Sometimes I wonder about my results...

[macarose]

As many of you know, I write about used cars for a living. One of my recent projects has been this study on the long-term quality of used cars.

http://tradeinqualityindex.com/

In a perfect world where everyone maintains their cars to OEM specs, this type of study would probably have limited relevance. Nearly any powertrain these days can be maintained past 200,000 miles. Most folks out there don't even bother keeping a vehicle that long.

What concerns me right now is that I'm starting to see some major issues with vehicles have CVT transmissions. I knew it would be an issue early on given that several of the CVT equipped models that were belt driven during the mid-2000s were downright horrific in terms of reliability.

But over the past year and change I have been seeing some new ripples in the data. CVTs that aren't designed for periodic maintenance are failing like locusts stuck in the Sahara. I can write a tome on all the defective transmissions I have seen over the years as an auctioneer and car dealer. But what concerns me now is that we seem to be lowly sliding backward into an era where vehicles are intentionally designed for an early onset of planned obsolescence.

What are your thoughts? I really wouldn't mind some brainstorming on this. Hope all is well out there, and thanks for reading this meandering thought at one of the few places I know that can withstand it without devolving into a flaming death spiral.

All the best!

Steve Lang

 

[Oil Changer]

I like to keep my wife in a new vehicle. I lease. CVT fails, they fix it on their dime. Lease is up, trade it in, old trans not my problem. Begin anew.

Me? I drive an older vehicle and maintain it myself. Works well for me.

 

[demarpaint]

Subscribed. I agree with your comments about CVT transmissions, and planned obsolescence. I had some other thoughts to contribute but.....Out of respect I deleted my initial comments, for fear of turning this into a death spiral.

 

[Tegger]

Originally Posted By: macarose
I can write a tome on all the defective transmissions I have seen over the years as an auctioneer and car dealer.

Skip the tome and give us bullet-points. Care to divulge the (recent) miscreants? We're in the market for another new car -- which will likely come with a CVT -- and desire to avoid continuously-variable money-pits.

 

[macarose]

Nissan's reliability is starting to deteriorate, as is Infiniti. The Dodge Caliber is becoming a basket case and many of the orphan cars such as the Saturn VUE and Ford Freestyle are becoming veritable dead zones.

A lot of individual models from other manufacturers are going straight down that pipe. Feel free to click around the site. We have specifically separated engine and transmission issues so that folks can have a firm pulse on their longevity and defect rate.

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: macarose
But what concerns me now is that we seem to be lowly sliding backward into an era where vehicles are intentionally designed for an early onset of planned obsolescence.




I've been noticing this for at least a decade now, and in the past 5 years it is more glaring than ever. Plus the manufacturers have the unmitigated gall to increase pricing by huge amounts that don't jive with the rate of inflation. More pure corporate greed.


Somebody else mentioned that the new vehicle market is too competitive to build in early obsolescence....not if ALL of the manufacturers are going in the same direction.

 

[fdcg27]

There is a reason that some of us avoided buying CVTs.
I bought a new '12 Accord rather than a '13 to avoid both the CVT and the DI.
The CVT is a mechnically simple assembly, far more so than any conventional automatic.
It has fewer failure points, so these should easily be indentified and fixed.
I doubt that any manufacturer is intentionally designing any major mechanical element of any vehicle for early failure.
I expect that the early failures that we've seen with some CVT designs will be identified and addressed.
The new vehicle market is simply too competitive for any maker to build vehicles designed to fail.
Reman CVTs should also eventually be fairly cheap as compared to reman conventional automatics, since there just isn't that much to break that would need replacement.
I wanted to avoid a CVT simply because I saw little benefit in being an early adopter and much potential risk.
The early adopters were the beta testers and many of these transmissions have now come into use.
Their service record will identify the problems and these transmissions will mature into reliable and durable designs.
A CVT is potentially more durable and more reliable than any conventional automatic. It's not a new idea, either. DAF cars had these transmissions back in the mid sixties.

 

[macarose]

Interesting about your Accord experience. I have a dealership, but back in mid-2013 I thought about the fact that I could buy what would have been the last brand new $15,000 Accord.

The local Honda dealership had two Accords that had been sitting forever. Both with five-speeds. One for 11 months, and the other for nearly 19 months.

They were both advertised online for $17,300. It just so happened that I always register my wife's cars under her name and that both her prior daily drivers, an 03 and an 06 Civic Hybrid, were given $1000 and $1500 Honda rebates respectively due to their IMA battery and fuel economy issues.

Long story short, I could have bought one of those units for $14,800, and since I don't pay any tax and have a dealer license, I would have been able to get that one out the door for that price.

Lo and behold, I decided to advertise the good deal at a site I used to write for, and the new car sales manager returned the favor by raising the price $1600. I pulled the links and never communicated with them again.

About six months later, CarMax had a 2012 Accord with 7800 miles and a 5-speed at their auction. It sold for $10,000 even.

Goes to show you, sometimes it's good to not pull the trigger.

 

[Traction]

I've come to love the CVT in my 07 Camry Hybrid. Infinite gear ratios, and so smooth. Great, no clunking/harsh shifting. Sure, it took some getting used to something new, but, WOW, 180,000 miles, no fluid change even, and the car feels the same as new. Original brake pads are not even half worn yet either. Hate to say it, but it is really a amazing dull car.

 

[fdcg27]

Wow!
10K for an almost new stick Accord.
Someone got an awfully good buy on a car good for well over 200K miles.
Would like to have been the buyer.
I'd tell people that I'd really wanted a Smart but couldn't afford one.

 

[JerryBob]

Glad I have a MT on my truck. I think I dodged a bullet with my wife's Odyssey. No transmission problems in 12 years and 80k miles.

 

[philipp10]

Originally Posted By: JerryBob
Glad I have a MT on my truck. I think I dodged a bullet with my wife's Odyssey. No transmission problems in 12 years and 80k miles.


Dodged a bullet on a car with just 80k miles? I would think a Yugo could do that....lol

 

[philipp10]

So where are you getting this data from? Is it self reported?

 

[sicko]

As I understand it, the early CVTs were a nightmare. But it sounds like modern CVTs are significantly more reliable. However, it could just be that they're still new enough for there not to be significant information on how well they'll age.

 

[01rangerxl]

I don't think it's even planned obsolescence, but more of finding the cheapest way to give the initial customer what focus groups and such indicate they want.

Mr. Average dumb consumer wants non-stop entertainment, comfort, bling, fuel economy, and maybe a loose sense of reliability. They couldn't care less about an easy to service or even a bulletproof transmission. As long as it fails after their ownership is up, they don't care, and are probably hardly aware of the fact that their car has a transmission anyway.

First impressions/emotions sell cars more than anything else. That's why stupid flip out key fobs that cost $200 to replace are so common now. It really does nothing but create headaches to have these stupid, complex keys, but consumers demand them because "shiny light up things."

I think VERY few people really care that much about reliability/true low hassle ownership. The extent of them considering reliability is "well my friend said Hondas are reliable and one time his brother had a Honda and it ran forever...ooohhh, shiny flip out key with buttons, where do I sign?"

I hate it too that cars are disposable, but it's hard to blame the manufacturers for this anymore. People have willfully become so dumb when it comes to mechanical things (at least in the US), that they just don't care about things like a transmission drain plug, or designing a major component to last indefinitely. They care about the screen on the dash, the key fob, the stupid LEDs all over the front bumper, etc... They don't even know what a CVT is, and when it takes a dump, they are tired of the car anyway.

 

[philipp10]

I don't buy that people don't care about reliability. There is a reason Toyota and Honda gained so much market share. And I doubt the Honda Accord CVT will be a nightmare, I just cannot see Honda risking their dominance in the 4 door sedan market by putting in a transmission that is un-reliable. Time will tell.

 

[01rangerxl]

They care about it when it directly [censored] up their day. They care about it a whole lot then. But when it comes to signing on the paperwork? Most don't. I work in a dealer, I see how the average customers act and rationalize things...relaibility is not a concern until the car is coming in on a rollback.

Back when Toyota and Honda got their foothold, cars were not rolling entertainment centers. Times have changed, a lot. Reliability was much more important in the 1980s and 1990s, but it wasn't taken for granted back then either.

As for Honda, they roll the dice like everyone else. They have put a lot of money into warranty repairs on my dad's Civic Hybrid...most of it in the transmission. 2nd trans, 2nd start clutch burnishing, trans still shudders violently, and the car hasn't hit 100K miles yet. The Accord has had notoriously unreliable transmissions in the past too.

 

[cjcride]

Watched a car show about a month ago and the CVT topic came up. The guest was a well established mechanic in Toronto and he said the CVT had a lot of trouble at first but they are getting better.

It is a new concept and will have some teething troubles, yet it seems to make good sense in theory.
Personally I would avoid them for a few more years till they iron out the bugs.

 

[JerryBob]

Originally Posted By: philipp10
Originally Posted By: JerryBob
Glad I have a MT on my truck. I think I dodged a bullet with my wife's Odyssey. No transmission problems in 12 years and 80k miles.


Dodged a bullet on a car with just 80k miles? I would think a Yugo could do that....lol



You don't know much about Honda transmission problems of that era. You were lucky to get 30k.

 

[doitmyself]

Originally Posted By: macarose
As many of you know, I write about used cars for a living. One of my recent projects has been this study on the long-term quality of used cars.

http://tradeinqualityindex.com/................

What concerns me right now is that I'm starting to see some major issues with vehicles have CVT transmissions. I knew it would be an issue early on given that several of the CVT equipped models that were belt driven during the mid-2000s were downright horrific in terms of reliability.

But over the past year and change I have been seeing some new ripples in the data. CVTs that aren't designed for periodic maintenance are failing like locusts stuck in the Sahara. I can write a tome on all the defective transmissions I have seen over the years as an auctioneer and car dealer. But what concerns me now is that we seem to be lowly sliding backward into an era where vehicles are intentionally designed for an early onset of planned obsolescence.

What are your thoughts? I really wouldn't mind some brainstorming on this. Hope all is well out there, and thanks for reading this meandering thought at one of the few places I know that can withstand it without devolving into a flaming death spiral.

All the best!
Steve Lang


Steve, I went to your site and compared 2 vehicles that are nearly identical, except they have different sheet metal covering the working parts. Some of their reliability ratings seemed to be statistically different, which raised red flags for me. Why would the exact same engine have different reliability in two similar vehicles?

With your data collection method of using "professional car buyers", how did you eliminate the bias and variables that plague the consumer survey based results? We all know the "garbage in = garbage out" phrase regarding good research.

FYI, reliability is one of my highest priorities when car buying, especially the important things: drive train,etc.. My last 3 short wheelbase 4 Cyl. Caravans were very reliable and 2 years ago I bought a Jeep Patriot, lord forbid, expecting it to be reliable (6 speed auto, not CVT). For me, this supports your site quote ""Our findings show that you can still hit em' where they ain't by buying an unpopular car that is surprisingly reliable. Also, we have found that some popular vehicles are truly abysmal when it comes to long-term quality."