Mercedes v BMW reliability today ?

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Honda seem to be more focused on forward thinking engineering than having a model in every segment, though they do have a full model range:


Jazz
Civic
Accord
CRV
Legend

Insight and CRZ Hybrids...
 
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We have more than a few Vauxhall's at work and they are very unreliable.

This brings me back to my favourite topic of where cars are made. Is there there any difference for example between the Rüsselsheim German built Insignia and the Ellesmere port built Astra? Are there any differences between the Fiat design JTD derived diesel engines and the petrol cars- the V6's are I believe a Holden design. The Vauxhall/ Opel Vivaro van range seem to to well regarded altho you could also call them Renaults/ Nissans. Sometimes I think you have to drill down to a specific model/engine/factory combo to get a good reliability assessment. Car production is now so global that sometimes the manufacturer name and "nominal" origin is not always a good guide/ :dk:

The German car inspection firm DEKRA seem to think the Insignia is a good bet for example.although their assessments seem a trifle optimistic.:p

http://www.used-car-report.com/index.php?id=13&no_cache=1&L=2

c.f. Mercedes C class

http://www.used-car-report.com/index.php?id=13&no_cache=1&L=2
 
It might be another proof of my bad luck when it comes to cars, but I had a brand new Honda Civic diesel when it first came out. Engine great, space and styling great, ride so-so and no lumbar support, but I had a discharged battery three times as a result of a wiring fault. The AA man (the same on each occasion) said it was the first time he'd been called out to a Honda and they were the agent that handled Honda Recovery for them!

My mother's old Jazz from 04 is running very strongly with my father and it has not had a single thing go wrong with it, ditto her new one and ditto my sister's just replaced Civic. However, they ride badly and the seats lack support, having crucified my back on a long drive I had to sell it. Great fuel economy though.
 
Don't get me wrong, I like Honda and even own a Civic. When you look at the engineering content in some of their cars it's very clever indeed; fuel tank under front seats for example. their efficient 2.2 cdti engine another. But despite this there seem to be very few new Civics on the road.
 
I love the engineering, I love the practicality and load space, absolutely superb engines, but I wish they'd hire a VW exec to sort the ride and the on-road refinement. They don't feel like they should for the price they are. The old Civic looked great (apart from that stupid spoiler ruining the rear view out) but the new one looks so so.
 
CASE IN POINT Honda--- Accord built in -- Japan?=yes ---- in the USA that model becomes the TSX under the Acura brand name. There is another Honda Accord in the USA - its one of the best selling cars in North America- but its an entirely different [ larger] car built in the USA for the North American market. Go figure as they say. :confused:
If you want a British built "Japanese car" then look no further than a Jazz (Fit)-[post 2009- Japan before that] Civic or CRV.
 
Two (unrelated) points -

The manufacturers are the only people who know for sure how reliable thier cars are, because they would have the warranty claims data (which they obviously do not share with anyone else). The various reliability surveys are OK in very general terms but are far from being accurate due to a variety of reasons, such as small sample size for some models, owners' sample not randomised, discrepancy in owners' expectations, dealers' and manufacturers' attitude towards warranty claims, length of warranty, and general lack of validity of the questions asked in the survey. So yes, these surveys make for some fascinating bedtime reading, but the results should only be considered as an approximation at best. Aftermarket warranty providers would have similar info, however it will include only older cars and only for the items covered under the warranty and above any excess etc, so again a very partial picture at best.


Interestingly, Japanese marques always come-up first in these surveys, which you would have thought makes sense because Japanese workers are known for being very diligent and precise, however the spanner in the works is that many if not most Japanese cars are actually built locally by local workers (in the UK and US for example) which should make us all think twice about how 'built quality' is achieved. Is it down to design, planning, and management - or the workforce? I think that the above exonerates BL line workers from responsibility for some of the abysmal cars they made in the seventies and eighties.
 
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Which takes us full circle to the old story of Mercedes visit to JAPAN to study their car production methods where at one point an MB executive boasted that they devoted a significant number of their workforce to dedicated quality control at the end of the production line to check for any faults or defects in the finished automobile. Only to be told by Toyota that "we don't need post production quality control- we make em right on the production line" - exit one slightly embarrassed MB exec.
Japanese car production and quality control methods were very sought after by car manufacturers at one point . Twas rumoured that BMW bought British Leyland principally to get their hands on the production methods /technology BL shared with Honda at the time?
The success of the Japanese UK production plants does seem to indicate that with the right management and investment British car workers can produce cars with the best of them. :dk:

Other examples would be the decent well screwed together cars produced by factories in what was the old communist block. Skoda being the prime example but Fiat with the Panda/500 and KIA are other examples that come to mind. The jury is out on the new Mercedes Hungary plant producing the new A ,B and CLA class but the aforementioned examples would be encouraging.
 
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The success of the Japanese UK production plants does seem to indicate that with the right management and investment British car workers can produce cars with the best of them.

Notably by refusing to employ anyone that was previously working in the British Motor industry.
I used to deal with Toyota when they setup their first UK plant, at Burnaston. They wouldn't employ people from the car industry.

Also, when Austin Rover group first collaborated with Honda on the Acclaim/Accord, they used Lucas components with a failure rate of approximately 1%, whereas Honda used Nippon Denso components with a failure rate 100 times less.
 
From my very narrow perspective...

1997 Japanese-made Toyota, absolutely nothing ever went wrong with it, still with us and still going strong. 1st place for me.

2006 Mercedes Benz made in East London, South Africa, very reliable overall, still going strong, so far one SRS seat sensor failed and a couple of very minor trim issues. 2nd place in my ****nal.

2005 Renault, Fabriqué en France, lots of electric/electronic issues, only one of them serious, otherwise OK, no mechanical issues. A few trim issues though. Still have it. 3rd place.

Vauxhall Omega 1997 and 2001, both made by Adam Opel AG in Rüsselsheim, Deutschland (though the V6 engines were made in Ellesmere Port), lots of small and issues sorted under warranty, two major issues, never actually broke down but would have been a money pit had it not been covered by warranty. 4th place.
 
Honda has Acura, Nissan has Infinity, Toyota has Lexus.

But all this is down to economy and emissions, someone up there mentioned the complex designs to keep emissions low with good fuel economy whilst maintaining the culture of expectation of increasing other figures like torque and 0-60, etc.

The problem is that we are now getting into another era in the design/manufacture process, if you all think back to the late eighties/early nineties, car used to be badly built, some manufacturers still have the stigma of bad builds in terms on electrics (fiat/pugs)/engines smoking (fords), built quality(fiat), etc, then in the mid nineties the "productivity revolution" happened, it happened so quickly that only industry experts and analysts coined the terms and realised it, it took nearly 10 years for most manufacturers to implement these ideas (productivity revolution) of documenting more, adhereing to minimum standard, following iso standard more closely, building for economy and profit, more emphasis on health and safety and use of machines to minimise human contact with the work... which in turn leads to less monday morning cars vs. friday afternoon cars, i.e variance in quality... which leads to the fact that when something goes wrong, or there is a design fault, it is present in a range or a batch of cars, as opposed to how it was in the 80's (hand build, human error factor).

Also, these new ideas are built around or on top existing (old) designs and systems, which is where the electronic failures may come about. When new cars are built or designed, it takes millions of pounds to do so. So it is cheaper to build cars around new physical designs and materials with better build quality than to completely redesign an electronic circuit that could detect the possibility of a mechanical failure (although they are designed like that), but this analogy isn't stretched far enough to accommodate possible failures in these complex new designs that may not be tested as creatively as customers would over a long period of times, i.e the tests are extreme and short lived (time contraint due to competition to get the next design out), but in reality these failures aren't designed into the electronic circuitry of the control systems enough. I think in the next ten years or so, when the 'internet of things' will happen (more fundamental parts will communicate with each other to monitor things better on mechanical machines). It's just a matter or times when the process of human thought (even collectively) will catch up with the complexity of the control systems in mechatronic devices, it's just that we haven't anticipated everything yet.

Where did I get all that from? I had a lecture on these issues last semester, it was very interesting, I can post the link to the slideshare if anyone is interested. I am curently 2nd year mechatronics and robotic systems student at Liverpool.
 
Also... just bought a Kia with 7 years warranty... I am hoping they will be made to last if they provide such long warranties...time will tell.
 
Also... just bought a Kia with 7 years warranty... I am hoping they will be made to last if they provide such long warranties...time will tell.

The koreans have just realised the 'productivity revolution'! I'd buy a Kia or a Huyndai these days, but not last one from the past. It's also down to the engineering culture of the manufacturing country.
 
se·mes·ter *
n.

One of two divisions of 15 to 18 weeks each of an academic year.

[German, from Latin (cursus) smstris, (cursus) smnstris, (course) of six months : s-, six (from sex; see s(w)eks in Indo-European roots) + mnsis, month; see m-2 in Indo-European roots.]
 
or 12 weeks in my case, it's student/academic talk, sorry dm.

(btw, i've learned to live with the engine rattle, i cannot fault my c250td tbh).
 
or 12 weeks in my case, it's student/academic talk, sorry dm.

No it's not. It's an American term, for...Term.

I know the hoards left Liverpool for the America, but we don't have to adopt their language in return.
 
Which takes us full circle to the old story of Mercedes visit to JAPAN to study their car production methods where at one point an MB executive boasted that they devoted a significant number of their workforce to dedicated quality control at the end of the production line to check for any faults or defects in the finished automobile. Only to be told by Toyota that "we don't need post production quality control- we make em right on the production line" - exit one slightly embarrassed MB exec.

I recall at the time the first Lexus came out it being mentioned that MB spent more time sorting out quality control issues at the end of production than Lexus did in producing perfect cars to start with. I also recall my old boss, a Merc lover with a 350 SEL 6.9 as well as a 190 2.6 company car, being given a lift to Scotland for a week's fishing in a friend's Lexus 400. He reported back that it was silent, smooth, extremely comfortable and well built, but somewhat lacking in soul. For c.half the price of an S class though...

Of course we all know how MB decided to compete with Lexus - cut costs, quality, merge with Chrysler and buy the cheapest steel money could buy. Somehow I think they got the wrong end of the stick.
 
markjay said:
Also... just bought a Kia with 7 years warranty... I am hoping they will be made to last if they provide such long warranties...time will tell.

Trust me you have nothing to worry about.
 
Just getting around to reading this interesting thread now, as my faithful c250td is in her last month on the road. I've been driving her for over 14 years, the bodywork started going downhill almost as soon as I'd bought her but she has given me great service with very few mechanical or electrical problems.
The newer e320 is gone due to many electrical problems that were costly to sort and seemed to constantly cropping up.
I'm really at a loss as to what to buy, I would like another mercedes the 124's are really impossible to find now in a state I'd be happy with, BMW's e39 diesels again are difficult to get in a decent condition... So what does that leave?
Someone above said that most of the mercs after '09 are good.... Is that really the case? The c range diesels 200/220/250 what's the story? Same with the e class, I'd like an estate ... Don't really want to spend 15k+ but if it meant getting a car that would give me 10+ years of service it would be a good buy! Oh and just a quick question regarding pdf's as I now do more short runs during the week with longer journeys at the weekends... I kno the new golf we bought certainly wouldn't do well in my hands ... But suits DW as she is commuting on a longer daily trip. Tia
 

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