3 ms·

How good are Japanese cars?

ultrasounder 7y ago
They are extremely good. My first car was a 2005 Honda Civic that I drove for 10 years until I traded in for a First Gen leaf. Absolutely no down time. Changed all four tires once or twice. I went back and traded in my first gen leafs after 3 year lease expired and promptly bought a 2019 Honda Civic which drives like a charm. Even the whiz bang features like adaptive cruise and lane keep work perfectly! Very happy with the purchase, waiting for the 250 mi Honda Civic EV but am not holding my breath.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >They are extremely good. Keep telling yourself that but it totally depends on what you get and who you are (i.e how you use it). '09 "CVT" Altima owned by literally anybody. -> crap '03 Accord owned by Grandma -> Perfectly fine car '11 Tacoma owned by Joe the scrapper -> Made a one way trip over the scrap scale 5yr ago. '11 Tacoma owned by upper middle class neighbor Steve who uses it to haul pine mulch for his garden and is generally easy on equipment -> Perfectly fine car. It takes little more than a pulse to get your hands on (for example) a Nissan Altima or a Dodge Journey. They are solidly meh vehicles and (for the most part) bought in droves by people who's credit leaves them little other option. Time is not kind to vehicles under that kind of ownership. They get serviced when they have problems that impede their usefulness, maybe. Meanwhile, in an upscale gated community across town 4Runners plastered in honors student stickers will see easy use (food spills in the rear seats and smelly sports equipment are not particularly hard on vehicles) will see the kind of preventive maintenance the authors of German car service schedules lust over. When it comes to longevity the way a vehicle is treated matters more than anything else and over 20+yr the seemingly small difference between how different groups treat their cars will compound to be the dominant term in the equation.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    It'd be interesting to see why people are down-voting. I purposefully picked examples that pretty much everyone in the low end used car world can agree on.
PaulHoule 7y ago
I drove a Honda Fit for 120,000 miles, rolled it, repaired it, drove it another 10k, somebody hit it when my wife was driving and it was totalled. We had no major repairs in this time other than the rollover. I had to replace the break pads but neither the suspension or emission controls system was replaced. Sometimes the hatchback stuck and we had frustrations with TPMS. The safety systems worked perfectly both times, I didn't even feel any pain in my accident, the back window broke so I had no trouble getting out. My take is that Honda and Toyota are in a different class than Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru and such. Subaru has fanatic followers but I think has awful TCO. Contrast that to a Hyundai I owned that needed a $200 repair every month at 90k. I think the luxury sedan market is a tepid category, driven by people who get $90,000 of value from a $90,000 car. I still remember Audi for their self-driving incidents in the 1980s and find it hard not to see them as a bastion of euromediocrity. BMW and such are always in the shop, so is Cadlliac. I see so many Cadillacs in the ghetto and driven by my ethnic white relatives (polish, italian, etc.). Cadillac has been kept alive by WW2 survivors who will never buy a German car. Unlike the others, Tesla stands out. My wife rode in a Tesla and she said 'that was a special car's and she hasn't said that about other cars.
- dathinab 7y ago
  > Unlike the others, Tesla stands out. My wife rode in a Tesla and she said 'that was a special car's and she hasn't said that about other cars. That's exactly what Tesla tries to sell, "a special car". On all the thinks they are focused on long term reliability and repair ability are likely not their priorities, for now. In a certain way I wouldn't be surprised if they would have adapted some of the "ship fast + PR, then working and then (maybe) good" development mentality which is common in the software world. I.e. I wouldn't be surprised if they prioritize innovation (e.g. self driving) and performance/range over safety/durability/etc. as long as safety/durability/etc. are "good enough" to get away with it.

They are extremely good. My first car was a 2005 Honda Civic that I drove for 10 years until I traded in for a First Gen leaf. Absolutely no down time. Changed all four tires once or twice. I went back and traded in my first gen leafs after 3 year lease expired and promptly bought a 2019 Honda Civic which drives like a charm. Even the whiz bang features like adaptive cruise and lane keep work perfectly! Very happy with the purchase, waiting for the 250 mi Honda Civic EV but am not holding my breath.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>They are extremely good. Keep telling yourself that but it totally depends on what you get and who you are (i.e how you use it). '09 "CVT" Altima owned by literally anybody. -> crap '03 Accord owned by Grandma -> Perfectly fine car '11 Tacoma owned by Joe the scrapper -> Made a one way trip over the scrap scale 5yr ago. '11 Tacoma owned by upper middle class neighbor Steve who uses it to haul pine mulch for his garden and is generally easy on equipment -> Perfectly fine car. It takes little more than a pulse to get your hands on (for example) a Nissan Altima or a Dodge Journey. They are solidly meh vehicles and (for the most part) bought in droves by people who's credit leaves them little other option. Time is not kind to vehicles under that kind of ownership. They get serviced when they have problems that impede their usefulness, maybe. Meanwhile, in an upscale gated community across town 4Runners plastered in honors student stickers will see easy use (food spills in the rear seats and smelly sports equipment are not particularly hard on vehicles) will see the kind of preventive maintenance the authors of German car service schedules lust over. When it comes to longevity the way a vehicle is treated matters more than anything else and over 20+yr the seemingly small difference between how different groups treat their cars will compound to be the dominant term in the equation.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  It'd be interesting to see why people are down-voting. I purposefully picked examples that pretty much everyone in the low end used car world can agree on.

PaulHoule 7y ago

I drove a Honda Fit for 120,000 miles, rolled it, repaired it, drove it another 10k, somebody hit it when my wife was driving and it was totalled. We had no major repairs in this time other than the rollover. I had to replace the break pads but neither the suspension or emission controls system was replaced. Sometimes the hatchback stuck and we had frustrations with TPMS. The safety systems worked perfectly both times, I didn't even feel any pain in my accident, the back window broke so I had no trouble getting out. My take is that Honda and Toyota are in a different class than Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru and such. Subaru has fanatic followers but I think has awful TCO. Contrast that to a Hyundai I owned that needed a $200 repair every month at 90k. I think the luxury sedan market is a tepid category, driven by people who get $90,000 of value from a $90,000 car. I still remember Audi for their self-driving incidents in the 1980s and find it hard not to see them as a bastion of euromediocrity. BMW and such are always in the shop, so is Cadlliac. I see so many Cadillacs in the ghetto and driven by my ethnic white relatives (polish, italian, etc.). Cadillac has been kept alive by WW2 survivors who will never buy a German car. Unlike the others, Tesla stands out. My wife rode in a Tesla and she said 'that was a special car's and she hasn't said that about other cars.

dathinab 7y ago
> Unlike the others, Tesla stands out. My wife rode in a Tesla and she said 'that was a special car's and she hasn't said that about other cars. That's exactly what Tesla tries to sell, "a special car". On all the thinks they are focused on long term reliability and repair ability are likely not their priorities, for now. In a certain way I wouldn't be surprised if they would have adapted some of the "ship fast + PR, then working and then (maybe) good" development mentality which is common in the software world. I.e. I wouldn't be surprised if they prioritize innovation (e.g. self driving) and performance/range over safety/durability/etc. as long as safety/durability/etc. are "good enough" to get away with it.