Why do "luxury" cars have so many problems?

[LouDawg]

Seems I hear a lot about luxury and higher-end European cars with lots of quality problems. At least more than what I would consider the average daily driver. Am I wrong? For example, German cars, VW's, MB's, Jags, etc. with lots of electrical problems, oil consumption, and so forth. And American luxury cars too, like Cadillacs and Lincolns, seem to have more than their share of quality problems, as do other higher-end imports.

I'm a CR subscriber and many of these are rated consistently as average to well-below average. I know CR is only one source and I'm not saying they are the final word on quality, but I seem to hear it a lot on BITOG in the course of other discussions, too.

Just for example, here is some interesting info from the current CR ratings. Of these higher-end brands, here are the number of models CR "recommends" or has as a "best bet" versus all the models they've reviewed in each brand. (I made bold the ones I thought stood out or surprised me.)
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BMW: 4 of 8
Cadillac: 2 of 6
Hummer: 0 of 2
Jaguar: 0 of 4
Land Rover: 0 of 5
Lincoln: 2 of 6
Mercedes: 0 of 11
Porsche: 1 of 4
Saab: 2 of 4
VW: 0 of 7
Volvo: 2 of 7

(Amazingly, only 1 out of 31 of the models in bold were "recommended"! That fascinates me!)

In contrast, here are some others:
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Acura: 5 of 6
Audi: 4 of 7
Buick: 2 of 6
Chevy: 5 of 21
Chrysler: 1 of 7
Dodge: 1 of 12
Ford: 6 of 18
GMC: 1 of 10
Honda: 9 of 10
Hyundai: 4 of 9
Jeep: 1 of 6
Kia: 3 of 8
Lexus: 5 of 8
Mazda: 5 of 10
Mercury: 3 of 6
Mitsubishi: 2 of 7
Nissan: 5 of 12
Pontiac: 2 of 8
Saturn: 0 of 6
Subaru: 6 of 6
Suzuki: 0 of 6
Toyota: 13 of 16

If there IS something to it, why do the owners of these higher-end cars not seem to care? Are they willing to pay for cutting-edge technologies, high performance/luxury, and status at the expense of inordinately high maintenance costs? I'm not criticizing...I'm just curious.

Also, I'm not saying all of these cars are bad...it just seems they should be better-made than the average cars. But that doesn't seem to be the case, at least in my humble observations. Seems they should create MORE pleasure for their owners...not less.

 

[windnsea00]

Since there are a lot more gadgets, technology and new ideas put into a top of the line car they tend to suffer more than say a Saturn or Subaru which are not as cutting edge nor do they offer as many gadgets.

Generally new technologies seem to start at the $50K+ car crowd and slowly trickle down to the $~20k market over 5-10 years while becoming more reliable.

People who are buying $80k+ cars generally don't keep them out of warranty so a few glitches here and there isn't a big deal I would imagine. If I could afford cars in this market, I honestly wouldn't care about an issue here or there enough to sell my car and downgrade to a Corolla.

 

[The Critic]

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If there IS something to it, why do the owners of these higher-end cars not seem to care? Are they willing to pay for cutting-edge technologies, high performance/luxury, and status at the expense of inordinately high maintenance costs? I'm not criticizing...I'm just curious.

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It goes back to the point that I've been trying to make for years: service. The quality of a dealership service department has an extraordinary impact on the overall ownership experience.

Working professionals, especially those who can afford the higher end cars, do not mind spending an extra hundred bucks (or more) annually on service compared to those of lesser makes. Also consider that many of these luxury brands have excellent perks, amenities and service at the dealerships...loaner cars, shuttle, etc...all of the services that make it more convenient for the customer.

However, the most important part is the dealer's attitude toward customer satisfaction. From what I've heard and been told, for instance, Lexus dealers have an unprecedented commitment to customer service. They are willing to go the extra mile to keep the customer happy, even if it means a bit of a financial loss on their part, but in return for high marks on the corporate survey.

For one, I heard of one person who brought their near new GX470 in for a basic 30K service. The vehicle had a slight shimmy upon braking. The person got a loaner, and later received a call, new pads AND rotors were being installed FREE. Might you receive that kind of service at a GM dealership ???

If the problems are taken care of at the dealership without hassle, many customers are more willing to disregard small problems with the vehicle provided that they were promptly were corrected with minimal inconvenience and financial loss...that's a fact...and that's one of the reasons why some people do not "mind" owning a higher end vehicle.

 

[g20ooh]

You are aware that toyota is trying to duck yet another recall concerning brakes (tundra , sequoias ,gx470 , ) right ?

 

[BillionPa]

did they test handling performance?

 

[g20ooh]

Hello Lou Dawg ,


Almost offtopic ;

CR is at this point , at least somewhat suspect - in my book . ( Others will mention the more common refutations in the later AM I'm sure ).


One little sign of this is how well BMW outsells Lexus in Japan

For sure , there are lots of other reasons why a Japanese buyer would make that pick or anyone else for that matter , but the point is , you make junk for the JDM and you will be gone next week if not tomorrow , mid and high end of the market esp .( For many reasons , Lexus is only cutting it OUTSIDE of Europe , JDM and China ie pretty much NA as far as volume .



You will also want to remember it was a Lexus owner who got the Class Action Lawsuit ( Sludge Settlement ) going over here . Look closely how they all ( CR ETC ) are handling even just the basic reportage .

An old observation thats kinda revealing ;
About 12 - 20 years ago so and so ran an interesting analysis concerning Consumer Magazines/etc and their reliability data against an absolutely enormous pile of extended warranty claim denied and paid data - retroactively , if you follow . Not a perfect test by any means but it was real interesting .
Let me say it this way , it appeared to be systematic and one was clearly the worst .
Overstated large comes to mind as well .
Not saying why that was , but , it was there .

Doesn't mean they all don't have something to contribute , but it is somewhat problematic how to use them for any repeatable effect .
I don't want them to go away , just do better .

 

[H2GURU]

I think it is just simply mathematics. The more features you load on to a vehicle, the more chance of a simple connector failure on your auto-dimming mirror or some other nonsensical option that has been loaded on? The higher end manufacturer is constantly scrammbling to differentiate their hunk of iron from the next guys'. As a side note, I would venture a guess that many here would opt for basic transportation in at least one of the units in their stable!Time is the enemy of an optioned up vehicle - 96 Riviera - anti-skid BROKEN, traction control BROKEN, gas door won't open, CD player likes to reain CDs forever,power seats acting up and the list goes on.

 

[Ray Garlington]

Another issue is that Consumer Reports uses self-reported data, and the demographics for each make/model are not the same.

In other words, luxury cars are sold to a certain population whose expectations dont match up to the population who might buy a economy car.

 

[Kestas]

Car are built for new-car buyers. Buyers of new luxury cars typically keep the car only through the warranty period. They could care less about quality. In a way - the quality is guaranteed via warranty and is a moot point for these buyers. They just want their toys and gadgets.

What's interesting is that even though Mercedes is rated at the very bottom for 'quality', the owners still rate it high in 'satisfaction'.

Quality bites the new car owner when they turn their car in and find what the residual value is on their vehicle. But who worries about that when they buy a new car?

That's why manufacturers get away with poor quality on their luxury vehicles.

 

[Tornado Red]

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Car are built for new-car buyers. Buyers of new luxury cars typically keep the car only through the warranty period. They could care less about quality. In a way - the quality is guaranteed via warranty and is a moot point for these buyers. They just want their toys and gadgets....
That's why manufacturers get away with poor quality on their luxury vehicles.

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How do you define quality?

The point's already been made that cars will more features and gadgets will have more parts that fail. That's why some car buyers choose economy cars without power windows or doorlocks or ABS or stability control, etc.

But if you took two otherwise identical cars, loaded one up with every option but stripped the other down to the bare essentials, would you say the cheaper model was of higher quality just because there were fewer parts to fail?

Also, luxury car buyers expect every one of these features to work flawlessly 100% of the time. So they complain about glitches that the owners of low- or mid-price cars will never experience.

A better measure might be, what percentage of each model have to be towed to a dealership in year 1, year 2, year 3, etc.

 

[LouDawg]

I think all of the above are valid points. But I just have this perception, maybe unfairly, that luxury and high-end cars just aren't made as well, on balance, as so-called "good" mid-level cars. I have a theory that, like some above alluded to, that some of these makers know they have a captive, dedicated group of buyers. I suspect that many of these types of buyers are less concerned with PPM defects, tolerances, recall rates, etc. than they are with the name on the car and the perceived status and luxury elements. And yes, they probably do report problems differently than an average car buyer, so the data might be somewhat skewed.

But it seems many of the problems have to do not just with gadgets and add-ons. Many seem to be fundamental drive-train issues.

Just one example (granted from CR, but that's the most handy at the moment):

Mercedes-Benz S Class V8
Price: $85,000 - $180,000
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Ratings from '00 to '04:
They use a five-rating system.
5-Excellent
4-Very Good
3-Good
2-Fair
1-Poor
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Engine Minor: Fair to Poor 2 of 5 years, only "Good" other 3 years
Transmission: Fair or Poor 2 of 5 years, only "Good" other 3 years
Drive System: Fair or Poor 4 of 5 years
Electrical System: Poor all 5 years
Climate System: Fair or Poor 4 of 5 years
Suspension: Fair or Poor 4 of 5 years
Exhaust: Poor 2 of 5 years
Paint/Trim/Rust: Fair or Poor 2 of 5 years
Body Hardware: Fair 2 years, Poor 3 years
Power Equipment: Fair 3 years, Poor 2 years
Audio System: Poor all 5 years
Used Car Verdicts: 2 Fair, 2 Poor, 1 Good.

That's 60 possible ratings. Out of all of those, there were 3 "excellents", 2 "very goods", 11 "goods", 16 "fairs", and 28 "poors". Granted there were 5 categories that had no "fairs" or "poors". But even those had only 2 "excellents", and 10 "very goods" out of 25 possible. The other 13 were only rated as "good".
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Summary: 5 "excellents", 12 "very goods", 24 "goods", 16 "fairs", and 28 "poors".


This is just one example...I could go on. It may be somewhat subjective (depends on how subjective CR is), but when compared with others, that's pretty bad, folks. Not what I'd expect from such a highly-regarded automobile.

In the same five year period:
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The Honda Accord 4-cylinder had 60 "excellents", 20 "very goods", 2 "goods", 0 "fairs", and 3 "poors".
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The Toyota Camry 4-cylinder had 50 "excellents", 33 "very goods", 2 "goods", and 0 "fairs" or "poors".
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The Ford Taurus V6 had 13 "excellents", 36 "very goods", 29 "goods", 6 "fairs", and 1 "poor".
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The Chevy Impala V6 had 10 "excellents", 30 "very goods", 18 "goods", 8 "fairs", and 19 "poors".

 

[wileyE]

Dealer I bought my last new car from sells VW, Audi, Ford, and hyundai. Talkin with the service manager, guess which one has the least problems? The cheap korean car, and guess which model, the cheap Accent. It's so basic there's nothing to go wrong.

 

[Challenger71]

LouDawg, I tend to agree with most of your points. I would also like to add in that what others have echoed...simply that these vehicles are entirely over-engineered to the point where it all looks good on computer & paper but as is typical the real world results will always show their true colors. Problems will always arise when you have a laundry list of 'additional' features bolted on to your vehicle.

 

[LouDawg]

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LouDawg, I tend to agree with most of your points. I would also like to add in that what others have echoed...simply that these vehicles are entirely over-engineered to the point where it all looks good on computer & paper but as is typical the real world results will always show their true colors. Problems will always arise when you have a laundry list of 'additional' features bolted on to your vehicle.

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I agree that all the bells and whistles create more things that can and do go wrong. But some of these failures are on fundamental systems, like suspension, exhaust, and paint/trim/rust, etc. Those are the ones I have the hardest time understanding.

 

[JHZR2]

as far as proportionality goes... I wonder which cars have the most still on the road that were put into service, and whch have the highest proportionality of vehicles still registered with over 100k, 150k, 175k, 200k, etc.

Id venture to guess that if one looked at the proportionality over a long period of time, MB, BMW, Volvo, etc. would give the hondas and toyotas a run for their money... cost of purchase aside, these vehicles are going to different demographics and are proportionately as expensive to each... most things willcome out in the wash, and I'd bet that many of the horrible luxury brands actually would fare quite well...

Heck, >60% of the porsches ever built are still registered and on the road! Not bad for some schmuck, low quality, inferior luxury make...

JMH

 

[JHZR2]

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Might you receive that kind of service at a GM dealership ???

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In the realm of your post, you're right... but at a pseudo-GM dealership - SAAB - they were concerned enough about customer satisfaction to install my aux-in cable and reprogram the stereo system for me for free when I brought it in for the free 100 mile checkup... Maybe not free pads and rotors, but it was a nice gsture all the same. Maybe Lexus would have given me the cable for free too...

But I think that your points about dealerships and customer service also work the opposite way in the everyday joe car make quality arena... Many say domestics arent as bad as they are made out to be... others say they would never buy a domestically made car... But then again, many toyota and honda owners bring their cars into the dealerships for the 3750mi, 7500 mi, .., 15000 mile.., 30000 mile,.. service, all the mains and all the interstitial ones. At the main services, every 15k or so, they spend many hundreds of dollars without batting an eyelash at the price or what is being done - and their cars last. Meanwhile, they pipe up about little things while there, and they are caught/fixed by warranty and before they become major issues.

Meanwhile, people bring their cars into a domestic dealer once in a while, if ever, and think theyre being taken for a ripoff ride because the dealer tells them that their coolant is 5 years old and needs a flush, or their ATF need s afilter and fluid change. It is a completely different paradigm, domestic vs foreign standard cars - and I wonder which will end up lasting longer/being more reliable.

Now, what doesnt make sense in this analog is that while luxury cars might have more issues, generally as a result of fancier systems, or more complex electronics, gadgets, etc... owners also bring the car in and dont bat an eyelash at the repair -because either they dont own it, its under warranty, or theyre just too filthy rich anyway. they dont care about service and let the ealer have their way at whatever the cost - they trust the dealer like the toyota and honda owner.

So not all ads up... but in terms of actual bulk numbers, are luxury cars that much worse??? I can't say... but I can say that people that buy luxury cars and read consumer reports generally arent the standard demographic... they are less able to afford the vehicles, and so are more likely to pipe up... So, Id venture to guess that there is some shift due to a sample of primarily the outliers of the luxury segment set.

JMH

 

[LouDawg]

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as far as proportionality goes... I wonder which cars have the most still on the road that were put into service, and whch have the highest proportionality of vehicles still registered with over 100k, 150k, 175k, 200k, etc.

Id venture to guess that if one looked at the proportionality over a long period of time, MB, BMW, Volvo, etc. would give the hondas and toyotas a run for their money... cost of purchase aside, these vehicles are going to different demographics and are proportionately as expensive to each... most things willcome out in the wash, and I'd bet that many of the horrible luxury brands actually would fare quite well...

Heck, >60% of the porsches ever built are still registered and on the road! Not bad for some schmuck, low quality, inferior luxury make...

JMH

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Well, I didn't use the word "schmuck", "inferior", or "horrible". I'm simply trying to separate fact from fiction, perception from reality.

As to how many are still on the road, I'm not sure that's an apples to apples comparison. Heck, if you have a Porsche, BMW, MB, etc., you don't just #@$%!-can them when they start having lots of problems. There is and will always be a market for these types of cars. Doesn't matter what condition they are in or how much it's going to cost to repair it, someone out this is going to buy it and fix it up, just by virtue of the fact it's a collector-type car.

Conversely, if you have a 96 Taurus with 175K miles on it and it needs $5000 worth of repairs to get it up to good operating condition again, why bother? The car isn't worth $1200 anyway, so it's going to be sold for scrap, junk, whatever.

So to say that many of these luxury cars are still on the road isn't really the most accurate way of comparing. How much did it cost in maintenance and repairs to get that Porsche to 150K miles?

Mine is really just a question of design and build quality, and long-term reliability. Notwithstanding the different demographics, they just seem to have more quality problems than I would think they should based on price and image.

 

[Win]

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Seems I hear a lot about luxury and higher-end European cars with lots of quality problems.

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Who are you hearing this from? The people that actually buy and own them, or bird cage liner like Consumer Reports?

I've had exactly the same number of problems with my "luxury" gadget laden Jaguar as I have had with my bare bones S-10 and my GTO, and that number would be zero.

The worst, most unreliable, car I ever owned was a Honda. It had nothing to do with gadgets or luxury, because it had none; it had everything to do with the low quality materials and poor design and workmanship, which it had in abundance.

 

[windnsea00]

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Seems I hear a lot about luxury and higher-end European cars with lots of quality problems.

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It had nothing to do with gadgets or luxury, because it had none; it had everything to do with the low quality materials and poor design and workmanship, which it had in abundance.

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I don't personally care for Japanese cars for that reason, they feel very cheap in the materials used throughout the car. Also the materials wear quicker for that reason. Unfortunately if you hop into the new 3 or 5-series, it feels like a Japanese car. A lot of my BMW buddies or even German car people are also disappointed in the way BMW went materials wise in their newest cars.

 

[JHZR2]

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It had nothing to do with gadgets or luxury, because it had none; it had everything to do with the low quality materials and poor design and workmanship, which it had in abundance.

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I don't personally care for Japanese cars for that reason, they feel very cheap in the materials used throughout the car. Also the materials wear quicker for that reason. Unfortunately if you hop into the new 3 or 5-series, it feels like a Japanese car. A lot of my BMW buddies or even German car people are also disappointed in the way BMW went materials wise in their newest cars.

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Ive noted the whole Honda issue many times - w.r.t. the rubber materials used in our 94 integra vs out 94 toyota... the toyota got rubber components made for the long haul, the integra got bargain basement rubber components that have oxidized and broken down severely in no time, anything from trim to gaskets to suspension rubber... and this is amongst two JAPANESE cars no less, one "luxury" branded, the other an everyday make. So I hear you there.

Interesting comments about the changes that BMW has made... I havent been in the latest 3-series or 5-series.

I was disapointed at lexus, not because their cars did not feel top notch or super well put together, but because you have to be in the stereotypical Asian body size (i.e. short and skinny), my 6ft4 athletic carcass couldnt find the utility of the IS cabin (other than good legroom, but it was an AT - put a third pedal in there and it is inaccessible). I felt like Lexuses were not designed to have proper utility of interior space, the way the equivalent euro cars do... this disapointed me... considering that their biggest market segment is the oversized, fat so-and-so, diabetes on the doorstep (or so they say) NA market... And Im just tall - not obese.

JMH