"Owners of three-year-old vehicles are reporting more problems than they did a year ago, according to J.D. Power and Associates' annual survey of vehicle dependability. It's the first time since 1998 that the average number of problems per vehicle has increased.

J.D. Power, a California-based ratings and consulting company, said engine issues accounted for most of the increase in problems reported by the original owners of cars and trucks from the 2011 model year."

LINK = http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/lexus-tops-2014-vehicle-dependability-150242001.html

It's probably the Fabia vRS oil issue pushing up the global average of problems reported..... ;-)

Seems like business as usual. Why spend extra money making something reliable for the long term? The sooner it breaks the sooner they can buy parts or maybe even another!

 

Save money by making cars reliable enough to sail through the warranty period and ideally no further, and they put the price up while they're at it!

 

IIRC Ford were caught red handed a few years ago for purposefully designing parts to fail at a certain time.

 

buy nice, (then) buy twice.

Edited 13 February, 201412 yr by Ben90

Cars are more complicated and have many more features as standard, they'll have more faults. People don't read the handbook and perceive something that's working as intended to be a fault because they don't know what it's meant to do, one example is an ABS pump doing a self check which gets reported as an abnormal noise when the car is started.

'Original Owners',  Maybe different in the US,

 

 but in the UK the Original Owner will Often be  for a short while, Dealers, Manufacturers, so the faults on these vehicles will not be reported or counted.

How often here is a Used Car you buy, then discovered to be a Ex Mobility, Lease, Hire,

Company Owned Management cars, etc

that Company turns out as BMW, Ford, Vauxhall, Skoda, Audi, VW etc,

I wonder how many faults relate to DPF's through human error or lack of understanding... Just something I've noticed a lot of recently with friends etc and from over hearing conversation in garages.

My hunch would be DPF related too. In some instances the DPF can ruin the entire engine as well, if the wrong oil has been used (sadly I speak from experience on that).

Probably cos theyre sooo much more complicated than they have ever been

Probably cos theyre sooo much more complicated than they have ever been

 

Too many ridiculous EU environmental restrictions now. We will soon all be in Nissan Leaf's made from recycled Coke cans, in my life time anyway I reckon. Either that or fossil fuels will become too uneconomical to purchase. Then they will have a problem with disposing of the batteries from electric cars and another "environmental issue". Yet there is no conclusive evidence of humans causing global warming... at least I think there isn't...

Edited 14 February, 201412 yr by austenw90

Seems like business as usual. Why spend extra money making something reliable for the long term? The sooner it breaks the sooner they can buy parts or maybe even another!

 

Save money by making cars reliable enough to sail through the warranty period and ideally no further, and they put the price up while they're at it!

 

IIRC Ford were caught red handed a few years ago for purposefully designing parts to fail at a certain time.

 

buy nice, (then) buy twice.

 

Do you really believe car manufacturers intentionally design their cars to fail? What do you think cars breaking down does for their reputation??

Do you really believe car manufacturers intentionally design their cars to fail? What do you think cars breaking down does for their reputation??

 

They are certainly built on a budget in most cases. For example when you look at some models i.e. as an example Opel/Vauxhall seem to have created quite a few models in recent years from a GM/Fiat parts bin, in what can only be an attempt to keep costs to a minimum instead of designing bespoke components to best suit requirements. They probably all do it but Vauxhall is a specific example I can think of as they take/took some great Fiat diesels and ruined them with some shoddy GM gearboxes so I understand. There are many cross overs between manufacturers now, I suspect very few actually design and manfacture all of their own components. Take Nissan / Renault for example and Peugeot / Mini / Ford.

 

Do you really believe car manufacturers intentionally design their cars to fail? What do you think cars breaking down does for their reputation??

 I don't believe that car manufacturers design their cars to last significantly beyond the warranty period, why would they? And in response to some other off-the-wall suggestion above, I very much doubt that EU regulations count for a whole lot in the USA.

But US Regulations have effects, and some States have very strict emission legislation, much stricter than the EU has.

 

http://business.time.com/2014/02/12/cars-less-reliable-jd-power-dependable

Do you really believe car manufacturers intentionally design their cars to fail? What do you think cars breaking down does for their reputation??

The average age of cars on our roads is something like 7.5 years, they're certainly not designed to be an economic repair proposition much beyond that.  A few manufacturers are trading on reputations made 30 years ago, other manufacturers are attempting to buy reputations by providing longer than the industry standard warranty.

 

It doesn't make commercial sense for them to have a product that lasts.

Too many ridiculous EU environmental restrictions now. We will soon all be in Nissan Leaf's made from recycled Coke cans, in my life time anyway I reckon. Either that or fossil fuels will become too uneconomical to purchase. Then they will have a problem with disposing of the batteries from electric cars and another "environmental issue". Yet there is no conclusive evidence of humans causing global warming... at least I think there isn't...

 

On the subject of "emission free cars" I'm glad to see that someone, maybe even VAG, are now listed that as "kerbside emissions free" - now that is a being a bit closer to the truth.

 

I've never noticed/read any proper report on "total life emissions/global environmental impact" of a current petrol/DERV engine car against a "Nissan Leaf etc" car. We are only better using these new electric cars while governments hand out grants to "new" foreign industries, I just wish that a proper cheap to run electric car would get made, ideal for short journeys, then back to a proper car for longer trips.

You can get the EV BMW with only Batteries or with  Batteries and a small engine.

Just not cheap to purchase and a look you will maybe love or hate.

 

The plan as i understand it is you will Buy/Lease a Package from BMW,

Car delivered to you so no Dealership to visit, if you want buy online.

 

Drive it and drive into a Depot, swap the EV for another Bigger Car for trips, get to London say, drive in to a Depot and swap for a EV car, or Scooter or the likes.

I can not wait.

If on average a car has a fault with 1 in 1000 parts in any year.

And the number of parts in a car goes from 1000 to 2000.

Then you're twice as likely to have a fault in any year.

 

A simplification yes, but still reasonable.

 

I doubt we'll see as many cars doing mega miles in the future.

 

Software is really adding to that complexity even though it isn't a single physical part. It's hundreds of thousands of parts.

 

Plus a lot of the eco-loony-ness with DPFs etc doesn't really make cars greener when the whole life of the car is considered. While it's running maybe, but not overall. Same with the current hybrids.

 

If I buy a V8 and run it for 21 years, and you buy a hybrid every 3 years. My V8 has probably used less carbon overall than your 7 hybrids.

Edited 15 February, 201412 yr by Aspman

The average age of cars on our roads is something like 7.5 years, they're certainly not designed to be an economic repair proposition much beyond that.  A few manufacturers are trading on reputations made 30 years ago, other manufacturers are attempting to buy reputations by providing longer than the industry standard warranty.

 

It doesn't make commercial sense for them to have a product that lasts.

One of several reasons as to why the classic car scene is rapidly expanding, and values are marching upwards.

The more common ones are a doddle to fix, and parts are a plenty and cheap, hence the reason for a Mk1 Fiesta and a 1961 Moggy Minor in our possession.

Do you really believe car manufacturers intentionally design their cars to fail? What do you think cars breaking down does for their reputation??

 

Quite simply, YES!

cars aren't designed to fail but every part is designed to have a reasonable lifespan. Mean Time to Fail. It'll be a company decision to set that reasonable MTF since it will cost more to develop parts with a longer mtf and cost you more to buy that car. So manufacturers have definitely made as choice as to how long you are likely to run your car without a problem. Of course MTF is a bell curve and longer odd can put you at either end of that.

People are more inclined to complain about faults these days, where as 10 15 years ago people understood wear and tear but now we complain to the manufacturar or the dealer for faults out side of the waranty and expect a reapair. perhaps I have a different out look on all things motoring having worked in the industry for thirty+ years,you could

argue its because vehicles are expensive ,but so are other things houses 300,000  5 years waranty from the builder and thats it.

Hard to make an objective call on this but I think it is a mixture of the increasing complexity of vehicles (Euro 6 Diesels for example) and manufacturers chaving costs to the bone to increase profits in a tight marketplace. It is always a tough one to call :/

Patrol made a good point, as did Asp. Nowadays not too many people own new cars but merely 'rent' them, and much like a rented house it's usually the landlord who foots the bill if anything breaks.

It's simple, it's just that it's far easier for us all to report faults and complain now than it was a year ago.

 

The rapid adoption of wireless broadband, internet enabled phones and tablets makes it easier for us all to have a whinge!

It doesn't matter whether its a £20 cordless toothbrush or a £20,000 car, all components have a design life which is established well before a tool is even turned.

 

I work in product management for a (non automotive) global organisation and am responsible for setting those target hours a product must achieve.

 

Our latest product has a target life of 250 hours. We take used versions of our current products and competitor products and tear them down to see how the components have worn. We also conduct lots of customer interviews to allow us to determine the required target life. Other elements such as likely warranty and servicing costs, the environment (from the colder Nordic countries to the blazing heat of the Middle East) are all fed into a Weibull type analysis which helps us to understand how long a product needs to last without failure.

 

To ensure it reaches those targets we run the product on labatory based rig tests for accelerated wear, actual use (a bunch of guys working shifts using the product all day every day until it fails) and field placement of prototypes (with real users of the product).

 

A typical project runs for three to five years (from the first sketch to product on the shelf) and at each and every stage the most important criteria is cost, it is always about cost. Cost targets, max allowable costs and constant cost saving exercises - but in theory as long as the target life is met cost saving shouldn't have any bearing on product life targets.

 

I have no doubt the automotive industry is more complicated but I'm also sure it will be quite similar too.

 

Now the million dollar question is when in a products typical life cycle do you buy!?

 

Octavia MkIII, all new design but risky in terms of potential unseen failures - early adopters always form part of a products test cycle!

Octavia MkII, likely to have all of its faults ironed out but will have seen some pretty tough cost saving (VI) exercises in its latter years which could affect durability.

 

There are then known faults (the weak A/C system) that are too costly to fix from a design and implementation perspective. A quick comparison with the likely warranty costs / user dissatisfaction from premature failures would suggest that this is worth less than the cost of redesigning the compressor!