Over the years, I have found CR to be amazingly consistent with my experiences on cars I have owned. If they had a black dot on the cooling system, I had problems with the cooling system, etc.
Workers at VW factory in Puebla are considered paid very well for the economy they are in. The cost of living here is very moderate, but especially so once you own your own home. It would make no sense to pay VW workers here what they are paid in very expensive Germany.
There shouldn't be any big difference if VW attends to quality properly, but you can bet they don't pay the Mexican employees as well.
Possible explanation…but how do you explain Toyota plants in Mexico not having any problems with quality.
Pay is all relative to where you live. A few companies I’ve worked for hired many engineers in India…at about 1/5 the pay of the US engineers. But with that pay they can buy a house…hire 3-4 servants…eat very well…send their kids to private schools.
“Pay is all relative to where you live”.
I hear that argument frequently from the administration at the state university where I teach in the Midwest. The problem with that argument is if one wants to move. I had a colleague that was offered a dream job at Northwestern University. He was a full professor with a family. However, the equity in his house would not begin to make a down payment on a house in Evanston, Illinois that would be suitable for his family, so he had to turn down the offer. I saw a television play by Tennessee Williams about migrant workers. The migrants ended up owing so much money to their employer that they couldn’t leave the group. The same is true at the institution where I was employed for 44 years. In our community, the housing prices are relatively low and so are the salaries. This is o.k. unless you would like to move and are in the same situation as my colleague. However, I don’t suppose that the engineers in India are likely to relocate to the U.S.
This is o.k. unless you would like to move and are in the same situation as my colleague.
No argument here. I lived in upstate NY…and moved to NH (Boston housing market). Homes here are 2-3 times the cost of homes in upstate NY. Auto insurance is also considerably higher.
It’s NOT an argument…just a statement. It’s a fact of life…and not much you can do about it.
" It’s a fact of life…and not much you can do about it".
@MikeInNH–not true. One can become an administrator or a coach. My institution has the highest administrative salaries in its conference and the lowest faculty salaries. I was offered an administrative position and turned it down. When I saw the job description, I could do the work for a year in one day and wondered what I was to do with the remaining 364 days in the year. Actually, I liked teaching too much to do the kind of work the administrative position required. However, had I taken the job, I would not have had to drive a 1978 Oldsmobile for 33 years.
I also thought about becoming a coach, but my wife wouldn’t let me ruin our furniture by tossing chairs.
One can become an administrator or a coach.
Well of course you can change your position to get more salary…but that’s still NOT going to eliminate the problem with wage discrepancies from place to place. When I said that “It’s a fact of life”…it IS…wages have been different from one part of the state/country/world for thousands of years.
You really want make a change in salary…give up teaching and join the rest of the workforce. Unfortunately teaching positions don’t pay as well. Another fact of life.
Every year SPIE does salary surveys of its members. Of the 3 classes of employers, private industry pays the most, government pays in the middle, and universities pay the least. SPIE. Stands for Society of Photo-optical and Instrumentation Engineers. I find the discrepancies are especially large at the top end.
A few years ago, the automotive editor of CR wrote that their figures showed that Domestic cars had caught, and surpassed european cars in both quality and reliability. He included Audi, BMW, and Mercedes in that opinion. The Euro crowd went absolutely ballistic.
@MikeInNH–give up teaching and join the rest of the workforce. Unfortunately teaching positions don’t pay as well. Another fact of life.
I did give up teaching–retired in 2011. I did try coaching once–I coached my university’s ACM programming team. The team I coached finished 14th out of 120 other colleges and universities. I thought with this good showing (actually, I had some really top-notch students so I didn’t do much) other institutions would dangle big contracts in my face to entice me to come and coach their programming teams. Unfortunately, a winning basketball or football team makes an institution more visible than a great computer programming team. In fact, I actually lost money with my one coaching experience–we stopped at a fine restaurant on our way back to campus and I treated the students on the team to a great meal–I was really proud of these kids.
Toyota has a fanatical emphasis on quality. They also are very good at engineering cars with low parts counts that can only be put together properly. German cars have far more parts, many of them fasteners and other small bits of hardware that can be installed poorly and are hard to test.
“Toyota has a fanatical emphasis on quality.”
I like my 2005 Camry, but the build quality is only so-so, in my opinion
The interior uses some pretty cheap plastic
I replaced the rear hatshelf speaker grilles because they were literally dust
The grilles on my 1995 Corolla were perfect when I got rid of the car last year
The headliner is falling down . . . badly, in fact
The headliner on my 1995 Corolla was perfect when I got rid of the car last year
My family members have been driving Toyotas for well over 30 years now,and I can say that their quality has been slipping
Consumer Reports will not reflect this
You have to ask people that have been familiar with the brand for many years
Perhaps several years down the road, the VW New Beetle might be a good used car bet. My reasoning is that the problem areas may be repaired during the first two years taking care of the issue.
We bought a new Toyota 4Runner back in the summer of 2003. When the Consumer Reports buying guide came out, our model 4Runner with the V-6 engine was said to be trouble prone due to, I believe, a fuel injection problem. Apparently, the problem must have been solved, because later CR frequency of repair records gave the 2003 4Runner a high reliability rating.
That said, we did have an issue with our 4Runner eating serpentine belts. The belts would only go a few days and then cause a chirping noise. After several belts, with one improper installation causing the crankshaft oil seal to be pulled out, I would have called the 4Runner a bad product. After a frank discussion with the dealer where I requested that Toyota take the car back under the lemon law and refund my money so I could purchase a different make SUV, the car was properly repaired–the belt tensioner had a weak spring. Now if I had filled out the CR survey the first month I had the 4Runner, it would have had a poor reliability rating from me. After the new tensioner, the 4Runner has been quite reliable. It has never seen the inside of a Toyota service department since that time–perhaps thorough maintenance by our independent shop has made it reliable.
Maybe, but German cars seem to age poorly. 10 year old Audis are the stuff of nightmares.
A good friend has an A4 that is starting to “500” and “1,000” him. Prices on parts for it are completely obscene.
@db4690; “I replaced the rear hatshelf speaker grilles because they were literally dust”
I knew of this issue when I was buying my 2005 Camry as a CPO in 2008. So I just tapped the speaker covers and poof the went. I then asked the salesperson if this was noted in the 150 point inspection-they changed those before selling it to me.
Speaking of beetles, I remember Joseph Meehan one of the regulars here used to have a beetle and would always chime in that his has been pretty reliable. I hope he (and his beetle) are both fine.
I am going to test drive a 2012 VW Golf this weekend. One red flag already is that it has changed 2 owners in 13 months. I am hoping they could not put up with the stick shift in LA traffic.
VW golf is reasonably reliable car as its produced in Germany. The same with GTI and Jetta wagon. The owners I know have had incredible luck.
The US Jetta sedan and global Beetle are Mexican built which a difference may arise.
As for the hatshelf speaker grilles . . . I found a TSB addressing the issue. So I went to my local dealer and bought the parts listed in the TSB. They were in stock and very reasonably priced. It probably took me less than hour to replace both.
As for my headliner, here are the choices. Buy a genuine headliner for over $400, and install it myself. Or I get quotes from local auto upholstery shops
Before the TSB, Toyota used to replace the whole rear board that holds the speakers in place at the tune of $200+ for parts. Then when they had to do more under warranty, they figured another way of doing it (just changing the cover) for $20 parts. Go figure.
I am not sure if the headliner is a common problem. Mine is fine so far-but might not be for long before I used to be the main driver and the car was always garaged at home & work. Now my wife drives and it gets the treatment of a NYC cab.
Can it be Glued back on?
I don’t know what Toyota’s take is on the headliners . . .
But according to me, they are a common problem
Slightly over half of the Camrys of that generation (2002-2006) that I see have a headliner that is falling down
I’m not sure if the production location (Kentucky versus Japan) has anything to do with it
Mine was built in Kentucky
I’m also not sure if a sunroof affects anything. I don’t have one