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Comment by forinti | Hacker News Reader

Does any luxury brand ever make economic sense?

It's all about status. If you want a reliable car, you buy a Toyota.

My wife had a Toyota at one point which developed an interesting fault - all of the internal electrics would cut out at random times.

Turns out the cause was a leaking sunroof!

Water got in through the sunroof and the genius design had some kind of electric junction box (or fuses or something) at the lowest point of the passengers footwell. So water got in, flowed to where all the electrics were and things stopped working.

Fortunately it doesn't rain that often here in Scotland so it wasn't a big problem ;-)

That happened to a friends Benz when he bought it second hand. Water had leaked in the drivers window, maybe it was left open, and shorted the switch cluster on the drivers door. That took out the entire CAN network and the car had no lights save for brake lights, no HVAC and no entertainment system. Fixed it himself for like two hundred bucks for a new switch cluster.

I had a similar problem with the VW Passat I had at the time - the drain hole from the battery compartment got blocked and when it rained it overflowed into the interior of the car - I was wondering for ages why there was this sloshing noise each time I went round a corner - the back of the car had about 1cm of water in it!

Had to get the dealer to remove all the seats and carpets and dry thing out.

Lexus. IMHO, Lexus is the smartest vehicle purchase (other than a Toyota) that you make.

A Lexus LS and a Toyota Land Cruiser are the perfect pair of vehicles for someone to own. There will always be at least one of each in my garage.

Of course that's only true if you get the V8 modals of each. I wouldn't touch the new LS or new Land Cruiser unless they were given to me for free.

Hehe, things only an American would say!

-> Reading this as a European with one small electric car, the idea that two V8 vehicles could be considered the perfect vehicle choice is quite out there!

The Toyota/Lexus 4.7L and 5.7L engines are pretty much the two most reliable V8s ever put into production vehicles. The Chevrolet 6.0 is probably the only other V8 that would possibly come close to the reliability afforded by the Toyota/Lexus V8s.

Yeah, but why do you need a 4+ liter engine in a family car?

That is the American way. For some reason they often need huge truck for single person to commute to the work.

I had for a few years mini cooper 5d - amazing vehicle. Fun to drive, quite reliable. Of course, that mini will not be comfortable for "plus" size people. Maybe that is the main reason why trucks are so popular in the US.

When I stayed in California (Santa Barbara), I saw trucks everywhere, mainly carrying a few tools. To me, a European van like the typical Peugeot is much more useful, since it’s closed and a lot more fuel efficient.

Of note, there was a V10 straight-piped RAM in a jam due to construction. It sounded great, but it was obnoxiously loud, almost hurting.

The current V8 in the Chevy C8 corvette (I think it’s a 5.5) is also regarded as extremely reliable. Unfortunately, the transmission is not.

That’s 4-6x more litres than car needs.

We pay almost $10 per gallon of Euro 95.

Toyota and Lexus engines still require considerable regular and proactive service and repairs to last the hundreds of thousands of miles the steel is capable of.

This means, seals, gaskets, shocks, etc will all still wear out over time like every vehicle.

If you don't listen to the manufacturer's recommendation and change your fluids far more often, especially the "lifetime" fluids, almost any vehicle will last much longer.

My father has a Lexus and the interior design and dash system are the worst I've ever seen, full stop. The weird touchpad that barely works. The sheer amount of buttons and options that 99% of people don't use 99% of the time. The way it handles maps while listening to music. The impossibility of going back and forth between sections while driving. I'm sure they're fine cars, but my god what an atrocity of user experience on the inside.

Lexus and Toyota don't update their interiors often enough because they don't have to and there are people willing to pay a premium Toyota tax for whatever they have.

At the same time, the recent and latest Toyotas and Lexus' look sharp. Usually they are pretty conservative.

In the UK they don't have CCS plugs though, only chademo so they're as good as useless (or at least didn't when I was looking to buy semi-recently). What a retarded technical decision - makes you wonder what other stupid decisions they've made that you can't see. As such it is very very rare to see a lexus EV in the UK

What don’t you like about the new LS and Land Cruisers? Is it just that the US market only gets the hybrids, or something more fundamental?

In my experience, and I believe surveys and statistics bear this out, the Porsche 911 is one of the most reliable vehicles on the road.

Ha, I didn't think trolling was allowed on HN.

Not trolling! They are incredibly well built.

I don't know if this counts but a quick look shows: https://www.jdpower.com/cars/2025/porsche/911

Similar to the reliability of some years of Cayennes.

That has been mine.

>the Porsche 911 is one of the most reliable vehicles on the road

There's a joke in my country: A guy stops at a red light next to a Ferrari and asks the Ferrari driver: "Are those cars any good? Because and I don't see too many people buying them."

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