code reader doesn't yield the answer and the parts prices are laughable and the less said about the amount of a new car to be dismantled to access the broken thing right in the middle of it the better. Especially "desirable" ones (to normal people). Simple low spec Toyotas and Hondas etc are virtually unstoppable nowadays. Rolling infotainment centres with flashy badges and electric/adaptive everything should be crushed when the warranty expires.
400 miles today only 4-5 broken down cars. 2 mercs and some vans. The merc were both brand new ish
nickfrog said:
LamedonM said:
_Hoppers said:
Driver101 said:
It's extremely rare to see a modern car breaking down on the motorway. To manage to establish which brands breakdown more is an amazing feat.
Confirmation bias by the OP?Magnum 475 said:
Over the last 18 years, my 'new' car history has been:
2003 320i - had one coil pack failure in 3 years & 45k miles
2006 320d - no problems in 75k miles / 3 years
2009 120d - no problems in 45k miles / 2 years
2011 320d ED - no problems in 95k miles / 3 years
2014 E220 - no problems in 120k miles / 6 years
The E220 was so good at everything it did that I couldn't be bothered to change it. Sold last year due to lack of use. I'll think of something to replace it with when I start doing more mileage. Maybe another E-Class, maybe a Lexus....
Get the Lexus 2003 320i - had one coil pack failure in 3 years & 45k miles
2006 320d - no problems in 75k miles / 3 years
2009 120d - no problems in 45k miles / 2 years
2011 320d ED - no problems in 95k miles / 3 years
2014 E220 - no problems in 120k miles / 6 years
The E220 was so good at everything it did that I couldn't be bothered to change it. Sold last year due to lack of use. I'll think of something to replace it with when I start doing more mileage. Maybe another E-Class, maybe a Lexus....
hyphen said:
exelero said:
Get the Lexus
But they look so dull on the exterior. If Lexus stole some European designers they would outsell the Germans.
Hyundai stole BMW’s designer and created the i30N. But people still wouldn’t pay as much for a Hyundai as for a BMW. According to carthrottle you can’t tell the difference between that and BMW, just the badge
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