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ProAm

It's easy to move quickly when you do not care for quality control.

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Have you owned a Mercedes or BMW?

EDIT: Have owned both (SLK350 and M5, respectively). Would not buy again. Currently own only Teslas (S, X, Y).

I don't. Please elaborate.

They are a general nightmare to own after the first year or so. They encounter hardware issues way more frequently compared to Japanese cars. For a typical Japanese car like Honda / Toyota / Mazda, you typically don't need to do anything other than regular maintenance (oil changes, tire rotations, break and tire replacements) for the first 5–6 years or 60000 miles. These are simple enough to be done very easily at any regular mechanic. Many Japanese cars run 100K+ miles without encountering any issue.

BMWs, otoh, you would be lucky if you went a few years without encountering any mechanical issue. And when you do, you are more likely to have to take it to their dealership, and my friends' experience of visiting those hasn't been great either.

They are not as high quality as Toyota or Honda. Not that Tesla is any better.

As the saying goes "America designs for lowest cost, Germans design for high performance and Japanese design for high reliability and ease of maintenance".

I heard this in the context of someone marveling at the layout in an engine bay of a 80s Toyota, but it also applies to a friend's brother who restores boomboxes. This gentleman was describing how a single motor turned a bunch of different things, depending on which switch was pressed, and how elegant and simple the design was.

and Korea is low cost and high tech? or all of the above? Hyundai is starting to look pretty close to the best of all worlds.

It's a different story now, but they had to offer that 10 year warranty because the quality was actually that bad at the time.

Post 2007, Hyundais have been excellent (and very much underrated). They brought in European designers so the aesthetic is much improved (though I don't care for their 2016-2020 grille shapes).

They've always struggled with resale value due to early reputational issues, but I'd say the build quality is now very close to the top 3 Japanese manufacturers. The 10-year powertrain warranty was a low-cost move to regain the market's trust -- I doubt very many people cash-in on it (the engineering is excellent nowadays)

When I was looking at cars some time ago, an accessories fully-loaded Hyundai was about the same price as a bare-bones Honda or Toyota. The discount rate may have leveled off these days.

My BMW had the following failures within a short time-frame. The dashboard was "lit up like a Christmas tree". (Does not including normal wear items like brakes, battery, filters)

Mechanical failures - Water pump, air condition compressor, loose seat bushings

Sensor failures (Possibly all from the same sensor supplier) - fuel level sensor (!), all oxygen sensors ($$$), passenger seat airbag sensor (!), air mass-flow sensor, engine air intake sensor, rear ABS brake sensors, coolant temperature sensor, cam position sensor

These are known problems and fixes documented on car forums, thus home garage repair was possible for everything except the AC. The price of parts and sensors is high (compared to Honda).

My C63 AMG and Porsche GT3 were the most reliable (and cheapest to maintain) cars I have ever owned. BMW M5 (E60) was the least reliable. Tesla Model X sucked satan's balls in coming up with new ways to break and model S feels flimsy, and a toy compared to the Lexus (both a sedan, lc500 and a suv, LX570).

They are designed to suck money out of their owners (maintenance costs). You are expected to periodically cash out just to keep driving the thing.

Tesla on the other hand, took a different approach. They offer new software features for additional price. Their cars are not designed to break down.

While they are not designed to break down, Teslas are among the least reliable cars on the road. Don't get me wrong, BMW and Mercedes are bad too.

Really? Any source for this claim?

For example,

https://insideevs.com/news/442454/tesla-third-worst-make-rel...

Owned a BMW 1-series around 2010, it was excellent. Had a Nissan since (would not buy again) and Volvo (also excellent).

I have an Audi S5 and SQ5 sitting in the garage. Among the least reliable cars I've owned in the past 30 years. Numerous trips to service for electrical and accessory issues with both vehicles. I'm getting both of them ready to sell.

My brother had to replace a blown engine in his VW. My sister in law broke down 3-4 times with electrical issues with her VW until she sold it.

I had a VW (2007 model, bought 2013, sold 2019), and man, owning that thing was frustrating and expensive. Off the top of my head:

- ABS sensor on one wheel broken.

- Long running problem with the fault indicator light suggesting some problem with the intake. Opened and cleaned the intake valve. Didn't help. Then found out a plastic cogwheel worth maybe 10c for controlling a valve in the intake manifold was broken. But you can't buy that, have to buy the entire intake manifold for EUR 700. Thanks VW. Then the shop doing the work managed to forget a bolt in the combustion chamber when changing the intake manifold. So new engine block needed, since in order to save cost the fricking engine doesn't have separate cylinder liners. Luckily the new engine block was on the shop's insurance. On a positive note, the new engine was a slightly newer model which had the fixed camshaft chain that had been a common failure with that engine model.

- Alternator failed.

- Turbo charge air pipe fell off.

- Rear brake pads jammed and had to be prematurely replaced. Again, a common problem with VW disc brakes if you drive carefully and not that much.

Currently I have a Toyota, which I also had before the VW. So far so good.

1 $30 and jack stand to replace

2 $10-50 at pull-apart/wreckers

3 $200 autozone, $100 Amazon if you feel adventurous. 60 minutes replacement with youtube tutorial playing on tablet/phone

4 meh

Its only expensive if you go to the dealer.

German built cars are notorious for shitty quality, I own one. They suck.

You're getting downvoted but German vehicles are pretty consistently rated as unreliable by major publications and research groups.

(Don't get me wrong, the BMW M line is pretty sweet)

Anecdote 1: I know someone who returned a Mercedes E-Klasse at the end of the lease because the electronics kept failing and a replacement sensor was 3000 a pop out of warranty.

Anecdote 2: I drove a friend's brand new Tesla and one of the rear doors totally didn't line up with the car's body.

So I'd say, German cars are a myth but Tesla's quality control sucks as well.

Ancedote: I've usually seen foggy lights (front or rear) with the Teslas.

From what I've heard it's improved. They're neat cars, just sucks having quality issues with any high end product.

They’re reliable until they hit their warranty and then everything breaks.

My wife’s BMW 335 started having massive problems right about the time the warranty expired.

Meanwhile I drove my Honda to 175,000 miles with never a single problem except the A/C broke once. I only replaced it with a new Honda because in wanted the new model year features.

Another anecdote is that two friends of mine routinely buy 10 y/o old VWs and drive them until they die at 20 years or older. One put 400,000km on his last VW Bora Diesel that in his words could've run another 400,000km if the interior weren't worn down so much. No rust anywhere except the exhaust he said which surprised me as well.

(High) performance cars break faster because they are pushing the limits of what's possible and have way more components.

Good way to avoid the cars that died or got rust issues the first 10 years.

This is survivorship bias. At 10 years old your friends are picking among the best serviced and cared for examples.

Consumer Reports and JD Power both have annual reliability /quality rankings. There is fair criticism of the two orgs and their methodology, but it seems to be the only industry wide data readily available.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/11/14/consume...

https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/06/25/study-tesla-likely-u...

since when ? I believe they used to be above average but got lazy due to brand recognition and profit-based options strategies

I have found german cars to be quite reliable. my family has almost exclusively owned german cars as long as I've been alive (bmw, mercedes, vw). most of them were owned for 7-10 years and had no major mechanical issues. we take care of our cars a little better than the average person though, hand-washing them often, regularly cleaning out biological debris from inside the engine bay and door sills, etc. the only outlier was a 2001 3 series that started having a lot of issues late in its life. to be fair, it was twelve years old at that point. by far the worst vehicle was a mid '00s LR3. that thing had recurring electrical issues from day one, a leaky roof, and several body panels that simply fell off. we got rid of it after only four years IIRC and it looked like it had been through a war.

I'm not assuming anything about your personal level of care, but a lot of people aren't aware of all the little things you can do to keep a car running longer. I'm not surprised that they encounter reliability issues with these complex vehicles.

The question isn't whether you think they're fine if one takes care of them well, the question is their reliability as compared to other manufacturers, all other things (like personal level of care) held equal.

if you read further back up the thread, the original topic was quality. I would consider a vehicle that's pleasant to drive and capable of lasting a long time with a little extra care to be a high quality vehicle. our landrover, despite being pretty expensive new, was not a quality vehicle. it had numerous issues despite being well cared for.

in any case, I just thought it might be useful information to add to the thread. consumer reports does a pretty good job quantifying the reliability of a vehicle for a typical owner. it's a little harder to tease apart the difference between inherently unreliable vehicles and ones that just need a little extra attention.

If you get one before they added too much electronic bullshit they are great cars. The E30 series is a tank and can go probably a half million miles if you did routine maintenance.

That is just wrong. Tesla might have some QA issues, but claiming its easy to grow 40-50% a year just because you have some QA issues is one of the single dumbest things I have ever heard.

And while they have some issue, the quality in terms of the actual core component of the cars is superior to what anybody else has. Not to mention things like software that absolutely suck ass on my cars.

Just look at all the recent issues other companies had with quality of these things. But of course those are not in the media even 1/100 as much so people who only look for reasons to disparage Tesla find easy ammunition.

Statistically significant [Citation Needed]

Do they? https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-tesla-model-3-survey...

https://electrek.co/2020/06/16/tesla-model-y-quality-issues/

https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-y-ev-safety-qual...

https://insideevs.com/features/437193/video-tesla-model-y-qu...

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/returned-my-today.20...

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/returned-within-7-da...

Feel free to search reddit or Tesla forums for "rejected delivery" and "returned" as well.

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