http://www.autoblog.com/2007/08/09/b...cle-dependabi/

 

215 problems per 100 vehicles?....thats more than two problems with each car!....am I reading this wrong?

 

That's over 3 years, this study focuses on 2004 MY vehicles.

 

Good job, Buick. "Everybody" says Mercurys are just badge engineered Fords, so how did they make it to #4?

It's interesting that the bottom 10 are imports. Bad job, Porsche: as expensive as they are they should do better. What the heck happened with Land Rover?

 

My thoughts exactly. I would definately not have expected elite nameplates such as Porsche or Land Rover to be on the bottom of the list.

Well 9 of ten on the bottom 10 are imports that one GM (Saturn) made it into the bottom 10 .

 

The answer is obvious. Old people drive/buy Buicks, Lexuses, Caddies, and Mercurys. Old people don't drive their cars hard and are better about preventive maintenence. Modern cars are created nearly equal, owner demographics are what set these brands apart. This study should be entitled "Look, here is some useless information."

 

Exactly! I'm sterotyping here, but based on my observations, most Lincolns and Mercurys are driven by older drivers. In many cases these cars come off the same assembly line as their Ford counterparts. Therefore, there should be little if any difference in Ford vs Lincoln/Mercury quality.

Who drives Buicks and Oldsmobiles? From my observations, mostly older folks. (OK I did drive a 86GN back in 1986, and the quailty was so bad I swore I would never buy another GM product).

 

Not only do the older drivers play nicer with the cars, they are less likely to report a small problem to the dealer. If the car has a small rattle in the dash, they either may not hear it (hearing aid turned down) or they might say "my, this car is so much quieter than my last car... an '86 Chrysler New Yorker."

 

Oops, I overlooked Saturn. I don't know about the "old people" theory working all the time... In my experience, senior citizens seem to complain a lot more than younger people. But then again, maybe I just see all the crabby old people.

 

There's a theory over on BON that the Powerstroke diesel problems dragged Ford down. L-M doesn't sell anything with the PSD.

 

I also can never understand how there are that many problems on any car. In my history of owning cars.

out of my 3 cars that would have been under the dealer warrenty that i had i onyl had to bring it in for 1 problem.

so i only have had 1 problem for 3 vehichles.

How many of you have had to report problems to the dealer within the first 3 years of ownership?

 

I had problem with theft system on my Mustang in late 2003. But that's it.

No problems so far on F-150.

 

just to clarify the problem i had. around 30k miles on my 99 GT the differentail started to leak.

 

It also just depends on the car. My wifes old 05 F150 went back to the dealership like 6 times in less than a year and probably 10 times before we traded it in last year but that doesn't mean that all F150's had major problems the one we just had must have been low on the tolerance side on most specs (we are not even going to discuss all of them). My Camaro on the other hand went in twice over 5 year for repairs one leaking rear pinion seal and cat recall and I abuse the hell out of that thing. Does that mean all Camaros don't have problems? Obviously not just check the tech sections on a GM based forum there is just as many problems there as here or a viper forum or an import forum etc.

 

If Ford didn't have to include the millions of commercial vehicles(econoline/ 1/2 of the F150's, superduty, commercial rangers etc), they would probably bump Toyota. Honda is unfairly judged as they don't even have a truck line