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Comment by tjansen | Hacker News Reader

Certainly true, but when German brands have similar issues, it will never show in the statistics. A 10% fail-rate would bother me if I bought a Tesla, but I know that there were German cars with extreme reliability issues that never showed up in statistics. Like VWs and Audis with early DSG transmissions. Car forums were full with people who experienced it, and I personally know people whose cars had these issues.

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TÜV is not about general car defects or problems like failing transmissions or the infamous camshaft chain failure of VW engines. TÜV is about failures of your car which prevents it from secure operation like failing head lamps, suspession problems and so on.

Yes, but ADAC statistics include failures and suffer from the same issues. If a three year old BMW breaks down, most owners will call BMW, not the ADAC. (And some car brands will actually send the ADAC to help you, but they have contracts to make sure it won’t appear in the official ADAC statistics)

Yeah, they are very different statistics. TÜV checks if your car is safe to drive on roads, and everybode is obligated to do so every second year (except the first one which is after 3 years). I don't know what ADAC is counting, broken cars on highways probably. :)

It's the suspension bit that's worrying. When the excessively complex transmission fails you have the vehicle towed to the shop, but the suspension is a safety issue (and you do wonder - if 10 % showed up at the inspection with problems how many owners had their suspension fixed because the car handled funny).

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