steve c

I have had 8 .. yes 8 reliablility surveys since purchasing our LR3. I put almost zero value in their "reports" given the way in which they collect data.

ttb

A lot of American apologists in here....

reliability isn't that big of a deal...broken window switches...you car still runs...give me a break...

is this your attidude with all your purchases? when you buy a TV do you care that in a year the volume control won't work anymore? Or do you dimiss it because you can still see the picture?

Not ALL American cars are junk, and not ALL Japanese cars are reliable....

But if we're dealing with averages, yes, American cars are pretty junky compared to their Japanese counterpart...especially their Honda counterpart

Forget about the surveys, data, studies, etc. for a minute. Ask yourself this question

When was the last time somebody said

"I'm going to start buying Ford because my last Honda was so unreliable"

versus

"I'm going to start buying Honda because my last Ford was so unreliable"

If Fords/GMs/Chrysler/BMW/Audis/MB/etc. are really so reliable compared to Honda why don't their marketing department come out with reliability ads, surely that would sell more cars....

Why don't you guys go work for Ford and make a commercial telling consumers how reliable Fords are...oh wait, you can't, because the vast majority of people know otherwise.

That's just stupid steve c. nobody has said the s2000 is the fastest car in the world...but it can be argued that Honda is the best manufactuer in the world....

* consistently rated the best environmet manufactuer
* consistently winning top honors (FWD and no V8 at that)
* consistently rated very reliable
* consistently praised for their quality

I'd like to see how anybody can argue that Ford is the best car manufactuer in the world...

steve c

This is a Honda board, what do you expect? But thanks for showing your bias and thus invalidating anything else you write on the matter. Kudos for doing that yourself.

Err Toyota (scion aside) maybe. Buy Honda? Have you looked at the number of recall/TSB's the S2000 alone has had?

And it can be argued that dead hookers are worth 10 bucks a pound. The best manufacturer in the world? Not based on sales. Not based on performance. Not based on reliability statistics. But sure, why not, Honda is the best there is.

Despite the fact that no one has said that -- they sell more cars. Here is a simple principle of business. I sell more than you, I make more than you. I win.

robotkiller

FWIW I personally admit my bias. Growing up in the eighties, my parents bought American cars. Without exception, everyone of them had poor reliability. When they switched to Japanese, those problems simply went away.


American cars may have magically closed that reliability gap, but frankly, I'm never going to gamble my money on them. I could not care less what other people's experiences are -- American cars will always be junk in my eyes. It ruins any desire to own them.


BTW, while the Mercedes' we have owned had fewer critical failures, all five of them have had numerous little electrical/mechanical gremlins--more so than even the American cars. As a result, I have a rather poor opinion of Mercedes reliability as well.

Legal Bill

So if we all already know that, then why do so many people here have to bring it up in this forum whenever we talk about a non-japanese car? I know it is only my opinion, but I just don't find the reliability "discussions" very interesting without some specific detail of a known, serious problem.

Legal Bill

I guess my point is that we already know about the reliability issues. I see as amny comments on that subject as I do performance. Maybe it annoys me because the reliability comments usually don't tell me anything I don't already know. Someone above discussed their POS Taurus. Not only do I know the Taurus has a bad reputation, I don't really care and would never own one and I am surprised that people on a sports car forum would talk about them in reference to the reliability of performance cars. I know the person above was just using the Taurus as an illustration the way I used the Camry. But I don't really care to spend a lot of time discussing either vehicle.

vroom

I'm with you, I'd think a performance car forum would place the whole reliability thing further down the list. But I think that's a Honda fan club thing. That and hp per liter while you're getting blown away by displacement like the Mustang thead desended into. In all honesty, most performance cars today are pretty darn reliable over the first 50K anyway, and judging by the way most folks here seem to flip cars, why would it even matter past that?

"But if we're dealing with averages, yes, American cars are pretty junky compared to their Japanese counterpart...especially their Honda counterpart"

Uhmm that would be

dcak

That is the funniest comment I've ever read on the internet.

Warren J. Dew

For my part, I cared about the reliability of the S2000 because it was going to be my daily driver. For a weekend car, spending several Saturdays working on the car may be almost as fun as spending several Saturdays driving it, but working on the car won't get me to my job.

The problem with getting statistical information is that most sources don't publish reliability data, and those that do may have methodology that doesn't match my needs. When I looked up Consumer Reports' data in December, it showed the S2000 as being more reliable than any other Honda, but its data are based on time, not mileage, so it was skewed by the fact that most S2000s are only driven on weekends. Plus it's based on surveys anyway, so fundamentally they're just asking a bunch of people their opinions, like I could. It was useful, since they ask a lot more people than I can, but it was also useful to come here and hear what some people had to say in detail, rather than just get it lumped into a single number.

I also differentiate between reliability - what percentage of the time the car is spending outside of the shop - and durability - how long the car will last. I haven't found any published durability data at all, so I have to rely on opinions and how many ten or twenty year old cars I see. My conclusion is that the makes that last the longest are not the same as the makes that spend the least time in the shop.

The bottom line is that I find discussion about reliability to be useful. In fact, extra opinions on reliability are more useful than extra opinions about performance. A given car will perform pretty much the same for all its drivers, so one or two opinions on performance may be enough, but maintenance problems vary from car to car, so getting a lot of opinions is more useful for reliability.

dcak

People who own Japanese cars love to cling to the reliability argument. Makes them feel warm and fuzzy. I also happen to feel like Japanese cars are more reliable. But I don't have any hard data telling me that, it's just a perception based on what everyone seems to think. And my S2000 has been great, so I'm inclined to blindly believe what I've always heard. But, as Steve said, you have to take reliability data with a huge grain of salt. If you really get to the details of any particular survey/analysis you'll probably find most of them flawed or skewed.
I personally don't like the styling of many American cars- that's why I don't buy them. But in the back of my mind, there is that reliability thing. I wish American cars looked nicer (to me) and I wish they were proven to be reliable. I'd much rather buy American (for whatever that means these days, with Toyotas being built in Kentucky).
I guess I'm just aimlessly ranting. But again, the dead hooker comment was hilarious.