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“You can find a summary of warranty cost rates by major manufacturer here:”

http://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20060620.html

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Quote from the above website:

“Of course, Ford, GM, and DaimlerChrysler each sell automobiles under multiple brand names. In the U.S., the primary brand names used by GM are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab, and Saturn. GM also has an equity interest in Suzuki and Isuzu.

Ford also uses multiple brand names, including Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercury, and Volvo. It also has an equity interest in Mazda.

For passenger cars, DaimlerChrysler uses the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Mercedes-Benz nameplates, but it also has multiple brand names involved in truck and engine production. It also has an equity interest in Mitsubishi.

The reason we mention this is because each company reports only one set of warranty figures. Warranty claims are not broken out either by nameplate or by the size or type of vehicle. We just can’t tell which of the brands account for the most or the least warranty cost.”

So what this means is that you can’t really say what the waranty rate is for a Ford, Buick, or Dodge because the entire company is taken as whole. What if Pontiacs have so many problems they skew the results for the rest of GM? Who wants to bet that Jag is pulling up Fords overall warranty costs? I would not be surprised if Mercedes is the one pulling up DCX’s numbers and not Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep. Also it seems that commercial units (Freightliner for example) may be included. To me this data is not a good indicator for any individual brand.

I had a first generation Integra and I actually had a few problems with it (steering and suspension never felt solid on the road, 5th gear failed, speedometer failed, creaking sound for hatch area etc …). I always liked the second generation (90-93) but was planning on a third generation model to get something a bit newer, so I’m curious to clarify your observations …

GM now spends 2.6% of its auto sales revenue fixing vehicles under warranty. Ford spends 2.9%. A year ago, GM’s claims rate was at 2.9% while Ford was at 2.6%. Meanwhile, GM’s auto revenue was up by 8% last year while Ford’s was down by 7%. So while GM saw its claims rate drop by 12%, Ford saw an increase of more than 10%.

I was a co-op in the quality dept at a honda plant.

Vehicles are inspected as they come off the line to make sure the doors/hood/trunk close properly. A sample of vehicles off the line are sent to the dyno to test emissions, speedo calibration, etc.

Any vehicles with serious problems (no start, etc) are put off to the side for diagnosis/repair.
The cars are then handed off to another person that test drives the car on a track behind the plant (a few sections of irregular surfaces, then an out and back section with a hairpin) before going to the holding lot to await transport.

Issues the come up in any of these inspections would be checked out by the quality dept to see what happened.

With a car coming off the line every 60 seconds, there’s only so much you can do. That’s why there was another quality dept (the one I worked in) that tracked warranty claims and contacted dealers to find problems that make it out of the factory.

My advice, stay away from dealer installed options. Far away.

A subjective quality survey reveals more about human behavior than it does the actual objective quality (by however you choose to define it).

Take any survey to a sample of owners with questions posed in a positive manner [Is the air conditioning powerful?] — voila, you get some answers. Ask a similar sample of owners the exact same question in a negative manner [Is the air conditioning weak?], and surprise: you don’t get the inverse percentage approving the AC. And of course, you’ll get a different answer in Phoenix than in Halifax, in january or august, etc. These things just don’t make it to the statistics. Problems per 100 cars? What does this tell us? I’d return my car if the brakes failed due to a major failure. The picky BMW driver who complains about the straightness of the stitching of the leather seat (yes, I have seen this), well, these things i personally tend to overlook. Both are “problems”.

Bottom line: I judge my own purchases on my own interpretation of quality. I judge a vehicle’s reliability based on repair records. I judge vehicle performance and capability on a wide array of objective and subjective testing by myself and professionals. Each goes into the purchase decision. No single survey, no matter who takes it, is going to tell you any meaningful indication of the quality of the vehicle you buy.

I will just say that you should keep tilting at windmills, and that C&D is getting the message. They were outright mean about the looks of the new Subaru.

The quality surveys are self serving management crud. They pay for them so they can protect their little jobs. I use all sorts of stories when they call, but they always get the message that the call is not appreciated when it turns out to be a stupid survey.

Going for the flashy stuff that causes lots of problems is why I’m single right now!

Hmm, small pickups with manual trannies are best for the long term? Well, my ‘98 Nissan Frontier with 5-speed manual enters its 10th year of service this coming August. And it’s been virtually bulletproof so far!

2. Until we as a community actually define quality, we will continue to have endless cycles of discussion leading nowhere. At the end of the day, your delightful story about the reliability of your one car really doesn’t do much for me. Karesh at least gives me a sense for what to expect in terms of repair costs over time.

3. As someone who has done a lot of benchmarking for top firms (outside of the auto industry), I can tell you they are only done by companies that truly want to understand how their vehicles rank vs. competitors. The comments that Ford is so stupid because they couldn’t fudge their own survey to come out on top miss the point — it’s not a PR exercise (although if it were, Honda owes Ford big time).

4. I don’t mean to disrespect Frank’s writing, but I found the editorial confusing. On the one hand, his point seems to be that automakers should survey for quality 5+ years down the road. Frank, don’t you mean that they should test for durability or repairability? I don’t think you need to survey for that — you can just use the pricing from aftermarket warranty companies for that data, no?

On the other hand, Frank’s point is that today’s cars are already so far ahead of previous generations that quality (as defined by fewest defects or durability) is not a differentiating factor anymore.

So why are we talking about it?

However, For those who want a vehicle that will go 10 years / 200K miles with few major problems, jthorner’s above mention of warrantyWeek.com is good info. Also, while extended warranties generally are not worth it – their prices can be an excellent long term indicator.

Extended warranty firms should have a lot of juicy (thus proprietary) info regarding what breaks when for certain models.

That said, anecdotal evidence from mechanics I know suggests that manual shift, small pickups are your best bet for driving 10 years… It seems any model will do.

You can find a summary of warranty cost rates by major manufacturer here:

http://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20060620.html

Ford’s rate runs almost double that for Toyota and Honda. GM’s rate is slightly higher still. DaimlerChrsyler runs about twice again as bad as Ford. That makes DaimlerChrysler’s numbers nearly four times those of Toyota or Honda.

It is reasonable to conclude that cars which need more in-warranty repairs are also likely to need more post-warranty repairs, and indeed that is what the only large sample published data indicates (Consumer Reports’).

My ‘97 Grand Prix GTP with similar 3800 V6 and 4 speed auto trans performed quite well. I sold it with 267,600 miles last summer. My experience with other my other vehicles (including Toyotas) has been similar, with the exception of my BMWs and my last Audi.

It is interesting that SO many people base their sentiments on ten and twenty year old vehicles, when evidence suggests that ALL marques are getting better and the gap between them has shrunk. I guess just because my 10 year old Pontiac was good doesn’t mean a new one would be. But if it had been bad, the same should also be true.

it is interesting to observe the different views on quality. I am more interested about a car's ability to hold up without needing major repairs over the long haul.

It is for this reason that that I find I have more confidence in Honda/Toyota than I would in a Chevy/Ford. This is due in part to the way I look at vehicle reliability and value.

Before I moved to Canada from Ireland, I applied typical criteria to buying a car as any other ordinary person in Ireland would. Fuel is and always was very expensive in ireland so a car needs to be good on gas. Road tax in Ireland varies with the engine displacement so unless you had money to throw around you would look for a smaller motor. (in Canada, the Corrolla has a 1.8L engine but the exact same vehicle in Ireland makes do with a 1.5L due to road tax). Finally the reputation for long term reliability was a major concern because of the cost of repairs and also the fact that I never had much money in my pocket when I lived there.

When I purchased the car that suited me I EXPECTED that apart from consummables and minor problems that the car would not break down with a major problem. I expected the water pump, the alternator, the master cylinder and all the other major componants to last the lifetime of the vehicle. While these expectations were sometimes not met, for the most part they were with every vehicle I owned in Ireland.

When I came to Canada (in 1982) I noticed that most people seemed to find such expectations unrealistic. I put this down to the fact that Canada has a much harsher climate than Ireland and this accounts for the fact that vehicles seemed to require more major maintenance. However, I found that Hondas & Toyotas and other Asian makes were as reliable here as they were back home.

This intrigued me and I did not give it much thought until the day came when I purchased a 1 year old GMC Safari. The vehicle ran well enough for about 18 months and then the problems started.

When the rear axle bearings went south, I was told by a mechanic that this failure was common with this vehicle at about 100,000KM. When the water pump exploded at 120,000KM, I was told by another GM mechanic that 'I did well' to get that mileage out of the original pump. When the drive shaft needed work at 150,000KM I was told again that "this happens with this vehicle at around 150K".

In my conversations with others on the reliability of the Safari and other domestic vehicles, I discovered that most had a 'built-in' expectation that something will go at 90K, such-and-such will go at 100K and yet another item has a reputation for quitting at some other point. While this is changing now, I felt that most people on this side of the pond seemed to be conditioned to expect this from vehicles especially the domestic makes, I don't know why.

Anyway, the Safari robbed me blind and I got rid of it as soon as I could with great relief. I now have a 92 camry and my son has an 88 Civic and both vehicles perform very well and NEVER break down. This is in keeping with my expectations of what the 2nd biggest financial commitment should be.

Now if you expect major failures at 'scheduled' points in your vehicles life I guess you get no surprises when the failures occur and maybe these expected failures do not influence whether you feel a vehicle is reliable or not and therefor your view of it's quality. IQS would then seem to be more of a meaningful measure in that situation.

As a person who genuinely expects the fuel pump to last as long as the rest of the vehicle, IQS is largely meaningless. It seems to me that it is in this area more than any other that the big 2.5's products let the side down.

I can admire a new Buick Luscerne as much as any man but what will it be like in 5 years with 100K on the clock. It seems to me that you might be lucky and you might not, but I can tell you one thing for sure, if I bought a new Toyota Avalon today I would EXPECT it to be running perfectly (well almost) in 5 years time.

Perhaps I have been 'conditioned' to believing that a Toyota would be like new at 5 years and a Buick would be falling apart but then again that's what my experience with cars has told me (so far).

They use a proprietary formula with weighting for different factors. Since it’s how they make their money, obviously they aren’t going to say what that weighting is or how those formulas work. I’d hope they wouldn’t rate a knob falling off the same as a transmission failure.

I wholehearted agree that the real issue is not initial quality but rather how well things stand up with time.

I just got back from a holiday where I had the "pleasure" of driving a rental for two weeks – a Chevy Cobalt, no more than 2 years old (how long have they been available??) with about 25K on the clock.

 Two words about sum it up: crude and brutal. The engine sounded and felt downright agricultural, the suspension felt like it was held together with rubber bands and bottomed with abandon, the brakes pulsed and pulled like crazy, and the seats "supported" with the firmness of a half-deflated cream puff.

It amazes me that GM would unload "quality" offerings like this to rental agencies: people who long ago abandoned domestics for non-domestic cars have their only first-hand experience with domestic current product lines this way, only to have their preconceptions confirmed regarding their vehicles' quality.

If I recall correctly, GM and the buff mags heralded the Cobalt as truly competitive with Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla when it was introduced. It isn't even in the same league with those makes from 3 generations ago.

Sitting at home during our vacation was our 3-year-old Honda Element with 30K. It still drives and feels like new and has had zero problems since new.

That rental experience was all I needed to confirm my suspicions about how far "The General" has progressed with their longer-term quality….

I believe that you can find expected 5-year cost of ownership figures on cars.com. I don’t know where they get the numbers from, but they break down the cost of ownership into several categories including maintenance and repairs (two seperate categories). Obviously, a car that blows a head gasket costing $1,000 to fix is much worse than a car that has problems with the power window switch, which you could probably replace yourself for under $20 or have done for $100.

Really, they are.

Thank God for Consumer Reports. There are about ~25 VWs on the most recent list of “Cars NEVER to buy”

Perhaps something like “Average Lifespan Before Major Repair/Replacement”, for each part (engine, trans, etc.), could be added to the list.

-Like the way close-ratio trannys on GTIs used to eat themselves b/c VW used rivets instead of bolts on the ring gear.

Is this last attitude common? Is it healthy? Rational? A symptom of an emerging mid-life crisis? Those of you past 40….help me out here.”

JD… I think this attitude may be more common than many might want to admit. I’m not sure it’s mid-life crisis as much as it might be maturity – in the good sense of the word.

As for myself, I turn 50 in a couple of weeks and I find that I have completely outgrown the status factor in vehicle purchases. If something pleases me, that’s all that matters.

As for quality issues… I still care about reliability and driving fun. But I admit I’m beginning to scratch my head over some complaints from others (complaints that may be entirely justified) about things like interior plastics and switchgear. I sat in the (much maligned) Dodge Caliber at the New York auto show. While I certainly wouldn’t confuse it with a vehicle costing 25-30 grand, I thought it was a pretty decent effort for the 13-15K range.

And while I’m not in the market for a four-door sedan, I really thought the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan were cars with great virtue. The Milan, in particular, is a steal when compared with the Lincoln MKZ (alas, it doesn’t get the Lincoln’s 250-hp engine).

And while I’ve been a gearhead – predisposed to purchase motorcycles and sporty foreign cars – for most of my life, I found myself actually thinking that the dark blue Monte Carlo sitting on the show floor was pretty cool. Go figure.