Did we do this one already? (been out the country for a week)

BBC News

The reliability index is calculated according to how often a car needs to be repaired, and how expensive those repairs are.
Luxury cars may therefore fare worse in the table, as spare parts can be more expensive.

OP; my experience exactly having owned 3 Passats.

My Golf was a pile of poo. I missed one too many surf sessions because it constantly breaking down. My brother in law had similar problems with his, coupled with a terrible dealer service that meant he had to pay for many repairs.

Feeling quite pleased I recently bought a Honda Civic. It’s just a shame I don’t like driving the Honda that much and am thinking of selling it!

Owned 8 VW and one Audi.

Here’s a list of all the faults.

List complete.

Mates Audi is a constant source of woe for him but he loves it to bits despite the amount he spends keeping it on the road its only a few years old

Two Seat’s, two VW’s, two Audi’s and a Beemer.

I have owned non-German cars but never really liked driving them, except maybe for one Volvo. Having said that I have learned the hard way to always sell ’em as soon as they are out of warranty. The reputation for reliability is nonsense.

Had an Audi from new for 8 years, bar a new battery nothing. I will be sticking to Audi, VW for the time being.

That sudy confirms my ownership of a Touran.

And ours of a VAG engined Galaxy.

Meanwhile my 52 reg, 180k Mondeo, has asked for nothing more than consumables over the last 6 years.

The Golf we have in our possession has had one major problem (dmf/clutch – 2.5k repair) in 100k. The Fords and Vauxhalls I’ve had previously have been more reliable.

However, I get called “sir” and given free coffee and WiFi at the vw dealers; ford and vx made me feel like I was something they’d stepped in on the way to their “service” area.

Currently we’ve got a BMW, a Mercedes, a Ford and 5 Hondas (2 cars and 3 motorbikes) and we’ve had loads of others before Audi, Citroen, more Fords, Vauxhall, Fiat etc.

Overall the BMW and Mercedes are the worst for reliability (that’d be the Fords) but they lag a long way behind Honda in my experience. I was particularly unimpressed with the Mercedes and Audi dealers as well. The former were all style over substance (and massively expensive with it), the latter were just generally terrible.

Don’t BMW and German cars in general focus a lot on first owner experience to the detriment of later owners?

I seem to remember something about ownership costs being a hot measure but it is only based on the expected duration of first ownership. This means BMW do things like labelling their gearbox and differential fluids as ‘lifetime’ fluids with no scheduled replacement or service. They haven’t invented a super fluid, they just don’t want the first owner to pay the cost of replacement.

The fluids wear down just the same. Pics below of my rear diff and gearbox fluid when I changed them

This fluid should be a nice clean red fluid

hmm.

here’s my list of faults for my Mercedes. i’ve done 33,000 in it since new 2013………

hers my list for my last british car a new landrover XS 2010, from new as well.sold it at 26,000 miles

1. leaking windscreen (warranty -tried to fix and just made worse)
2. leaking bulkhead into passenger footwell (factory fitted as standard across the range) (warranty also failed to cure)
3. paint failure above rear passenger door, (resprayed under warranty.)
4. rust causing paint to peel off front bumper and side steps within two years.
5. roof rack as above.

i could now tell you about my swindon built Honda type R i had from new in 2002 but i would most likely loose the will to live. I sold that at 13,000 miles because i was so disappointed at the quality.

A mate used to waffle on about his Audi TT, ‘Vorsprung durch technik’ ‘Quality German engineering’ ‘Built by quality Germans’ etc, etc.

Until one day he was asked to open the bonnet & read the last line on the chassis plate…

‘Made In Hungary’

😆

Got to agree the Audi and VW garages couldn’t do enough to help you. Free refreshments too whilst you wait, lift somewhere and back if needed.

Last Ford I owned as shocking, one reason it was the last. I’ve got a little B max at work, nice enough, clever lay out but it’s still poor quality inside. I’ll stick with VAG for now as cheaper on the lease than Fords because they get little issues and they sell secondhand for more cash.

*molgrips to the forum please, paging molgrips*

Don’t BMW and German cars in general focus a lot on first owner experience to the detriment of later owners?

I’m with WCA on this one…some of the extended service things are bonkers.

My personal feeling is that they are inflating the price of new cars then making it more attractive to lease then allowing the false economy of not bothering to service via extended service intervals to sweeten the deal more..

I don’t think reliability after a year or two is on the manufactures radar any more they’d rather Sponser a celeb as cars are now just another accessory and image is king ….

The BMW gearbox with lifetime oil is actually a GM unit. In GM cars it needs oil changes.

Mind you, the a similar thing happens in the UK for company cars. The service interval on Vauxhall Vectras was 20,000 miles but in Europe it is 12,000

These days, the only real difference between modern cars is the badge on the bonnet! (ie, they all use the same components from the same Tier1 suppliers)

It’s however true that Jap cars can be more reliable in the long terms because they still have the most rigorous build processes, and because they don’t prioritise performance (ie, they are never class leading in terms of power or fuel economy), so things like turbo’s DMFs. transmissions are less heavily loaded.

There’s also the simple fact that the more expensive or “premium” a car, the more likely the owner is to complain and return their car to be fixed (ie, a small rattle on say a Toyota Aygo is likely to be ignored by the owner, a small rattle on a BMW 1 series is sent back to the dealer to be fixed………)

Very very reliable. Probably done 400,000 miles in various VW, BMW, Audi and Porsche with pretty much zero spending other than routine maintenance. I have had a similar experience with Toyota, Mitsubishi and Honda FWIW. All ages of cars from new to 10 years old.

Perhaps but how often do you get a genuine JDM model? My British built Civic with a Polish GM diesel running with German electronics (assembled god knows where) probably only has one Japanese part (the Enkei alloys I bought later).

And it’s been an expensive transition from 150k to 160k.

Yup I remember it being revealed once before that those with more expensive cars will pay for small items like bulbs to be done at a dealers. Also that they use dealers for major items so there’s more records of return. Where those with cheaper brands will buy small parts themselves, get their mate Dave as he knows about cars to do other parts or just ignore it as only cost £500 and its 2 years old after all.

Had a Touran for 8 years and 100k miles and wife has a Golf. Both have been utterly perfect. Had loads of BMWs prior to this. They were all great too.

Maybe I’ve just been ‘lucky’…… 😕

My ex-Golf had more faults than I can recall, I was on first name terms with the whole dealership it was in for repair work so often…..

I have not read this link but I wonder how much it is weighted against German cars, because more of them are going to be expensive car with more equippment to go wrong. And are Skoda considered German?

My car has had 2 issues that were entirely VW ‘s fault. The leak, and a camshaft position sensor.

As an aside, I didn’t buy it thinking about reliability, I bought it cos I liked it. And I still do.

The main dealer, Sinclair in Cardiff, are excellent though. The mechnics will come out and talk to you, which is great.

This threads shows brilliantly that no one owner can assess the reliability of a type of car

Interesting about the oil change nonsense

I’ve often wondered how the car industry would look if second an third owners had more say

Don’t BMW’s use ZF gearboxes, which are German and also used in GM cars? Interesting point on the difference in servicing requirements in different applications, though I’m not sure this is necessarily something that is driven by a pure engineering decision.

This is the problem with reliability. Survey’s like these are crude at best and ultimately its meaningless. There is a whole separate and dedicated arm of Engineering that deals with just reliability, so its an immensely complicated topic. With the vastly different numbers of cars sold and the different way they are used then you will see differences in reliability due to the different way cars are driven. For example a larger proportion of BMW’s might be fleet cars driven by people who don’t actually own the car and pay for any repairs or servicing, these people might be less likely to look after the car as they would if they were the owners. Or they might have a larger proportion of lady owners/drivers who tend to do a much larger proportion of shorter journey’s etc.

I’d imagine a lot of cars actually are pretty comparable in reliability all things being equal. Ultimately they share a lot of parts with other manufacturers anyway. My dad had an early TT that had issues with coil packs – which were Bosch and used in many other cars which also suffered issues with the same coil packs. So it seems a bit unfair to pin that bit of unreliability on Audi.

Precisely wobbliscot. Hondas are loved by old men in blue flat cotton caps who drive 15 miles a week at 22mph.

Don’t BMW and German cars in general focus a lot on first owner experience to the detriment of later owners?

There’s truth in this. Mate was going on the other week how when he took is nearly new VAG group car back for warranty fix they valeted it, gave him free coffee, papers, lunch & vouchers for a meal out in town just because they’re nice. He was over the moon. Happier than if the thing hadn’t broken down.

All of these nice things cost money. Money which you pay in a round about way. I’d rather they just made better cars or sold the same crap cheaper and cut the fluff.

The most reliable car I’ve ever owned was a Vauxhall. The least reliable was a Volvo, followed closely by a Nissan. Go figure as I’d say the Vauxhall was badly built with cheap parts but it worked flawlessly!

My only VW car (not counting current VAG Skoda) was bought second hand (I was 4th owner I think). Sure it needed some stuff done – brake lines, battery I think – but it was almost literally bomb proof – after I sold it, it caught fire and was still repaired to running. Some niggles like window leaks but running gear – it started and stopped always.

Two Saabs took quite a bit of looking after, on the other hand.

My local indy garage will always offer a lift back to home, and will collect you when car is ready.

Hmmm. I’m happy with my VAG-Spanish car.

258k miles (almost 12yrs old) with no major issues. Mainly wear and tear items that have been replaced. Air con compressor went at about 180k miles, which admittedly was £500 fitted. And it’s had some other fairly minor things replaced like the thermostat housing.

Still on original clutch & dmf, turbo, exhaust, injectors, fuel pump…..getting around 56mpg in the winter, up to over 60mpg in the summer months.

I’d have another, but would also consider something else like a Honda.

My forae into vw land was more costly than my land rover ownership. Piece of crap.

What really riled me was even the price of consumables was very noticably higher than that of my other cars…. And so were spare parts …… Then there was the poor design on vws behalf.

Made my french cars look ultra reliable 🙂 …..

There’s truth in this. Mate was going on the other week how when he took is nearly new VAG group car back for warranty fix they valeted it, gave him free coffee, papers, lunch & vouchers for a meal out in town just because they’re nice. He was over the moon. Happier than if the thing hadn’t broken down.

The types of people who buy these cars are the type that’d love that stuff. Make them feel all special and important; the same sort of feeling they get from driving a car with a VW badge on the front.

The types of people who buy these cars are the type that’d love that stuff. Make them feel all special and important; the same sort of feeling they get from driving a car with a VW badge on the front.

🙄

My stepdad only buys VAG. He pours scorn on me and my sister with our family car mondeos. My sister needed a new car, he said VW/Audi/skoda, she went for the nicely depreciated mondeo.

Stepdad and mother both think it is 1990 and VW are solid German built machines and ford is still churning out crap like the mk4 escort.

my ford is on 98k and has needed a battery and a handbrake cable in the 50k I’ve done in it. it also cost bugger all cause nobody wants them.

We laugh at him when he has another electrical fault or has to top up the oil in his golf. again.

Don’t BMW and German cars in general focus a lot on first owner experience to the detriment of later owners?

I seem to remember something about ownership costs being a hot measure but it is only based on the expected duration of first ownership. This means BMW do things like labelling their gearbox and differential fluids as ‘lifetime’ fluids with no scheduled replacement or service. They haven’t invented a super fluid, they just don’t want the first owner to pay the cost of replacement.

The fluids wear down just the same. Pics below of my rear diff and gearbox fluid when I changed them

This fluid should be a nice clean red fluid

Subaru make the first owner pay through the the nose for fluids so th car last properly, unfortunately this is to the detriment of their sales.

I’ve had loads of 80’s VW, they were great. I currently have an Audi and its complete s**t.

The BMW gearbox with lifetime oil is actually a GM unit. In GM cars it needs oil changes.

that was true 15 years ago, now (for a last 10 years) automatic gearboxes are from ZF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZF_6HP26_transmission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZF_6HP19_transmission

but again, ZF (manufacturer) is saying about oil change after 100kkm

The types of people who buy these cars are the type that’d love that stuff

Honestly, don’t talk such shit.

I bought a vag car because I preferred it out of the ones I tested. Actually I preferred the Honda but the cars available at the time were more than I wanted to pay.

I don’t give a shit about the badge, I had no idea VW were considered a badge anyone was snobby about until you lot informed me of my apparent badge snobbery. I don’t hang around with other middle aged men talking about their cars so I wouldn’t know.