Is one brand of car really better than the other???

My previous comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. (Mostly) I'm not a Hyundai hater, but they wouldn't be in my top 5 choices. Here's how I'd run it down for 'affordable daily drivers'... depending on your definition of affordable, of course..

Audi
BMW
Subaru
VW
Nissan
Ford
Toyota
Honda
Chevy
Kia
Hyundai
Jeep
.
.
.
Chrysler

Keep in mind that nearly every manufacturer puts out a few great models and a few clunkers. It's a matter of some companies making a higher ratio of great vs clunker.

In my own limited experience (being a car enthusiast and not a mechanic), I'd say Audi, Subaru and Nissan tend to make pretty reliable cars across the board for their respective levels.

As for reliability ratings, I find them a bit misleading. If you study them closely, you'll see a couple things... first, cars are knocked for reports of things that are completely unrelated to reliability... radio reception and whatnot. And you'll also see that high end lines often get lower ratings than economy cars. The reason for this is that the buyers of the high end vehicles have much higher expectations. Like the case with my first Audi which I bought brand new. Because everything was covered under warranty, I took it into the dealership for things as minor as squeaks or new wiper blades. But a person buying a Chevy Cobalt doesn't complain as long as the wheels stay on and keep turning. Thus, the reports of problems are much lower on cheap cars vs expensive. But the problems that are reported for economy models are generally true reliability factors, and not the case with luxury brands.
 
brettS4 said:
My previous comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. (Mostly) I'm not a Hyundai hater, but they wouldn't be in my top 5 choices. Here's how I'd run it down for 'affordable daily drivers'... depending on your definition of affordable, of course..

Audi
BMW
Subaru
VW
Nissan
Ford
Toyota
Honda
Chevy
Kia
Hyundai
Jeep
.
.
.
Chrysler

Keep in mind that nearly every manufacturer puts out a few great models and a few clunkers. It's a matter of some companies making a higher ratio of great vs clunker.

In my own limited experience (being a car enthusiast and not a mechanic), I'd say Audi, Subaru and Nissan tend to make pretty reliable cars across the board for their respective levels.

As for reliability ratings, I find them a bit misleading. If you study them closely, you'll see a couple things... first, cars are knocked for reports of things that are completely unrelated to reliability... radio reception and whatnot. And you'll also see that high end lines often get lower ratings than economy cars. The reason for this is that the buyers of the high end vehicles have much higher expectations. Like the case with my first Audi which I bought brand new. Because everything was covered under warranty, I took it into the dealership for things as minor as squeaks or new wiper blades. But a person buying a Chevy Cobalt doesn't complain as long as the wheels stay on and keep turning. Thus, the reports of problems are much lower on cheap cars vs expensive. But the problems that are reported for economy models are generally true reliability factors, and not the case with luxury brands.
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A squeak is a warranty issue and a wiper replacement is under the maintanence program. I've detailed many of BMW's where I've seen no sign of "high expectations" and I've seen many economy cars where the owners took great pride in their ride and yes the wheels were still on! My brother is a shop foreman at a BMW dealer and he stays quite busy doing other things besides fixing radio receptions.
 
Is your new girlfriend better than old one?...Of course there are differences...every car has something good and bad...Some are better drivers cars, some are transportation and some last longer. Depends what you are looking for. Go test drive every car in your price range and see if there is difference. And when you find a one you like, do some research and see what problems it may have...and then decide.
 
I know I've told this story here before but I'm going to throw it out there to be fair to the other side of the story. Back in 1997, the company I worked for at the time, bought a brand new Safari minivan for our delivery business. I was in charge of vehicle maintenance and took the job very seriously, I had my own schedule for this. For instance, the trans was serviced every 30k, filter and gasket change and about 3 quarts of fluid. I did this until the Valvoline place got the machine that removed all the old fluid and replaced it with new fluid, then I would alternate between the filter and gasket and machine. The oil was changed every 3K but at about 250k I convinced the boss to let us run synthetic and change it every 6k, no problem.

Flash forward to 2005 when they decided to outsource our positions (long story), that van, with mostly highway miles on it and an oil pump replaced at 80K, had 656K on the clock.....original transmission! It had 17 services on it, coolant was flushed twice a year and the original water pump and radiator lasted a little over 300k. I even had a set of Michelin X-Ones last 100k as I had the tires rotated and balanced every 5-6k, alignments done every 20k and one thing about these van is that it would eat idler arms, plus our roads suck which is why I had the alignment done so often.

If they're taken care of properly or over taken care of, they CAN last!
 
My worst car ever, bought right off the delivery truck, was a 1988 Honda Accord coupe. It was a lemon before we had lemon laws in Illinois. Electrical gremlins, brake issues, drivers window that would fall out of the track, severe steering wheel vibration at speed that new wheels and tires didn't fix. There's more but you get the gist of it. All manufacturers have made bad vehicles, some more than others.
My best vehicle was a 2002 F150 XLT 4x4. 7 flawless years of ownership.
 
GenesisCoupe said:
Not sure if you are talking about new or old models, but i am on my 3rd Hyundai (2 Genesis and Tucson) and had zero issues with them. Unlike my Infiniti, BMW, Ford that always had issues. One thing after another..
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Hyundai (which is the same company as KIA btw) has been improving year after year since 2000. Right now they have pretty good cars and they offer the best warranty on the market. Koreans cars had one major issue and it was with rust. But they do offer a perforation warranty now, so I guess they found a way around that problem.

The Genesis is an amazing car, I wish I had one ;)
 
brettS4 said:
My previous comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. (Mostly) I'm not a Hyundai hater, but they wouldn't be in my top 5 choices. Here's how I'd run it down for 'affordable daily drivers'... depending on your definition of affordable, of course..

Audi
BMW
Subaru
VW
Nissan
Ford
Toyota
Honda
Chevy
Kia
Hyundai
Jeep
.
.
.
Chrysler

Keep in mind that nearly every manufacturer puts out a few great models and a few clunkers. It's a matter of some companies making a higher ratio of great vs clunker.

In my own limited experience (being a car enthusiast and not a mechanic), I'd say Audi, Subaru and Nissan tend to make pretty reliable cars across the board for their respective levels.

As for reliability ratings, I find them a bit misleading. If you study them closely, you'll see a couple things... first, cars are knocked for reports of things that are completely unrelated to reliability... radio reception and whatnot. And you'll also see that high end lines often get lower ratings than economy cars. The reason for this is that the buyers of the high end vehicles have much higher expectations. Like the case with my first Audi which I bought brand new. Because everything was covered under warranty, I took it into the dealership for things as minor as squeaks or new wiper blades. But a person buying a Chevy Cobalt doesn't complain as long as the wheels stay on and keep turning. Thus, the reports of problems are much lower on cheap cars vs expensive. But the problems that are reported for economy models are generally true reliability factors, and not the case with luxury brands.
Click to expand...

Some good points. Regarding economy cars being more reliable than luxury models, I have read the reason why a few years back. I cannot recall the exact source unfortunately. Anyway, people tend to develop loyalty to a brand if their first car was good. So manufacturers make sure that the first car you buy will perform well and offer great value so that when you replace it in the future with a more luxurious one, you come back to the same brand. Of course when you are out of college you are not gonna buy the top of the line model, you will go for something affordable so economy cars are usually the best quality and value.
 
I prefer anything coming from Europe vs the rest of the world. Specifically coming from Germany.

Where else in the world are there un restricted roads allowing you to drive as fast as you want? Manufactures here have to make a car perform not only at normal speeds of 75-80 but sustain 100+ mph driving.

Not to mention most of the ranges of cars made over here have extensive testing performed on the famed Nurburgring. If a car can perform well on the Ring, it can handle any road in the world.
 
I agree with you about German cars but I had an 07 MINI, owner by BMW, and it was the biggest POS ever, then there's the maintainence. That said I had a Crossfire for 2 years and zero mechanical problems, to figure.

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk
 
Mike@DedicatedPerfection said:
I prefer anything coming from Europe vs the rest of the world. Specifically coming from Germany.

Where else in the world are there un restricted roads allowing you to drive as fast as you want? Manufactures here have to make a car perform not only at normal speeds of 75-80 but sustain 100+ mph driving.

Not to mention most of the ranges of cars made over here have extensive testing performed on the famed Nurburgring. If a car can perform well on the Ring, it can handle any road in the world.
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Germany's roads are also perfect. Lol.
 
While I agree on german cars performance, design and appearance, reliability has always been an issue for all the german brands except Porshe.
 
mini's are god awful, and i work at a mini dealership.
 
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