It always seems that the Japenes take top honors for building the most reliable cars, and they do, so it's a just reward that they recieve the accolades from various automotive journals. Here though, we're German car fans, and believe you me there would be nothing I'd like than to see CR(most def. not the automotive bible, but has a lot of cred) recommend an MB or two, or JD power awarded, that may be the day, but it's most definately not out of reach. The reason why I created this thread was to get to the heart of the matter and pose the question to you guys, what do you think it will take other than tighter quality controls to make German cars the best in their industry? Not only that, but do you think they will ever top the Japenese for building records that don't scratch?

Well we've had several threads on this already and I think it usaully comes down to a few things. I think that higher standards as well as moral in their factories and a tight relationship with their suppliers would be a good start.

several threads? where have i been? LoL, sorry!!!

To me it has to do with German automobiles early adopting cutting-edge technology & being pressed into service before long-range reliability is built in.
Maybe I'm an apologist for German manufacturers..but I would much rather put up with the occassional glitch to get an automobile that's safe, stylish and fun to drive...and to me, that ='s Audi, BMW & Mercedes-Benz.

Let's face it...most people want a car to be as reliable as their refridgerator or stove - plug it in and forget about it.
Fine- get a Japanese car.
German cars simply demand more from the driver..and they give more back.

Well put.

Japenese cars are house hold appliances, German cars are very much like women.. I won't elaborate much more than that. You guys can figure it in your heads.

I agree with James and bum-man here. I think that if the Germans particularly Mercedes/BMW/Audi could get really close to Japanese cars in reliability you'd see the popularity of Japanese cars drop very slowly, but steadily. In the U.S. market a good deal of people won't even consider a German car because the reliability factor, but they clearly want one because of its other qualities. Once Mercedes in particular gets it together in this area it will be no stopping them.

I also think the Germans could stand to lose some variants of each model, espcially Mercedes. I mean this is hugely expensive to build a jillion versions of one model.

In order to get better reliability though the German brands are going to have re-think, tear-down and rebuild their whole way of designing a car, if they want to get to Toyota levels of reliability. They're all still doing things the old fashioned way (in most cases). I also think they need to put every single model through the same tests. Something tells me Mercedes isn't going to test the new C like they did the S, which BTW seems to be enjoying a glitch-free launch so far. I mean the S was driven in every country around the world over and over to test various systems (nav/radios/phones/suspension tuning) and refine the car to the ninth degree and get a better understanding of how to tailor it for each market instead of the one-size-fits-all approach. Will they do the same with the C? I hope so.

The Germans need to hurry up on this too because when the Japanese figure out how to make a true equal to a German car in every way its going to be death to the Germans.

Oh, Porsche enjoys great reliability, but it was because they got some help from Toyota years ago. As a result the 911 and Boxsters have been dead reliabile so it can be done. Then look at their only unreliable product, the Cayenne. It was co-designed with VW and the reliability went out the window, according to U.S. surveys.

M

I wonder about how reliabilty is counted in these surveys?
I mean, not to argue the point, but I know I have certainly seen German manufactured cars being returned to the dealership because the owner didn't know how to properly drive manual transmissions. I've seen Audi and BMW transmissions absolutely smoked - in one case the driver of a brand new Z4 thought that all shifts should be thrown at red-line..the trans lasted
a coupla months before finally packing it in.
I know this is anecdotal..but I've seen German cars countless times just absolutely mauled by inexperienced drivers.