“Reliability is outstanding from almost all auto vendors these days”.
I think reliability is relative. Today’s cars are more reliable than cars of the 1960s, However, cars of the 1960s were more reliable than cars of the 1930s.
To me, the problem with the ignition switches in the GM cars is inexcusable. I had problems with the ignition switch in my 1965 Rambler Classic. I had that switch replaced 3 times in 100,000 miles. I would drive along and suddenly the starter would engage. I would put in the clutch and turn off the ignition, turn it back to on, and let the clutch out and continue on my way. I learned that American Motors had a problem with ignition switches. I thought the system in my earlier vehicles was better. In my 1947 Pontiac and 1950 Chevrolet pickup, I turned the key from on and stepped on a floor pedal to start the engine. In my 1954 Buick, the switch had three positions, “Off”, “On”, and “Lock”. To start the engine, you switched the key to the “On” position and stepped down on the accelerator. None of the systems on these vehicles gave me any problems like the Rambler did. I didn’t see the advantage of combining the starter switch with the ignition switch. However, if this is the way manufacturers are going to do it, then I would think that 50 years after my 1965 Rambler that GM could make a reliable ignition switch. With today’s cars being more reliable than cars of previous decades, this makes the problem with the ignition switch even more inexcusable than the problem with my 1965 Rambler.
Here you’re saying that all cars are pretty reliable…and that it doesn’t matter which one to buy.
But today, the worst cars and trucks in Consumer Reports reliability surveys have 4% failure rates. For a system with thousands of parts, that is quite good.
Then in the following thread…you say to stay away from Range Rover because it’ll cost you a ton to repair. And say it has poor reliability.
http://community.cartalk.com/discussion/comment/3080389/#Comment_3080389
And here you’re saying that the Benz would cost so much more to maintain due to repairs.
http://community.cartalk.com/discussion/comment/3079284/#Comment_3079284
Anyone else see the contradiction.
OBVIOUSLY that 4% can be significant…you even said so.
Mike, I’m just saying try to be a little objective. My positive experience is just as valid as your bad experience 30 years ago. There is a culture problem at GM as well as Ford, and I suspect Toyota too. Styling is certainly a problem at GM as well as Toyota, but having a bad ignition switch doesn’t really make the millions of cars produced by GM unreliable.
So the GM cars with the bad ignition switch are not unreliable . . .
They’re just deadly
Can we agree on that second part, at least?
It just keeps getting uglier…Now there is talk of manslaughter charges and prison terms instead of just fines to the corporation and wrist slaps to the people involved…
Styling is certainly a problem at GM as well as Toyota, but having a bad ignition switch doesn't really make the millions of cars produced by GM unreliable.
Never made any such statement. Their ignition problem just adds to the list…Premature failing ball joints, Intake Manifold problems. As I said…opinions don’t matter too much…compiled data and surveys show a real pattern.
.Now there is talk of manslaughter charges and prison terms instead of just fines to the corporation and wrist slaps to the people involved
It’s about time corporations (and their employees) are held responsible for their actions. Ford should have had several of their employees in jail for the Pinto gas-tank problem. They knew before the first Pinto was ever sold there was a problem with the gas-tank and that some people would die. They weighed that against the lawsuits and how much it would cost them to retool.
"So the GM cars with the bad ignition switch are not unreliable . . .
They’re just deadly".
@db4690 hit the nail on the head. My last two GM products–a 1993 Oldsmobile 88 and a 2006 Chevrolet Uplander were reliable. The 2003 Toyota 4Runner we purchased new gave us so much trouble the first month we owned it that I almost made the dealer buy it back under the lemon law. I gave him one more opportunity to make it right after multiple trips back to the agency or I would use the lemon law. After that last trip, the 4Runner has been trouble free. The Sienna has been reliable, but no more so than the Uplander.
Problems like the GM ignition switches and the Toyota sticking accelerator pedals are potentially lethal problems. Knowingly covering up a safety defect in a vehicle should lead to severe punishment of those responsible.
Instead of perfecting say, three platforms, small, medium and large, the automakers insist on cranking out 280 “new” models every year!! The overriding goal is to produce them as cheaply as possible, as fast as possible…This is not a formula for a safe, reliable, trouble-free vehicle…
Moving all the switches and controls into the steering column, that was insane…
There is no contradiction at all. Where did I say that Range Rover has a 4% failure rate? I don’t know what it is, but it is far worse than that. What I said is that the classes that CR groups cars into goes from excellent at near zero failures to far worse than average starting At 4% and going down. We saw a graph @texases provided and it showed that many of the largest auto sellers in the US, including Toyota, Honda, Ford, and GM had fewer that 100 failures per 100 vehicles in the first 5 to 7 years. The public voted with their money when they bought reliable brands like Honda and Toyota. That forced the other manufacturers to provide more reliable cars, too. CRs data just confirms this. at least they tell us what the rating method is so that if someone is comfortable estimating maintenance and repair costs, they can make a risk/reward evaluation. This is especially useful in the used car market where Honda and Toyota often sell for a premium. Not so much for a new car though. I don’t buy used cars often, but when I did, I used that information to find an inexpensive alternative that is safe and my daughter is very happy with. A 2010 Cobalt LS, without the lousy ignition switch, which GM will replace anyway.
There is no contradiction at all.
You’re kidding right…This is a joke right?
Your statements are in direct contradiction. It’s OBVIOUS.
Where did I say that Range Rover has a 4% failure rate?
Right here -
But today, the worst cars and trucks in Consumer Reports reliability surveys have 4% failure rates.
Since CR reported the WORST cars with a 4% failure rate…then the Range Rover is either at 4% or LOWER. If nothing is greater then X (i.e. worst cars and trucks in Consumer Reports reliability surveys have 4% failure rates
Then it must be Equal to or Less then X. It’s called simple logic.
I know you always like to skew the data to always put GM as making good reliable vehicles. But Really…give us a break.
So now the 4% ISN’T accurate. That tells me that 3% GM failure rate isn’t accurate then either. What is it then…10% 20%? You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe the data is accurate or you don’t.
@MikeInNH The initial reliablilty for the first 3 years is relatively good for most cars. However, as cars age, also shown by consumer Reports, 10 year old cars have a much wider range of problems. Good ones have 30% reporting problems, while the bad ones have 90% or so. That’s a vast difference.
Combined with the much higher cost of repairing those those German and British lluxury vehicles, it makes the real money pits.
There are many happy Mercedes owners who trade every 4-5 years and end up with a very high cost per miles for ownership.
“There are many happy Mercedes owners who trade every 4-5 years”
They’re happy because they don’t hang onto the cars long enough for them to turn into money pits
Or maybe they saw the writing on the wall . . . and decided to trade in after the car was paid off
Quite possibly they traded the 4-5 year old Benz in for a new Toyota or Honda . . .
Wouldn’t blame them if that were the case
However, as cars age, also shown by consumer Reports, 10 year old cars have a much wider range of problems. Good ones have 30% reporting problems, while the bad ones have 90% or so. That's a vast difference.
That’s NOT part of the debate. @jtsanders was making the point that GM vehicles are reliable because according to CR…the HIGHEST repairs for the worst cars is only 4%. But in earlier posts he pointed (which I agree with) that Range Rover is NOT a reliable vehicle.
If 4% is the highest for the vehicles with the WORST repair record. AND the second part of his statement was that 4% is pretty reliable…then how can he then make the statement that the Range Rover is UNRELIABLE. That’s the contradiction.
I’m not saying anything about CR’s data…just that jt is using it to prove a point…then disreguards what he showed in another post…thus totally contradicting what he said earlier.
While not defending GM for one second the point could be legitimately made that if every car maker who tried to sweep a problem underneath the carpet was forcibly closed down, everyone would be on foot, bicycles, or mules.
While not defending GM for one second the point could be legitimately made that if every car maker who tried to sweep a problem underneath the carpet was forcibly closed down
Forcibly closed…will never happen. But I do like the criminal charges being brought against the company and it’s employees. Other countries do it. Why is the US one of the only countries that allow the company to shield their employees from criminal wrong-doing.
If there is this much controversy over random failure of a part as basic as a mechanical ignition switch what about greater potential for failure in the digital proximity ignition switches and I/0 buttons?
@MikIn NH I agree with you that the statement made no sense. Also, that today’s cars are much more reliable than those in the past. As a reliability consultant, I find a 4% problem rate completely unacceptable, however, because we can do a lot better.
Our Corolla is now 7.5 years old and the only thing that has “broken” is the small detent button on the seat belt that keeps the clasp from slipping down. I also broke one of the plastic wheel disks by hitting it too hard, that was not the disk’s fault.
By comparison, over the same mileage, and in less time, our 1965 Dodge Dart, a good car for its time, had the following:
- Loose exhaust pipe
- Loose steering box
- New shocks
- Replace distributor shaft
- Front brakes
- Turn starter armature
- Rebuild carburetor
- Replace torsion bar anchor
- Replace ignition switch
- Fix floor gear shift
It’s rather astounding, looking back, that we put up with all this and thought in “normnal”.
P.S. I agree with jail terms for willful negligence. Mitsubishi executives got jail time for hiding safety issues with their cars.
Here’s more about how GM lawyers swept the problem under the rug:
"To the legal department at General Motors, secrecy ruled.
Employees were discouraged from taking notes in meetings. Workers’ emails were examined once a year for sensitive information that might be used against the company. G.M. lawyers even kept their knowledge of fatal accidents related to a defective ignition switch from their own boss, the company’s general counsel, Michael P. Millikin.
An internal investigation released on Thursday into the company’s failure to recall millions of defective small cars found no evidence of a cover-up. But interviews with victims, their lawyers and current and former G.M. employees, as well as evidence in the report itself, paint a more complete picture: The automaker’s legal department took actions that obscured the deadly flaw, both inside and outside the company.
While Mr. Millikin survived the dismissals this week of 15 G.M. employees tied to the delayed recall, his department was hit hard.
At least three senior lawyers are among the employees who lost their jobs as a result of the investigation conducted by the former United States attorney Anton R. Valukas."
"Mr. Millikin was absolved of wrongdoing in the report. But the very secrecy that his department valued kept him from knowing about a safety crisis that has rocked the company, the report said.
One of the lawyers dismissed this week was William Kemp, who had been orchestrating G.M.’s legal strategy and in-house investigations of the defective ignition switch for more than two years before the recall.
Yet it was not until early February, days after a high-level committee finally ordered the switch recall, that Mr. Kemp informed Mr. Millikin of the deadly consequences of the flawed part. G.M. has linked 13 deaths and 54 crashes to the defect.
In his report, Mr. Valukas said he interviewed Mr. Kemp about his failure to tell Mr. Millikin that people were dying in G.M. vehicles because of the switch.
“He could not explain why he did not raise it with Mr. Millikin earlier,” Mr. Valukas wrote. “And in hindsight says he probably should have.”
Just saying that if you have retention schedules for your documents and follow them, and if you have retention schedules for your computer stored documents and follow them, they can’t be recalled against you if they are destroyed. Notes can become legal documents and can be used against you. These are common practices throughout business in this litigious environment.