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Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

I’m confused from the report about how Volkswagen and Mercedes beat Toyota in reliability when my perception is that it’s not even close.

Are the Germans biasing toward their companies? Or am I underrating VW’s quality?

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Consumer reports put VW 18th out of 22 in reliability, yet some how this article states: "Volkswagen emerged as a dominant force in the reliability rankings, with the Golf Sportsvan, T Roc, and Touareg earning top marks in the four-year and older bracket."

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...

Volkswagens get serviced frequently.

Teslas never get serviced, and they don't really use their brakes either due to regenerative braking, so stuff like "rust on brakes" counts as a strike against their "reliability" in this study even though it's harmless.

In reality, owning a Tesla is way more painless than owning a VW.

Rust on breaks can be an issue in emergency breaking. Most modern EVs normally use the break intermittently during normal operations to prevent rust from building up over time.

German cars can be very reliable if maintained properly. I think a lot of the bad reputation stems from owners who buy a depreciated German car and then cut corners on maintenance.

Japanese cars are more forgiving in that regard; some can go forever with the bare minimum.

First off, all manufacturers are way, way closer in practical reliability than internet comment section circle jerks. It's like when you look at a wild stock ticker and then see the Y axis is somewhere misleadingly far from zero.

Second, as described in other comments, this is just an analysis of safety inspection data. So you've got to consider the ease with which people can "just take it to the dealer", whether they trust the dealer enough to take petty stuff to them and the kind of people who buy what (Altima factor).

Some of that makes sense but the article itself mentions Mini Cooper at 3% major-defect and the Tesla at 17%…which is obviously a tremendous difference. If that’s true, those manufacturers are in entirely different leagues of reliability.

I’m not disagreeing…I’m just confused. It’s a good point on the selection bias.

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