Do the Japanese or Germans make better cars?

[Tom Resi]

Newbie, newbie, but your posting is amazingly true Hawkeye! Thank you, I
started same way few years ago (25 or so) Everything you say I've
experienced too. I think you're on the right track. Buying germs or gaps
is up to you but I know I'll be in the japs department, next move.

 

[John Varela]

Her manual says to have everything done by the dealer,
even replacing headlight bulbs. They don't want you touching ANYTHING.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

I have a book called "How to Repair Your Foreign Car." It was written by
sometime Road & Track contributor of humorous articles, Dick O'Kane. It is
copyright 1968.

Here is what O'Kane had to say about maintenance of cars imported from
different countries (in 1968 Japanese cars weren't a factor):

"You see, every nationality has its own philosophy of car building. To the
British, everything is a sporting proposition and the removal of a starter
motor is really a game to see who is more clever--you, trying to figure out
how to get it off, or the designer who figured out how to get it on. When the
thing finally comes loose and lands on your nose, you've won. Polite
applause. [1]

"On the other hand, the Germans would rather you didn't fool around with the
mechanicals at all. Who are you, with your crude tools and your pittance of
knowledge, defiling an object that took teams of Germany's finest technical
minds to conceive? Besides, it *can't* break. When it does, though, you're
supposed to take it to a high priest from the factory who has the specialized
tools, [2] the patience, and, above all, the training to fix it correctly.
Said high priest, by the way, asks and gets up to seven dollars an hour [3]
for his services, so, bearing that in mind, go ahead and defile.

"The Swedes build strapping good, strong cars that'll go over, around, under
and through anything. And as long as it starts in the morning and keeps
running, you won't mind if there are American, Whitworth, and metric fittings
all on the same car, now will you?

"The French? Ahh, the French. Who can *begin* to understand the French?"


Having owned a couple of Italian cars, I regret he didn't have anything to say
about them. I had a 1959 Fiat 1200 Gran Luce followed by a 1960 VW Beetle.
The contrast was stark. The Fiat was a far better design, but it was poorly
executed--there was always something falling off or jamming or getting out of
adjustment. The Beetle was an absurdly poor design, but beautifully executed.
You could feel the air pressure rise in your ears when the doors closed--but
that didn't compensate for having to stop on Boston's Route 128 in the middle
of a snow storm to clear snow off of the windshield.


Footnotes:

[1] I had a 1968 MGB and this is an accurate description of what I had to do
to get at the starter solenoid. First remove the oil filter mounting
bracket...

[2] I still have a couple of special tools I had to buy to adjust the valve
lash on my wife's 1978 VW Rabbit.

[3] That was written in 1968, recall. Seven dollars in 1968 would be about
$37 today. That sounds low to me.

 

[WRXtreme]

Isn't this kinda like when Car & Driver did a review comparing the Subaru
WRX to the Audi S4 Quattro and a BMW 330xi. If price were the deciding
factor the BMW and Audi would have smoked the WRX. However if you read the
article it shows 2 out of 3 reviewers ranking the Suby #1 (the third
reviewer rated it #3 which caused it to fall out of it's #1 spot overall).

http://caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=15&article_id=3615&page_number=3

As the article points out money alone does not make a good car. The
original post said it was an overall rating over a decent size portion of
people (38k people is a decent size IMHO). Car & Driver as well as
Motortrend and JD Powers all have their "car of the year" and it's usually
not Ferrari, Lambourghini, Porsche, etc... that win, often times it is a mid
priced car that is the best overall vehicle.

 

[Lance B]

I wouldn't give much merrit to a study or survey that puts Buick in
the top 3 in dependability. We are talking about cars that
spontaneously shut off on the highway, sometime spontaneously turning
back on before you have to stop. We are talking about having to
replace intake manifold gaskets that are leaking coolant into the
engine. The list goes on. Aren't Acura, Honda, and Subaru much more
dependable than that?

To L.Kreh,

Your post of earlier on states and I quote:

" Price?!?! It's easier to make a great car for $50,000 (i.e., German)
than it is for $25,000 (i.e., Japanese). Moreover, it's easier to
ignore minor quality problems in the $25,000 price range than it is in
the $50,000 price range. In mind, the survey is meaningless if they
didn't compare vehicles in the same price range."

I then posted the comparo of the BMWi and the Subaru Liberty 2.5i
Premium as the BMWi is more expensive here (in Oz) but around the same
price in Germany as one other person posted. This is your similarly
priced vehicle you outlined above. You now say the following
contadicting your original quote:

" Your post is absurd. Where are you getting this "318i BMW" versus
"Subaru 2.5i Premium Liberty (Legacy)" argument? Obviously, as you've
shown, if spend enough time at it, you can find comparably priced BMW
and Subaru in Germany. But this doesn't disprove my point. Porsche was
compared to Subaru in the survey. Is that relevant? How about a
relevant comparison between a 7 series BMW and a Subaru?"

No matter how you cut it, the Japanese are obviously building cars
that the people surveyed thought were better whether they are the same
cost as a German car, cheaper than a German car or maybe even dearer
than a German car. So which of your posts is correct, or am I missing
something?

I have a friend who owns an Audi A4. He will never buy one again as he
has had many problems with it and the repairs cost so much in comparo
with his wifes Toyota Camry which hes never had to spend a cent on
other than normal servicing.
Yes, I know this can just mean he was unlucky, but then maybe not as
according to the survey.

I also have no doubt that some time in the future the Koreans will
also catch up with the Japanese and Germans as their technology gets
better etc. I am no apologist for the Japanese or anyone for that
matter, but we have to face facts. The Germans were/are at the
forefront of auto manufacture, but because of their high relative
wages in comparison to the Japanese or Koreans etc they may have to
cut corners to be able to compete and maybe this is where some of the
problems lie. Who knows?

I think it quite amusing that people get so hot under the collar about
who makes the best cars. I don't really care who makes the best cars
as long as the car I have does what it is advertised to do and what I
want it to do. Who said that the Germans have been given the Golden
touch for ever more as far as car manufacture is concerned. At some
stage someone is going to catch up with them and I think that the time
is quite possibly now.

Having said that, I still would very much like to have a Porsche in my
stable. But I'm not blinkered as to believe that everything that the
Germans or Japanese or whomever has the Golden touch as far as car
manufacture.

To Aron,

You stated and I quote:

"I wouldn't put much merit to a study or survey that puts Buick in the
top 3 in dependability."

Maybe the German cars ARE that bad that they can't even compete with a
Buick. Who knows eh? LOL, ha ha ha.

 

[Ron]

note: owners were asked how satisfied they were with their car or
SUV and the service its dealer provided

 

[Aron]

That is a good point. How well expectations have been met does not
indicate the level of expectations or the quality of what the customer
receives. If someone expects junk and gets junk then that's 100%
satisfaction but it's also 100% junk. When someone expects the stars
and gets the moon, so to speak, they're probably less than satisfied,
maybe even very disappointed but what they've got isn't junk.