The Most and Least Expensive Cars to Maintain
yourmechanic.com
yourmechanic.com
Yes! I have had this idea floating in my head for a while now. At some point opening a can of soda I experienced this wave of humility. Sitting there mindlessly drinking sugar water for the zillionth time and finally realizing the achievement of engineering necessary for that mundane experience. The aluminum is recycled. It's a continuous cycle that obviates the need to clean glassware. Later I learned about the design of the pull tab mechanism. It's pretty sophisticated. It's specifically designed to have two operating states. You usually experience them when opening a can of soda if you're paying attention. It replaced the removable tab that caused littering and slightly sub-optimal recycling efficiency. It's a very subtle design change that likely required massive overhauls in manufacturing equipment.
Hats off to Toyota. We're still driving our Prius 12 years after buying it, it's been a great car.
Valves slapping piston is generally only a worry with an interference engine design.[1]
This is not what Toyota does. VW does this[1]. Tesla does this[2]. But not Toyota [3].
Watch those videos. Which ones are full of robots and computers? Which ones are all manual labor? My tone should give it away.
The Toyota Production System link you cite was heavily developed by Taiichi Ohno. You can learn more in his 1978 book: "Toyota Production System". There's a whole chapter on procurement. Taiichi san's very, very strong belief is:
When purchasing new equipment, we must consider buying the
minimum capable of meeting our requirements. Reliability and
ease of maintenance should be considered before features.
Bells and whistles can often be added later if the need
arises. We want to avoid buying features "just in case." We
must consider up-time, utilization and quality factors when
making equipment choices.
Design emphasis is very conservative. Material choice is very conservative. You will not find innovation. You will find reliability. You will find simplification. You will find repeatability. As far as risk goes, Toyota is the bond market of the automotive industry.
They make a vehicle in nearly every category. It is a standout in none of them. The engines are bulkier. They are less fuel efficient. They underperform in nearly every metric. They are costly for their performance specs. But they last.
The interesting thing about their production line system is how much is focused on the people on the line rather than automating the process on the line. It's the YC version of "Talk to your users" - except applied to workers on the line. Most companies try to automate this step out. Toyota does remove their workers - but only to get more training. This English translation[4] of a Le Monde artice from a few years ago goes into extensive detail about the "Takumi" system of training master craftsmen.
Toyota gets a lot of deserved credit for making great products - how they make those products is frequently misunderstood - famously so by Detroit in the '80's. Their process is counter-intuitive and worth a study. I recommend starting with Taiichi's book mentioned above.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlIyDhss4Cg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXaBto7giY
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5RlapdEtE
[4] http://www.worldcrunch.com/tech-science/takumi-toyota-039-s-...
[5] http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/08/18/face-aux-r...
There is an great podcast episode by This American Life about NUMMI, the joint venture between Toyota and GM in 1984. Very well worth the listen: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/561/n...
Both would seem to be relatively trivial issues to fix. After all, many other manufacturers have done that.
In today's world the brands resemble each other a lot, and are in fierce competition about some percentage points of fuel consumption, to the point of cheating. But most of the things that are mentioned in the advertisements or reviews don't matter if the seat is slightly uncomfortable, or you have to bend your knees a little bit more, or your shoe scratches the foot space ceiling if you're not careful. Indeed, a cramped car can scuff your leather shoe. How is it not possible to find a few centimeters more in a vehicle that's 4 meters long? It makes me feel they are either incompetent or just don't plain care. Compare that to something like even eighties-nineties vintage Volkswagen Golfs. They are not big cars, but I wouldn't even keep the driver's seat all the way back - they had excess space. Bliss. Every car has it's assortment of design mistakes, you just get to choose what they are. It's a bit counter intuitive considering how many billions are spent per model, but I guess the designers still have a self centered approach.
As a consumer, I consider all of those qualities to be valuable forms of innovation. Techno-innovation for novelty's sake does not provide real value but it makes for great marketing. I'll keep my boring Toyota because it is superior to others in many innovative ways.
Except perhaps the Prius? It is a jalopy for sure, but did the hybrid very well, when most hybrids were done very poorly.
I only take new-ish cars to a third party if I need something the dealership doesn't specialize in (body work, tires, etc.). I'm not that price-sensitive about service, and I like the dealership experience (nice new loaner cars, all the parts are on hand, etc.). So I'd wonder what it is that drives people to Your Mechanic, and if that affects the volume and type of problems they see. For example, maybe people are more likely to use them if they have just received a large estimate for a major problem from the dealer. Or people who are more price sensitive go there, which might skew the mix of models they see. And so on.
While this is interesting data, I have a hard time considering it representative of reliability as a whole without some additional context.
This is a different data source: they only check if the care is safe, i.e. cosmetic issues won't show up in the statistic. They also won't see cars that are actually broken. Also consider the skew by owners who care more about their car.
But overall, it might still be fair to extrapolate from fundamental safety issues to overall car quality. The numbers are quite different from what Your Mechanic reports.
It is required every 2nd year starting from when the car is 4 years old. Most car manufacturers will do this as part of the standard service interval anyway.
I know the only reason I sometimes go to dealerships for maintanence is consistence. A bad mechanic is bad.
Take the section "Brands most likely not to start", and you see Mercury at the top. Strange, they only have a couple of models I wonder which it is? So you look at the section "Models most likely not to start", and no Mercury model is even listed. Instead Hyundai is at the top and it wasn't even on the first chart.
They seem to really love throwing Mercury under the bus with comments about how the company closed doors (had nothing to do with reliability, people today just don't want 20mpg vehicles) and never mind the several million mercury taxi cabs. And at least with the Grand Marquis, it is nearly bullet proof. Its design has changed very little over the last 20 years and the 4.6L engine will run 400k miles as long as you change the oil. And when something does go wrong, most parts are cheap and easy to replace.
And the "Brands that cost the most to maintain" section can be deceiving. For instance Honda is at the bottom making it sound like a good deal. Yet most all Hondas (and most Asian cars) use a timing belt instead of a chain: http://yourcarangel.com/2015/06/honda-timing-belt-timing-cha... That has to be changed every 50K miles because the risk of it snapping is much higher after that. And if it does snap, you could very well be looking at needing a new top half of your motor. I refuse to buy any car that has a belt instead of a chain. The only advantage is it saves some noise and a little bit of gas. But the disadvantages far out way that.
Anyway, I also wonder if people who prefer certain makes or models are more likely to do their own work, also skewing their reliability data.
Land Rover. Notoriously bad dealerships, also very expensive (dubbed 'stealerships' on LR forums). Masses of electronics including air suspension in the 90s when it was not common on European cars leading to all sorts o f problems down the line.
And most owners buy them with the intention of maintaining them themselves.
A 3rd party garage won't ever see them either, because so much of the car can only be worked on by LR. My local garage turned me away in spring!
The transmission is on me. I drove it like I stole it for ten years before I needed one. It's an essentially underpowered truck but it goes like stink off the line. I was in the traffic hell that was Dallas.
I bought , of course, another Frontier. It has two or three disappointments ( no torque in top gear @ 55 MPH ( so push the overdrive disable, duh!) ; a bad tint job; mileage not correlated with ... activity ).
I expect it to outlast me. I think I'd have to go with a Cadillac type car to find something more comfortable on the freeway ( but it's not quiet by any stretch).
In that span, we probably went through three (really two) cars for my wife. She's settled on a '03 Ford Escape which seems to avoid the reaper so far. But it's needed expensive repairs. We love it anyway, even though it tried to kill me one time ( a piece of plastic in the inexplicably convoluted throttle arrangement broke, and the throttle body went wide open. No problem; I managed to use neutral and the key switch to get it safely grounded before calling a tow truck. But geez, Ford... four throttle cables ?)
The escape issues with the cable is widely know. I avoid them.
But one thing is that the parts of the hybrid system are different than normal gas cars. The transmission is probably different, and the gas engines are smaller. So most independent shops don't really have experience working on those hybrid-specific parts.
Another thing is that the HV batteries don't last forever, and are expensive to replace. And the warranties don't always cover the average life of a battery.
The third thing is that hybrid battery is high voltage. So most shops won't want to do any repairs that will touch the HV electrical system.
You can find independent mechanics that work on hybrids, hybrid car repair just require a little more specialization than other cars.
Owned and operated various auto repair shops. Including on site repairs similar to YM.
Worked as an auto technician across brands.
Have a degree in auto repair.
Worked as a shop manager at a national repair shop.
Worked in commercial, retail and wholesale auto parts sales.
In all I have about 20 years of experience. Without mentioning my experience modifying and tuning cars because its not relevant.
“In order to estimate annual maintenance costs, we found the amount spent on every two oil changes (as oil changes are generally done every six months).”
The oil change interval on a BMW 328i (F30, the current model) is 10000 miles or 1 year, whichever comes first. For the model from ten years ago (E90), it's as indicated by the engine (with a starting interval of 30000 km, ~18000 miles) or every two years[0]. Hence, the total cost for oil changes will be a lot lower than estimated, and the actual repairs needed in that interval do not make up for that.
[0] http://workshop-manuals.com/bmw/3_series_e90/328i_n51_sal/1_...
But the car with the lowest maintenance cost- the Toyota Prius, which had the full gas engine system PLUS an electric battery+motor, and the complexities managing the two together. Truly remarkable. Toyota should be really proud.
It's all about performance relative to peak load! A power supply, like the one in your computer, performs much better over a longer life when it never crosses 80% peak load than one that is constantly above 80%.
Wut.
Prius also gets a double bonus in that Toyota is oriented around selling low cost of ownership cars; higher upfront cost offset by lower maintenance costs and higher resale value. And because the Prius was their first hybrid vehicle they put extra effort to nail down the design.
Atkinson drive: very efficient, but over a narrow speed and output range. Mechanical gear train: Inefficiencies in the high nineties. But gear ratios are fixed. Electric drive train: Not as efficient as a mechanical gear trains, but is efficient over a very wide speed range.
Add those up and you have a high efficiency mechanical power path through the planetary gear. And you use the electric power path to divert enough power from the engine to keep it running at it's most efficient. Because you have the electric power path you can cycle energy to and from the battery. Which gives you regenerative breaking, and allows you to stop the engine completely when you don't need power.
Genius!
I do believe that, while Toyota should be commended on its engineering, the electric motor is actually beneficial to reduce wear and tear on the most expensive parts. This seems to be supported by the fact that are many other Toyota models in the low maintenance list, but only the Prius at the top.
The prius is pretty mature now too. And the "synergy" system is licensed to third parties. Nissan uses it on their hybrid models.
Disclaimer: Nissan Leaf owner. I am not expecting high maintenance bills either. The only thing that worries me is the weight of the vehicle and the crappy OEM tires it comes with.
You have options for non-oem battery packs that are less expensive, but you are going to have problems finding an independent shop who will work on it. Dealers won't work with non-oem parts, and most shops won't want to work on the HV electrical system in your hybrid. I haven't found a local independent shop who will work on the hybrid systems. You can do some work yourself, the companies that sell non-oem battery packs will tell you that you can. But you should definitely be comfortable working with HV electrical systems if you want to do it yourself.
Some independent shops will work on hybrid systems, I found a mechanic with a great reputation that I'm really happy with. He was literally half the price of some of the dealer quotes. But he's in an entirely different state. Independent shops that specialize in hybrids are hard to find.
Plus there are other systems involved with the hybrid, like the transmission, that I would assume would usually be a dealer repair. So I'm assuming this list isn't including the costs to repair the hybrid systems. I think those will usually be dealer repairs.
I guess, though, when I think about the common repairs that car owners experience, "Engine Failure" is rarely one of them, so maybe that's one of the core reasons that having two engines doesn't affect things much, but the battery, which is a part that has a guaranteed wear associated scared me quite a bit.
Impressive for Toyota, for sure.
The design of the car places an upper boundary on reliability. Whether or not you hit that upper boundary is up to your manufacturing line.
As a Prius owner, I am also amused by the oft-repeated Tesla claim of 'All electric! Simpler system! Fewer repairs!' - given the many production defects they seem to have.
Those are not mutually exclusive. You can have fewer parts and a simpler system and yet a high number of failures. That just means they need to improve the manufacturing.
Another way to look at is: your Prius is not much more complicated than a "normal" car, as the EV portion adds so few parts ;)
And that's assuming Tesla really does have that many defects to begin with. Much like their accidents, could be biased reporting.
When talking about reliability, I don't care if it's reliable because it uses an ICE, or because it runs on rainbows and unicorn dust. I just care that it's reliable!
In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they're not.
But sure, the toyota hybrid is an impressive piece of engineering.
Why don't American manufacturers work to improve their reliability? People really are buying Toyota/Honda/Mazda for that reason. And while Kia might be unreliable as all heck, they come with the best included warranty available[0].
American vehicles actually cost more too in many cases, so you're paying for the "privilege" of getting a less reliable vehicle.
[0] http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=buy&story=ma...
Pre-bailout, Ford was pretty abysmal. I would actually say they were less reliable than GM. They took the influx of cash and overhauled their entire manufacturing AND design processes to turn out some great cars. The only thing in their lineup looking bleak to me is the Escape (ugh, just no).
The problem is that they're still pretty cheap on their interiors and panels tend to come loose and break a lot. American consumers tend to value interior over most other car features unfortunately. Modern Fords, save for the Escape, are pretty reliable and Honda has shown themselves to be much less so in recent years. Mazda is still too small volume to matter.
tl;dr: Ford is great now, Toyota is still on top, Honda is majorly slipping and GM still blows goats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_2008%E2%80%9310...
It doesn't hurt that Ford was able to borrow large amounts of money before the meltdown, so they had the capital to weather the storm.
Toyota is still the best. People are always shocked when they hear how many miles I have on my 2006 Tacoma. I also like Subaru, surprised they ranked as that expensive to maintain.
I recommend watching James May's Building a Car documentary. It was a fascinating window into all the aspects of car QA.
[0] Specifically, I purchased a model they'd brought over from Europe (good sized engine, sport/touring, 100+ miles to the gallon but "you don't buy a bike to save on gas") and the reviews for the European model were universally good.
[1] This was an actual quote from the guy at the Harley dealership after he succeeded in starting a floor model only to have it crap out after 5 seconds of idling. He thought I'd be impressed with how loud the damn thing was. Little did he know I wasn't looking to be that guy, I just always wanted a motorcycle and the bike I purchased is exceptionally quiet.
I bought a 2007 Honda Civic Ex because we needed 2 cars. Its a nice car, but Honda reliability has definitely fallen (though it is still miles ahead of European and US cars).
The new Honda Civic looks really good and seems reliable so my next car might be a Honda Civic (the 2007 is going strong and we drive so little I hope it lasts another 10 - 15 years). But there was a point between 2009 and 2014 when I felt Honda had lost its way with the god awful cheap iteration of the Honda Civic. It was essentially a money grab based on their reputation.
The worst car I ever owned was a 1993 Mitsubishi Eclipse. I used to joke that friends don't let friends by Mitsubishi
It's less about general dependability and more about a few slip ups that Honda made that are making people question the brand as a whole.
edit: I guess the Grom might come close?
It's the 2011 Honda NT700V and I love the thing. It's a sport/touring (nothing like a crotch rocket or a monster touring bike), very comfortable to ride, quiet and since purchase it has had zero problems and I have been able to do all of the routine maintenance myself due to it being easy to take apart. Granted, I live in Michigan so I don't get to ride it 5-6 months out of the year and I've got under 10,000 miles on it so I'd expect it to still be running well. The only downside is the oil filter is a smaller version of a very common filter, requiring me to buy it online and it use 10-W30 oil which is really hard to find retail (Motorcycles use different oil -- wet clutch -- who knew?) -- online it's twice the price I can get it retail when enough of it is in stock (O'Reilly carries a high-end synthetic for it that I purchase a quart at a time when I'm there for other reasons -- they've never had 3 in stock at a time).
Clever PR misdirection on their part.
They were also lucky in their timing - they had already mortgaged about $18 billion in assets in 2006. Neither one of those events on their own would have been enough to save the company. Both turned them into a major competitor again.
"bailout" is a fairly fuzzy term. If the banking system was working, there would have been no need for DOE loans. There was also the benefit of improved milage, thereby reducing carbon emissions. This seems like the sort of thing the DOE does anyway, and wouldn't raise eyebrows in a sane banking environment. I think by your meaning of "bailout" student loans are also a bailout.
On the other hand, GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. They sold secured assets to new GM and new Chrysler and, i believe, gave investors quite a haircut.
But that being said, the only useful data for reliability is after the first three years since very few vehicles have issues when they're "brand new." It is more in the long tail that they become expensive to keep on the road.
Next time I buy a vehicle I'll re-examine the reliability data and see if the picture has shifted.
edit: Specifically cars only. Trucks are different.
Not everyone can afford a Mercedes.
Mercedes also had a horrible rust problem with their mid-late 90s cars. They switched to an environmentally friendly paint process that was terrible for paint adhesion and rust prevention. I have a perfectly good '98 E300D that's going to go the junkyard because of rust issues. Explain to me how that's saving the environment again?
I've been in a climate known for being hard on vehicles (Minnesota) for ten years and the only rust buckets I ever see on the roads are older American vehicles (Dodge SUV's and minivans in particular). I've owned Nissan and Honda vehicles in that time and never had issues with rust.
Although I'm under the impression that their fiance division GMAC took big loses. The standard wikepidia link seems to say GM divested before the big crisis hit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial
[1] Japanese auto companies tend to compete on quality and TCO. GM seemed stuck forever competing on sales price/brand loyalty.
My parents buy Fords almost exclusively and they range from about as reliable as my Honda to abysmal and expensive so YMMV.
Its much harder to screw up a manual. The Dual-clutch thing is somewhat innovative, but the Focus's engine is high-rev / turbo-charged (getting the most power at 4000+ RPM). At the low-end, the engine is jerky and everything.
Its much smoother when I rev the engine higher (maybe 3000+ or even 4000+) before shifting up. I'm not really sure how the "automatic" DCT of the Focus is supposed to manage the engine without things getting shaky.
I definitely recommend the 2014 as a manual car. Very simple driving behavior fix to just rev the engine a little higher.
Have had two Kia Rio's (2008 and 2013), the 2008 model was definitely maintenance intensive vehicle and frankly poorly built vehicle[1], but the 2013 seems to be a much better car. I'm at 130,000 miles and it seems to be doing fine and nothing big has happened and it deals well with ND winters when I cannot plug in the block heater[2].
1) the timing belt did fail a bit earlier than the maintenance checks suggest (yes, its game over right there), but the 2013 has a chain. Spark plugs were also an issue on the 2008 along with brakes.
2) no outlets at apartment, so goes the whole electric thing
I think the thing that lead to Asian cars getting a good name was their switch to using all synthetic fluids in the late 1990's. You could buy a Nissan or Toyota and drive it for 8 year straight with no other maintenance other than oil changes and be just fine.
Do the same thing with an American car of that era and you will go through several stages. If you did nothing but change the oil, at the 5 year mark the car would be mostly destroyed. The conventional anti-freeze would have completely broken down at the 3 year mark and now your entire cooling system would be solid rust.
Your brakes will also be on the way out, as the normal DOT3 brake fluid absorbs water and after 5 years it will have become corrosive and it will be eating holes in your brake lines and brake pistons. The non synthetic power steering fluid will also be at the end of life and it will be destroying the seals in your steering rack.
And if its an automatic transmission, there is about 2 gallons of non synthetic transmission fluid in it that went bad 2 years ago and now the accelerated seal and metal wear is going to start clogging up the tiny fluid circuits so now one day your car will stay stuck in neutral... Oh and the engine will be running very rough more than likely too by now as the non-platinum sparks plugs are definitely wore out beyond use.
But if you change those fluids every 3 years or so, you are good for a few decades :)
Is your life that busy that you can't even find time once every three years to change the fluids yourself (or pay a shop to do it)?
Like the early 90's Ford Trucks with the straight 6, the Ranger, and the Crown Vic with the 4.6L V8. All discontinued, or the reliable engine replaced with something not as reliable.
My Ford vs Honda experience has been pretty similar. Great or Awful. I had a 2005 Odyessy and 2003 Pilot. Basically the same car, but the Odyssey was crap - literally had a door fall off.
Likewise, I had a Fusion and a 500/Taurus. The 500 had lots of stupid, expensive problems with trim, electronics, etc. The Fusion was flawless.
Does this count as good reliability?
I only buy secondhand cars, and these are all things I've replaced, either myself or by mechanics. All these things will eventually wear out on a car, but replacing most of these parts is relatively straight forward, and I believe in expensive in comparison to the huge financial outlay require to purchase a new vehicle - in which we ought to include the depreciation as well as the running costs and maintenance.
I live in Michigan and my father owns a business that supplies to the automotive industry, so he's always bought from the Big Three[0]. Though I was really young, in the 80s, buying a Toyota or another foreign vehicle and parking in my part of Michigan had a high probability of coming back to your car and finding a nice, long, keying had taken place. It's rare now, but it's hard to forget and when GM/Chrysler were in crisis a few years ago, there was an uptick in that behavior.
Infotainment
Provided you have one from 2013 or later. Otherwise you get a really nice looking screen that won't fscking pair with your Android (or disconnects) 30% of the time.
Reliability/Ford
They do care about reliability (and the Ford Fusion was in that list). I've owned only American cars and with the exception of a Chrysler that was effectively a lemon, I've not had any that experienced expensive repairs over 8 different vehicles (anecdote, yes). The issue is that reliability has a cost and the Big Three have a unique cost not shared by the foreign manufacturers -- the UAW[1]. I think the number I read was $1,500[2] would be saved if the vehicles were built in a non-union plant. That has to come from somewhere. I think in more recent model years, though, the quality has improved due to competition from foreign brands breaking even the most die-hard "Buy American" people. The number of foreign non-luxury vehicles on the road in SE Michigan is way higher than I've seen it in my lifetime. It's still a minority, here, but if Michiganians are increasingly buying foreign, that's a wake-up call for the big 3.
You're dead on, though. At current count of family and friends, I have talked to eight people who switched to Honda or Toyota from Ford or GM. All of them cited a car with multiple quality issues as the reason they switched. The more interesting part for me was that all of them were on leases where their time of ownership put them within the warranty period for all repairs -- they didn't have to pay for any of them! But where we live, being without a car leaves you forced to rent (in one case for almost a month). Public transportation is limited to a really lousy bus service that might or might not arrive within an hour of the posted scheduled time (if at all) and require several transfers to get to your destination, making a 30 minute drive take ... an average Thursday by bus.
A fundamental change has to take place at the autos -- one with a focus purely on quality of the product. The US market vehicles, when I last purchased, offered few with warranties over 40,000 miles. They have a reputation for producing sub-par vehicles. To fix it, they'd need to do something extreme. Build a car with a hyper-focus on reliability and toss a 150,000 mile 10 year comprehensive warranty on it[3] (if it's built well, it'll cost them no more than it does today). If they take it to that extreme, they'll be believed by the industry press and the buyer.
[0] When people say "Buying American" they're usually referring to these guys, which is another way of saying UAW built cars. There's no car that I'm aware of that is built 100% in America with American parts and some vehicles from foreign brands have a larger percentage built in the United States (by non-union plants usually located in the South) than the equivalent in their categories from the big three.
[1] No, I'm not a union fan, but I also do not work in the automotive industry so, in general, I don't care.
[2] I don't have the exact number and I couldn't find it from a quick Google search. The counter to this is always "the foreign cars have import costs!" which is true, but so do the American brands (see point [0]) and in a lot of cases, the foreign brands offset that cost by assembling in American plants ... in the South ... that are non-union (and the workers actively resist attempts at unionizing them for whatever reason).
[3] When I purchased my Fusion, I got one with, literally, all the options. I was taken to what I refer to as the "Hard Sell Room" and explained the options for an (unbelievably expensive) Extended Warranty. The worst salesman ever said "You have this, that and the other feature. This one costs $500 to repair, this one costs $700 to repair" and went on before I cut him off with "So what you're telling me is that your cars are unreliable and I need to buy a separate insurance policy because if any of these shiny features fail, I'm going to own a rock with wheels". I, seriously, almost walked out of the dealership. I'm at 100,000 miles with no service required beyond routine maintenance.
Which is exactly what Hyundai did. They offer 10 year / 100k miles warranty. Contrary to the perception, their warranty gave me confidence to try it, and I've been happy with it so far.
Depending on the company, you want to be in their car. I noticed the Ford plant on Mound has a large sign "Ford Only Lot". My dad does business with all of them (and a few of the foreign plants down south, too). I don't know what the politics behind it are -- my Dad sells to all of them and a few of the southern foreign car plants -- he drives a Cadillac. I'll have to ask him if he gets crap for that when visiting Ford/Chrysler (which are large contracts for him).
The funny thing is, even they've changed a bit. My mom is in a Lexus hybrid, which shocked me. Their friends and neighbors passed away and owned the thing for three years with a few thousand miles on it. The family was willing to sell it to her at such a low price she couldn't pass it up. And it's a really nice car. Family circumstances also resulted in my dad getting an Audi TT convertible sports-toy which he stores up north (shh, don't tell anyone).
Has his glove box door fallen off yet?
>In order to estimate annual maintenance costs, we found the amount spent on every two oil changes (as oil changes are generally done every six months).
This cost only considers oil changes? That is not a realistic cost of total maintenance over 10 years.
I think in your quote they're saying they're using oil changes as a unit of time. This is because oil changes are usually done on a regular cycles, and because when you get your oil changed you often get your other maintenance done.
The only listed maintence items to 120,000 miles are: Replace brake fluid, Replace in-cabin microfilter, Rotate tires
https://owners.nissanusa.com/content/techpub/ManualsAndGuide...
Your logic is not too far off actually. Our cars have no spark plugs(and cables), radiators, starter motors killing the 12v battery, gas pumps, fuel lines, fuel filters, oil, etc. So much less to worry about.
Heck, even the brake pads should last longer, due to the regenerative braking.
So barring any unforeseen events (such as something like the inverter or the internal charging burning out, which I haven't seen in the Leaf forums), the maintenance costs should be pretty low indeed. These things you mention are pretty cheap.
Honestly, they should depreciate way less than they currently do. Those things are incredibly reliable, and the current battery chemistry is way better than the first model, even if it is not thermally managed.
Anecdata: Just over 250,000 on my 2007 Honda CRV and with $1k in unscheduled mechanical maintenance and around another $1k in non-mechanical maintenance.
Assuming a 10,000 mile oil change cycle (I only change the oil when the car recommends it, and it seems to avg about 10k miles) that's 25 oil changes so far, for a total of ~$1800 (assuming dealer oil change + full synthetic, which has been all but two of my oil changes so far; does not include tax).
Warning, opinions ahead: In my experience, most people do not follow the recommended preventative maintenance plans for their vehicles, and rely solely on oil, tires, and gas changes, and all three only when necessary.
Here be dragons: At an over-all average MPG (according to the car's own computer) of 25, I've spent more on fuel than the cost of the vehicle, including loan interest, in the 250,000 miles.
Getting waaaaay out there: 32k for car + interest, 35k in fuel, 10k in other scheduled work (I believe in preventative maintenance), upgrades, cleaning, etc for a total cost of ownership of about ~80k means I've paid ~$3/mile driven.
For example, I'm taking issue with all BMW's costing $17,800 over 10 years on average. Yet, the BMW model with the highest maintenance cost, the 328i, only costs $15,600 over 10 years.
Edit: Tried, quite unsuccessfully, to improve clarity
It's because the brand estimates are not based on actual costs, but only on oil changes:
“In order to estimate annual maintenance costs, we found the amount spent on every two oil changes (as oil changes are generally done every six months).”
Yet the actual oil change intervals for at least BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Volvo are between once a year and once every two years, or after between 7500 and 15000 miles, depending on the brand and model.
[0] For Americans, where Manual Transmission is much like the Big Foot. You hear about it, but nobody's actually seen it, this is a part of a Manual Transmission car that wears out over time and is guaranteed to require repair.
Even mention ignition coils around some of them and there will be much cursing.
Maybe I got lucky, but you rarely hear people's good experiences, and you often hear the bad ones.
If you have two sets of numbers, S and T, then I'm quite confident MEAN(S ∪ T) must fall between MIN(MEAN(S), MEAN(T)) and MAX(MEAN(S), MEAN(T)) inclusive.
In this case, the costs of maintenance for a given vehicle model are the sets and, so, the cost for a brand as a whole would be (S ∪ T ∪ V...).
The point is parts for imports here in the states are generally much higher.
BMW parts are expensive.
Your answer doesn't help understanding how the article finds the average BMW maintenance cost to be higher than that of the BMW model with the highest maintenance cost. Unless brand costs are not calculated as a mean but something else very different, which is not explained.
The problem is that paying for parts and parts replacement piece by piece is significantly more expensive than buying a new bike (or a car) as a whole.
Repair costs like that adds up quickly. Like the $1200 3rd row seat motor that died. She started calling it the thousand-dollar-car, since any repairs were around that price.
None of what you describe is unique to Cadillac -- this is what it is to own a luxury automobile. If it is not worth the price, don't buy one.
Which may be one reason why Lexus unexpectedly has a good total cost of ownership.
BTW, the Lexii had far fewer squeaks and rattles after 6 years than the Cadillac did, and had a much quieter ride overall.
As another commenter pointed out, this is quite common on performance and luxury vehicles because it has handling advantages. If you're buying a luxury car, you're by definition choosing to pay more than is absolutely necessary for (what you consider to be) a better experience. The tires are part of that. You can argue that the line should be drawn elsewhere, but it's not arbitrary, and it's very much in line with the market segment they're going after.
Ouch. There's one more reason to laugh at people who bought the H3.
Ten loads of mulch in a weekend? No problem. Hauling a half ton of Bawls energy drinks to a different state over wet mountain roads? An adventure but no issues. Moved my (now) wife to town in 2007 and moved all our stuff when we bought our first home. We took our daughter home from the hospital in it. It almost feels like part of the family.
I kinda want a newer car, but I can't really justify it because my Tacoma just keeps working every single day (and it's paid off). Toyota can make a really good vehicle.
Where as say a Volkswagon owner may not bother to have the dealership spend 3 hours diagnosing a squeak or minor rough idle knowing they have to foot the bill?
In summary, Japanese cars were deemed the most reliable and relatively cheap to maintain, while German cars were the least reliable according to the survey's respondents.
The rankings were calculated according to how often a car needed to be repaired, and the cost of the repairs.
Each manufacturer produces a variety of models and the reliability of each model can vary by the year.
If you want to buy a car, look at the model-years in your price range and then research which of those is reliable or a lemon.
Another factor might also be that many high end imports are services at the dealer/speciality shops and the service interactions with your mechanic are for cars that have less than stellar maintenance-- which skews the picture significantly.
I agree that the Boxster/Cayman are more aligned with "entry level sports cars".
Or daily driving it.
The danger of buying a Miata first is that you might skip Porsche altogether.
- cracked exhaust manifold, replaced with boneyard unit, $80. Before that I went to the dealer, and they quoted me over $300 for a new one. Get this: they were so nice when I said I will probably get a used one, they gave me the new nuts for the joint between the manifold and the A pipe I would need. "Hey, you will likely need these; they are special heat-resistant nuts that don't expand."
- bushing gone on rear suspension arm causing clunks and squeaks: boneyard good part, $10. Couldn't remove a bolt in the suspension without an air ratchet: I broke two cheap socket wrench bits trying! I paid an air-conditioning garage to help me out, $40.
- broken manual window crank on driver's side door. $10 for used one.
- The ignition switch started cutting out. I Googled up that this was a secret warranty (big safety issue), and got free fix at the dealership.
- I paid a few hundred for an all-wheel brake job. At one point, the master relay went, so I paid a few hundred to get that taken care of. Car was completely dead; had to be towed.
- Fixed water leaking into the trunk. This ingress occurs through the tail light apertures! The fix was a $7 tub of silicone caulk on both sides of the tail light gaskets, with plenty left over to do a bathtub or three. The trunk was dry after that.
- Moisture destroyed the particle board trunk floor that covers the spare tire. Made a sturdy new one out of 6mm thick plastic: $30 bucks for that, plus labor.
- Cracked radiator: good used one for under 100 bucks.
- All fluid and other changes: engine oil, manual transmission, air filter, oil filter, etc, myself.
- Paid a few hundred for a timing belt and water pump change.
- O2 sensor changes, self, < $100 a pop for two of them.
- Spark plugs: don't remember; inexpensive.
The first time I did, the car stalled out in the middle of the road, the tow fee was a couple hundred dollars -- the cost to fix it and get it going? $150 with labor (some kind of sensor just got old and needed replacing).
As it hit 12 years, little things kept needing attention, but nothing was expensive. Yearly property taxes were in the dozens of dollars and the mechanics I took it to all kept wanting to buy the car off of me for a premium over the Blue Book value.
I finally replaced it, not because it was becoming expensive, but because, having 12 trouble free years with it, I found it annoying to deal with mechanics at all.
My wife had a 2004 Accord until 2015, and had a similar reliability story, just with a few more issues (and each issue was a little more expensive).
We replaced both cars with new Hondas.
Humans have been building cars for over 100 years, there's really not much excuse in my thinking for them not to basically be transportation appliances. I get people want to have different stylings and performance characteristics, but unreliability is an absolute non-starter to us.
It's not like information on car reliability isn't available from several sources, so I'm always mystified at my frustrated friends with the Dodge Caravans and such who are wondering why their cars are always getting worked on.
I'd also like to see a breakdown by engine, because I almost feel like the 4 cyl which the majority of them have been is vastly more reliable.
They say that over ten years the average Mazda or Mini will cost $7500 to maintain. Both have a model in the top 20 most expensive to maintain with a Mazda 6 being $12 700 and a Mini Cooper being $11 200. Neither one has a model in the 20 cheapest to maintain list so their cheapest to maintain models must be at least as expensive to maintain as the most expensive car on this list. This puts a lower bound of $7500 on the cheapest to maintain car for each of them. How can the average for these manufacturers be $7500 if their cheapest car is at least $7500 and they each have a car that costs significantly more?
There's something ironic about it. Here they got a car which "looks" like a reliable military vehicle, that you'd think could take it to some remove off-road location (desert, camping, etc). Yet as a brand, it is most likely to fail to start.
Guess that could be the reason why so much humvees have been given by the army to the police force recently thanks to the 1033 program.
Before anyone runs off in celebration of pure EVs just note the number of vehicles being sampled. Issue arise from defects for sure, as they do for wear and tear. However a lot of issues on older cars are because of lack of care. One of the reasons manufactures like BMW include service for 4x50 is so that even the leased cars would get serviced.
There are a few exaggerated entries on the list, one I know of is the Nissan Murano. Its listed quite high but that might have been because of the CVT issues faced in 05-07 that were remedied with Nissan extending the warranties.
Compact fluorescents should last ~6x longer than incandescents, yet since the commoditization of them, you'll find the circuits in the cheaper ones often fail long before the fluorescent tube itself would have failed (I recently did a teardown of about 20 of my own failed CFL's. About 2/3 had functioning tubes with blown circuits).
I similarly lament seeing an LED traffic light or LED vehicle tail light on the fritz, knowing that the individual LED's themselves probably had another 20 years of life left in them, yet met their fate early due to a bad solder joint or blown mosfet, etc...
"Luxury imports from Germany, such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz, along with domestic luxury brand Lexus, are the most expensive"
My friend in college had a Toyota Tercel -- I remember buying brake pads with him for $29. Same part in my Caddy? $150.
(Seriously, does anyone think Mazdas are boring? Do you drive?)
And you're gonna need it.
That may change when Tesla's 30K-ish vehicle launches.
- parts are cheap, cars are well documented, failures uncommon
- easy to repair if in a crash too.
- not unheard of to see examples in the 300,000+ mileage range.
I hate so many things about how they are designed but for your criteria (diy, easy, cheap, documented) they are hard to beat.
Though my RX-7 is a beast to maintain, financially. I imagine they're only tracking models that are still current for the past 10 years.
Also some 'common' but lower-volume brands are not on the list at all (Alfa Romeo is a notable exception here)
I loved our Alfa, but my word was it expensive to maintain (and broke a LOT).
Owner of a mazda 6 (almost 2 years), no repairs needed thus far, when I got it it had been top rated in consumer reports; is there something I should be looking out for? (brief googling didn't turn up anything; to the child and others since I'm limited by response rate, my curiosity was peaked by the high cost I saw in the article, but I haven't heard what might cause that high cost)
For example the Mazda6 has great legroom but bad headroom. The CX-5 has great headroom but bad legroom. The CX-3 has bad both.
If you need a vehicle with good headroom AND legroom you're almost required to buy a Subaru (Forester, Legacy, or Outback), Prius V, Toyota RAV4, or Nissan Rogue. It is pathetic how limited the choice is.
PS - You can see roominess metrics on Edmunds[0], just scroll down to interior measurements.
[0] http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/prius-v/2016/wagon/features-sp...
It's just so hard to get that data. Even here we're grouping cars by make. Not model, not year, because there's just not enough good data on this.
It's a welcome start, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen if we just made all repair shops report more about the prices paid for what services at what mileages for each vehicle. We might uncover some really interesting things, and drive useful innovations from producers.
title should be "how much people that uses our yuppie startup pays to maintain their cars"
of course the bmw diy wil not show up. nor the toyota that goes to the dealer the moment a dash light goes on.
It could stand to reason that less reliable brands get discontinued. But there's an alternate explanation. If the only population of Saturns you're looking at is 5-10 years old, and the selection of Hondas your're looking at are 0-10 years old, the "average" Saturn requires more maintenance than the average Honda because on average, it's an older car.
Repair data is used to set part prices, determine the TCO of a vehicle (similar this report shows). It is also used by the US government to mine the data for recalls.
The residual data from the newer breed of online repair sites (YourMechanic, Mitchell's & Motor's offering, etc.) is hugely valuable... and in no way is easy to get to.
The reason is that repair information (part #'s, labor costs, repair procedures, fluid levels, etc.) is extremely hard to digitize from 25 different manufacturers. No one uses a billing / estimating system unless is includes that data.
AWD is just inherently more complicated and thus requires more maintenance. Thus Subaru probably has unfair advantage since almost all their cars are AWD.
As for Prius reliability... I have passed many stuck sliding on the road in New England blizzards... in my "high maintenance" Subaru.
https://lemkeabroad.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/p1060985.jpg
Seems like an unwarranted callout at best.
I drove 6 ford escorts before buying a newer car. The 93 model year was terrible but I pushed my 1998 and 1997 to over 250,000 miles each with minimal repair costs.
We practice SCRUM, which supposedly learned from the Toyota Product System, but our quality assurance has a long way to go.
This will average out over time.
Lexus is owned by Toyota. What makes it domestic?
Automatic transmissions are incredibly complex, filled with several planetary gearsets and many clutch packs.
A Toyota hybrid has exactly one planetary gearset, and some motors. That's all.
I've met quite a few first time Land Rover owners, I've never met a repeat customer.
Anecdotes.
This car soured Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth vehicles for me for life. I have never considered another car from that brand and I wasn't at all surprised to see many Chrysler vehicles on the high-cost list.
It was also nice to see several American made cars on that list[1], including my Ford Fusion. I own a 2012 model (last year before a substantial redesign[also 1]) with 100,000 miles on it and it has never required service other than routine maintenance (and a few more alignments than I'm used to, but I almost never drive being a work-at-home guy so I'm not sure what might be happening while all of those miles are put on[2]).
I would have loved to see the raw data behind the article for a few reasons.
1. Model years are missing and more details about how many kinds of failures would have been nice. Highlighting the most expensive is nice, but if several less expensive parts are failing, that's also very important.
2. The cost of routine maintenance for parts that are guaranteed to wear can vary dramatically depending on where the service is done. The dealer is the most expensive, almost every time, but things like brakes come to mind. Where I live, taking a car for a brake job at a brake place is highway robbery. A friend showed me how easy it is to do brakes and I discovered I could do all 4 for the cost of one at the shop (or just replace the brakes/rotors for the price of a pad job). I later learned that a good shop will do them for about $40 in labor over the cost of parts at a retail auto-parts store (and I thank God that I now have a family friend who owns said shop).
3. It has a bad smell to it and I'd like to understand how they interpreted the data or whether or not the data set is complete. For the American brands, some of those cars have corresponding models from their other affiliated brands (A Chevy X is a Oldsmobile Y or even extreme cases where Eagle [dead now] branded vehicles used to be Mitsubishi products) with very little differences in the vehicles. This makes sense in the case of non-luxury brand/luxury brand because there are more expensive parts and usually major underlying improvements in the luxury brands that affect repair frequency/cost. But in the case of that Sebring, at one point that was pretty much the same car as a Dodge model except for the exterior and I thought I spotted others on that list that had the same situation but with the equivalent vehicle nowhere to be found.
If anyone has that data set and can link to it, I'd be curious.
[0] I may not have this exactly right, including the name, but my understanding is that these cars were driven by higher level employees "lease-style" for a year at a discount (or as a perk). Suppliers and employees can show up on a designated day and commit to purchase the vehicle at a solid discount - mine was $12,000 for an all leather model with about 8,000 miles on it (that would be repaired at the dealership under warranty). The "catch", I learned years later, is that some/many of the employees exercising this perk don't bother doing routine maintenance on the car and generally treat it very harshly.
[1] I live in Michigan, my dad's business is a supplier to the local autos, and there's still a lot of us who remember the days of evil bastards keying non UAW-made vehicles so I'm stuck with the Big Three (making that Two in my case). The general rule has been never buy a car the first year after a substantial redesign and vehicles on the last year prior to redesign are usually the most reliable (kinks worked out). I don't know if that's based on real data or if that's just been good luck (and common sense), but it's been a reliable rule for my family in all but the LeBaron case (I think 96 was the last year). That rule, along with and "if you're buying new, do so when the dealers are trying to get the next model year on the lot" (it was a $7,000 difference with my Fusion) are the only two I know.
[2] I suspect a defect in this case or even more likely -- road conditions. My wife is a great driver, the car has original brakes at 100,000 miles (a feat the mechanic who inspected them last month was impressed with) and everything but the suspension is in amazing condition. The suspension problems and realignment frequency have me thinking her lack of gaming skills is at fault. In this part of Michigan, driving any freeway/major road is like playing a game of "Dodge the Potholes" where failure to win results in blown out tires (we've had two incidents), unusual suspension wear/problems and alignment issues depending on the angle of impact and depth.