Did you really expect a $100K plus car to be as reliable as a honda? I mean, my expectation of any highly complex low-volume product is that I'm going to hit a

Did you really expect a $100K plus car to be as reliable as a honda? I mean, my expectation of any highly complex low-volume product is that I'm going to hit a lot more bugs than with a similar high volume product, no matter how much care was put in by the manufacturer. But actually, I think BMW is an illustrative example. They spend dramatically more on advertising per-unit sold than Honda does, they have a dramatically worse reputation for reliability than Honda, and yet I believe they maintain a higher profit margin on a much lower volume vs. Honda. Honda, here, has the "feature" of reliability; this is a big thing for nearly everyone, and it takes a /lot/ of marketing dollars to make people choose to pay more for a product that lacks that particular feature. So yeah, if you can get rich people to pay extra for nothing more than good marketing, hey, more power to you. But, without continual and consistent marketing outlays, someone else will come along with a better, cheaper product, and unless you can outspend them, Honda will eat your lunch.