The Chinese auto industry will bury us...

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Oerdin


That's one high quality Ford.

[alva]

15-20 years old European or Japanese cars can pass it too (if in good shape) and hence are still allowed to go on our roads.

I don't really have a problem with this, can't expect too much either though I do want new cars to be uphold to the most strict safety rules.

[Zopperoni]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid

Volvo is part of the Ford Motor company: http://www.ford.com/en/company/about/brands/default.htm

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
- TÃœV tests are about functionality and security of the car towards others (like: work the brakes? works the steering?). I am not sure if they even contain crash tests (may be, though)

They performed a crash test, but they also "casually mentioned" that they inserted an additional support bar

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Zopperoni
Volvo is part of the Ford Motor company: http://www.ford.com/en/company/about/brands/default.htm

Ok. I thought maybe he was just refering to the generic look of the car. Speaking of which, it's a shame most cars look the same nowadays.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by alva

15-20 years old European or Japanese cars can pass it too (if in good shape) and hence are still allowed to go on our roads.

I don't really have a problem with this, can't expect too much either though I do want new cars to be uphold to the most strict safety rules.

Then stick to the ADAC tests.

TÃœV tests are about permission of a vehicle for driving safely on public motorways; safely in the sense of not bringing others in danger. They are further in charge to watch over compliance with national and EU laws. If these laws aren't too restrictive wrt driver security (because older cars can't comply), TÃœV will not enforce a harder stance.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Bosh

The quality of Korean cars has been increasing quite quickly of late, they've won some awards for not breaking down often and being easy to maintain recently. Same goes for a lot of Korean industries, Samsung electronics used to be jokes that mostly just got sold to the local market and the third world but now they compare very nicely to what Japanese brands produce. I guess that's from realizing that they can't compete with the Chinese price-wise so they had to up the quality.

I think Hyundai in particular made a huge jump, placing in the top 5 in overall quality.

Toyota still owns the top 3.

[Q Classic]

Kia is owned by Hyundai.

[The Mad Viking]

2004 QUALITY RANKINGS
Company Problems per 100 vehicles
Toyota 101
Honda 102
Hyundai 102
BMW 116
Industry average 119
General Motors 120
DaimlerChrysler 123
Subaru 123
Ford 127
Mitsubishi 130
Volkswagen 141
Nissan 147
Suzuki 149
Kia 153
Porsche 159
Source: J.D. Power and Associates

•2004 rankings by nameplate

[Asher]

Initial quality means very little, it's long-term reliability that is usually suspect.

Kia and Hyundai's quality push hasn't been around long enough to evaluate long-term quality, but their 10-year warranty is comforting (though it's only 100,000 miles).

JD Power and Associate's long term rankings are cars still under warranty as well, and are just as useless.

[RGBVideo]

Asher -- could you give us a link to that site which you used to link when you were debating Oerdin a while ago? I'm not sure the data is accurate, but it sure had plenty of pretty colours.

[Asher]

http://www.autooninfo.net/

[Asher]

http://www.autooninfo.net/ReliabilityPercentranks.htm is the specific percentranks for long-term reliability for all of the makers, data is compiled from Consumer Reports.

This graph is fun: