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This survey is garbage. Survey design is an art. And unfortunately, this survey does not differentiate between a big problem like "brakes are shot" and a small

This survey is garbage. Survey design is an art. And unfortunately, this survey does not differentiate between a big problem like "brakes are shot" and a small one like "My spotify playlist doesn't show up like I want". Dig a bit deeper, for Tesla, > Infotainment is the source of more than a quarter of all problems Another thing to point out is that J.D. Power’s IQS does not differentiate between a problem that is the result of a physical fault or a design issue in which everything works as intended but the learning curve might be too steep. No doubt Tesla has production issues like any other car maker in the world. But to truly compare them, a more credible source of information is necessary.

codazoda 6y ago
It's also useless in time frame. This is over the first few months of ownership. I've owned two of the cars that rank near the top of this list and it's problems after 5 years that I care about. That's when you start to pay out of pocket and the problems get big. Most cars, now, don't survive ten years, but I want a car that's reliable from year 5 to year 10.
- kbenson 6y ago
  It's not useless, it's just targeted at a specific audience. Some people only keep cars for 5 years and then get a new car. I buy used cars about 3 years old and keep them for 5-6 years, so reliability ratings over later years is more important for me (which is why I generally buy Honda or Toyota for my minivan/car needs), but it might not be for those people. Consumer reports has traditionally been good about showing reliability over different stages of car lifetime, but it's been a while since I looked.
  - brookside 6y ago
    Consumer Reports relies on elective responses to their reliability survey. Doesn't this make their rankings problematic and statistically invalid?
    - kbenson 6y ago
      As opposed to what? JD Powers seems to do the same. If you have a better survey with more rigorous standards that actually has enough data to by useful and comparable across many cars and years, I'm all ears. Here's what both Consumer Reports[1] and JD Powers say about how they collect their data. 1: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-selling/consumer-reports-automotive-ratings.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-selling/consumer-repor... 2: https://www.jdpower.com/faq https://www.jdpower.com/faq
- TylerE 6y ago
  Amazingly a survey of initial quality measures initial quality.
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  The average age of cars on the road in the US is 11.8 years. So most cars survive well past 10 years.
- ryathal 6y ago
  This still helps you. Unless you expect a car that is constantly in the shop the first five years to magically stop needing work after that. Yes it's possible that some of the top cars switch places in the 5-10 range, but its very unlikely a bottom 5 car is going to eclipse a top 5 car. Most cars are also far more reliable now than you are thinking. Every big company makes cars now that routinely last 200k-300k miles, that takes more than 10 years of driving for most people.
FireBeyond 6y ago
And for several other manufacturers, the infotainment system is also the single largest source of problems, not "faulty brakes" or similar, so it's not like Tesla is being singled out here. > design issue in which everything works as intended but the learning curve might be too steep. It could be entirely argued that a design with a too steep learning curve, _especially when intended to be used in a moving vehicle_ is in actual fact a "design issue".
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  Though when you stuff everything except the engine and brakes into the infotainment system, it does put you in a worse spot when your infotainment system locks up. How many other cars do you need to learn a button combination on the steering wheel to reboot the infotainment screen when it crashes while driving, and then while it reboots your turn signals stop making sounds and you don't have a speedometer?
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Last time I drove a rental car I left the airport driving with only one figure on a burning hot steering wheel. There was no switch. It took me pulling over at a rest stop to break out the PAPER manual to learn how to disable to fire, which was a good thing because by that point my backside was also starting to cook. I'd call that a significant design flaw.
    - wlesieutre 6y ago
      Tesla or something else? Every car I've seen with heated seats (admittedly small sample size) had a hardware button with amber indicator LEDs showing you what setting it's on, so I'd certainly agree with not having an obvious switch being problematic. Made even worse by apparently turning it on by default? Moving everything into hidden modal screens of the infotainment system is not a trend I'm excited about.
      - Wistar 6y ago
Alex3917 6y ago
Well it's dangerous if people are fiddling with their infotainment system while driving and it's poorly designed. How is that any better than having bad brakes?
- core-questions 6y ago
  It's honestly surprising it's legal to play with that while driving, but you can't use your phone.
kbuchanan 6y ago
And notice that all the "worst performers" are luxury brands. Is this not simply a matter of those who spend a lot also expect a lot?
- kenhwang 6y ago
  Could also be attributed to more cutting edge and complicated features expanding the surface area for more issues.
  - kbuchanan 6y ago
    Friend of mine also pointed out that luxury cars are produced in much lower volumes, and thus their production processes are never as fully fine-tuned as a Camry, for example.
  - melq 6y ago
    I'm a big fan of the old NPR show Car Talk, and one of the major lessons I've gleaned from it is don't buy something like a Maserati unless you have a burning desire to put your mechanic's children through college.
m463 6y ago
> Infotainment is the source of more than a quarter of all problems To be honest, all car infotainment systems suck, and have sucked since cars were invented. The stock systems had good ergonomics, but shitty features. The aftermarket systems had good features, but suffered from "presales" whizzy RGB design, with crappy button-itis after you got it home. Now there are basically no aftermarket systems available because of car all-in-one designs. The problem with Tesla is that their car looks like it has a big iPad in it and people judge it by the same standards. And Telsa probably has 1/10000 the staffing devoted to ios. That said, Tesla has definitely NOT listened to it's customers when it comes to the USB music system: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comprehensive-usb-bug-list.77775/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comprehensive-usb-bu... There are over 103 pages of comments on it sucking. why USB? It's the way to get lossless music playback for the $2.5k high fidelity sound some cars have. It's also always available and fast. I have not only music, but tons of downloaded podcasts. Personally, I think they should just put someone good on it and fix it. While they're at it, add skip-back and skip-forward buttons for spoken audio programs. Losing your place is a nightmare.
clouddrover 6y ago
> But to truly compare them, a more credible source of information is necessary. Here are some people's direct experiences of Tesla build quality: - Model Y quality at delivery: https://insideevs.com/features/433821/model-y-video-warns-not-buy-one/ https://insideevs.com/features/433821/model-y-video-warns-no... - Another Model Y quality discussion (they talk about it at the start of the video, don't need to watch the whole thing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMvBIPov67g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMvBIPov67g - Model 3 versus a puddle of water. The puddle wins: https://insideevs.com/news/433643/video-tesla-model-3-rear-bumpers-fly-off/ https://insideevs.com/news/433643/video-tesla-model-3-rear-b... The survey seems to match the reality.
xkjkls 6y ago
JD Power is the most respected survey in the business. It's pretty undeniable to argue that Tesla has more production issues than just about every other automaker on the planet. Elon's idea to increase Model 3 production, by... making things in a tent? has posed some pretty obviously predictable quality issues.

codazoda 6y ago

It's also useless in time frame. This is over the first few months of ownership. I've owned two of the cars that rank near the top of this list and it's problems after 5 years that I care about. That's when you start to pay out of pocket and the problems get big. Most cars, now, don't survive ten years, but I want a car that's reliable from year 5 to year 10.

kbenson 6y ago
It's not useless, it's just targeted at a specific audience. Some people only keep cars for 5 years and then get a new car. I buy used cars about 3 years old and keep them for 5-6 years, so reliability ratings over later years is more important for me (which is why I generally buy Honda or Toyota for my minivan/car needs), but it might not be for those people. Consumer reports has traditionally been good about showing reliability over different stages of car lifetime, but it's been a while since I looked.
- brookside 6y ago
  Consumer Reports relies on elective responses to their reliability survey. Doesn't this make their rankings problematic and statistically invalid?
  - kbenson 6y ago
    As opposed to what? JD Powers seems to do the same. If you have a better survey with more rigorous standards that actually has enough data to by useful and comparable across many cars and years, I'm all ears. Here's what both Consumer Reports[1] and JD Powers say about how they collect their data. 1: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-selling/consumer-reports-automotive-ratings.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/buying-selling/consumer-repor... 2: https://www.jdpower.com/faq https://www.jdpower.com/faq
TylerE 6y ago
Amazingly a survey of initial quality measures initial quality.
gnopgnip 6y ago
The average age of cars on the road in the US is 11.8 years. So most cars survive well past 10 years.
ryathal 6y ago
This still helps you. Unless you expect a car that is constantly in the shop the first five years to magically stop needing work after that. Yes it's possible that some of the top cars switch places in the 5-10 range, but its very unlikely a bottom 5 car is going to eclipse a top 5 car. Most cars are also far more reliable now than you are thinking. Every big company makes cars now that routinely last 200k-300k miles, that takes more than 10 years of driving for most people.

FireBeyond 6y ago

And for several other manufacturers, the infotainment system is also the single largest source of problems, not "faulty brakes" or similar, so it's not like Tesla is being singled out here. > design issue in which everything works as intended but the learning curve might be too steep. It could be entirely argued that a design with a too steep learning curve, _especially when intended to be used in a moving vehicle_ is in actual fact a "design issue".

wlesieutre 6y ago
Though when you stuff everything except the engine and brakes into the infotainment system, it does put you in a worse spot when your infotainment system locks up. How many other cars do you need to learn a button combination on the steering wheel to reboot the infotainment screen when it crashes while driving, and then while it reboots your turn signals stop making sounds and you don't have a speedometer?
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Last time I drove a rental car I left the airport driving with only one figure on a burning hot steering wheel. There was no switch. It took me pulling over at a rest stop to break out the PAPER manual to learn how to disable to fire, which was a good thing because by that point my backside was also starting to cook. I'd call that a significant design flaw.
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    Tesla or something else? Every car I've seen with heated seats (admittedly small sample size) had a hardware button with amber indicator LEDs showing you what setting it's on, so I'd certainly agree with not having an obvious switch being problematic. Made even worse by apparently turning it on by default? Moving everything into hidden modal screens of the infotainment system is not a trend I'm excited about.
    - Wistar 6y ago

Alex3917 6y ago

Well it's dangerous if people are fiddling with their infotainment system while driving and it's poorly designed. How is that any better than having bad brakes?

core-questions 6y ago
It's honestly surprising it's legal to play with that while driving, but you can't use your phone.

kbuchanan 6y ago

And notice that all the "worst performers" are luxury brands. Is this not simply a matter of those who spend a lot also expect a lot?

kenhwang 6y ago
Could also be attributed to more cutting edge and complicated features expanding the surface area for more issues.
- kbuchanan 6y ago
  Friend of mine also pointed out that luxury cars are produced in much lower volumes, and thus their production processes are never as fully fine-tuned as a Camry, for example.
- melq 6y ago
  I'm a big fan of the old NPR show Car Talk, and one of the major lessons I've gleaned from it is don't buy something like a Maserati unless you have a burning desire to put your mechanic's children through college.

m463 6y ago

> Infotainment is the source of more than a quarter of all problems To be honest, all car infotainment systems suck, and have sucked since cars were invented. The stock systems had good ergonomics, but shitty features. The aftermarket systems had good features, but suffered from "presales" whizzy RGB design, with crappy button-itis after you got it home. Now there are basically no aftermarket systems available because of car all-in-one designs. The problem with Tesla is that their car looks like it has a big iPad in it and people judge it by the same standards. And Telsa probably has 1/10000 the staffing devoted to ios. That said, Tesla has definitely NOT listened to it's customers when it comes to the USB music system: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comprehensive-usb-bug-list.77775/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comprehensive-usb-bu... There are over 103 pages of comments on it sucking. why USB? It's the way to get lossless music playback for the $2.5k high fidelity sound some cars have. It's also always available and fast. I have not only music, but tons of downloaded podcasts. Personally, I think they should just put someone good on it and fix it. While they're at it, add skip-back and skip-forward buttons for spoken audio programs. Losing your place is a nightmare.

clouddrover 6y ago

> But to truly compare them, a more credible source of information is necessary. Here are some people's direct experiences of Tesla build quality: - Model Y quality at delivery: https://insideevs.com/features/433821/model-y-video-warns-not-buy-one/ https://insideevs.com/features/433821/model-y-video-warns-no... - Another Model Y quality discussion (they talk about it at the start of the video, don't need to watch the whole thing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMvBIPov67g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMvBIPov67g - Model 3 versus a puddle of water. The puddle wins: https://insideevs.com/news/433643/video-tesla-model-3-rear-bumpers-fly-off/ https://insideevs.com/news/433643/video-tesla-model-3-rear-b... The survey seems to match the reality.

xkjkls 6y ago

JD Power is the most respected survey in the business. It's pretty undeniable to argue that Tesla has more production issues than just about every other automaker on the planet. Elon's idea to increase Model 3 production, by... making things in a tent? has posed some pretty obviously predictable quality issues.