First time I hear that. Rated by whom - kia/hyundai?
I do agree that reliability is way more important that meaningless 0 to 60 but kia? huyndai?!?
Granted, that particular mix of Toyota and Subaru wold not be my choice either but if the only other option were huyndai or kia…
The model X is probably the least reliable Tesla. Two of my friends, had to Lemon three of them when they first came out. So for sure avoid the older ones and buy as new as you can. As mentioned, the Model Y would be much better. I was looking to buy a used long range Model Y on Tesla’s site. They give you an extra yr of warranty and their pricing is on par with private dealers. Ideally, you should find one locally and go take a look at it.
As far as Musk, he might be visionary but he is too quirky for my liking and I also think he doesn’t understand how humans get affected by getting fired overnight. Life is not a game of Monopoly. I hope he will have trouble recruiting smart employees down the road.
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Have a friend who’s been encouraging people to buy EV’s since the Nissan Leaf and other early EV’s arrived on the market. His family has had a grand total of 4 Kia Niro EV’s with one for him and the other for his daughter. They’ve upgraded to 2023’s with a large enough incentive and equity in the old one’s to bring the price below $30K with a lower lease payment than the previous Niro’s.
Know several other EV owners with a mix of Ford,Kia,Chevy, and VW and the’ve all had no problems with their cars and mainly charge at home. Only see one or two Subaru EV’s in the area. Same for the Toyta. Tesla and Rivian are far more popular. Only Tesla supercharger is on the other side of town, Electrify America’s chargers are more convenient.
My neighbor bought a slightly used hyundai hybrid. Within - literally - a week, the charge controller took a dirt nap. Because of a faulty $20 relay, the damage was $7,500 worth. He was lucky the thing was under warranty, and he was smart enough get rid of it immediately and replaced it with a Subaru. It’s been a couple of years and so far so good. Of all available options though, vw and tesla are fighting for the honorable bottom of the barrel place. Closely followed by huyndai.
If I lived in a city, my ONLY choice would be Toyota. It’s still Toyota but a hybrid rather than EV.
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Kia/ Hundai has problems with their 4 cylinder engines. The 6 is apparently OK.
As much as I hate to admit it, I had a customer that had well over 500,000 miles with little more than standard maintenance on his Hyundai Santa Fe… It was still going strong when he retired…
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Are you suggesting that I - as a consumer - should care what exact engine is “OK” and which is junk or what year is better than the other? If so, I respectfully disagree.
According to a Russian saying, exceptions only prove the rule.
‘Exceptions prove the rule’ is misunderstood. It’s an older English saying, where ‘prove’ means ‘test’, like a ‘proving ground’. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.
So you would knowingly buy a problematic car?
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No. I would NOT buy anything from a questionable manufacturer famous for systematic screw ups.
I would only take my chances with Toyota knowing that it’s an honorable company and ONLY after a few years of a model production when all kinks are worked out. Because that’s what Toyota does - when a problem arises (and all manufacturers have problems just some have nothing but and never fix them), it’s immediately addressed.
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My wife is on her third Hyundai in the past 8 years. They’ve all been excellent. She will lease another next year when this lease ends.
My brother has owned both a Santa Fe and an Azera sedan, and they were both essentially trouble-free. The Azera had a defective engine temp sensor when it was delivered, but after that was replaced, he had no other problems with the Azera (or the Santa Fe) for the 8 years or so that he owned them.
Consumer Reports uses five bins for reliability: much better than average, better than average, average, worse than average and much worse than average. I just went to their website to look up numerical reliability values for those five categories and can’t find it. The last time I saw this data published, the bins were:
0-1% failures, much better than average
1-2% failures, better than average
2-3% failures, average
3-4% failures, worse than average
Over 4% failures, much worse than average
Even in the worse case, there are likely several models that are close to 96% with no failures. My suspicion is that the bin sizes have narrowed since I saw this rating explained in one of their used car reliability books maybe 10 years ago. In the past I was willing to accept any cars in the top four bins. I gave bonus points for higher ratings and lower price. I was not willing to pay much more for cars in the 99%+ success rate bin. I did that from 1998 forward and always bought reliable cars at good prices.
Sounds like a prudent practice.
Im happy to report that my daughter has decided to buy a brand new model Y instead of a used model X.
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Which trim level?
I have no clue. Ill ask her when she calls me.
Great choice, two friends have them, like them.
Thanks, @texases