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Comment by firecall | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting you mention electronics...

Just this week I called out a mobile mechanic from our state automobile club here in Australia, to replace the battery in my old 911.

He was really nice bloke, older guy, and we got chatting about cars.

Now he reckoned that he has the most problems with European cars, most of which are considered premium or mid level brands in Australia.

Always putting Euro cars on the back of trucks he said, because of problems with the electronics.

Japanese cars were still the best, and never once had a problem with the Hybrid System from Toyota!

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Never buy Euro cars in Australia, they spend more time in the shop, the parts cost more and you'll spend a month at least waiting for the part.

They are simply not made for the conditions here.

At least in the dry conditions of South Australia there isn't a problem with rust ;-)

My old '99 model Porsche 911 996 is an exception to the rule. It's free motoring at this point; price rise since I purchased it 4 years ago has covered the cost of all and any expenses, including fuel and insurance.

Of course, the 996 was conceived in Porsche around the same time the Japanese came over and helped them out! They were in big trouble before they modernised.

Maybe this is a wake up call to the Germans to get in gear and sort themselves out before they run into (even bigger) trouble again!

>Now he reckoned that he has the most problems with European cars, most of which are considered premium or mid level brands in Australia.

Was this a surprise to you? Here in the US it's well known that European cars (including the expensive brands) are across the board worst in reliability, Japanese cars are the most reliable, and the US brands are in between.

No, not really a huge surprise! :-)

But interesting that a professional expressed the opinion so readily.

TBH I don’t really tend to hear much about mainstream modern cars in my day to day life!

I do recall the hosts of the Accidental Tech Podcast (Marco Armant and Friends) complain about BMW reliability.

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