I’ve been to a lot of assembly plants and they are not all created equal. Ford plants are pure chaos. Management obsessing over keeping the line going at the expense of any other concern. Forklifts zipping around. GM is mostly the same, but they have some really quality engineers and designs. They are much less hesitant to put appropriate power plants in their cars rather than chase flashy MPG’s at the expense of longevity. Belvidere (RIP) was the biggest clusterfuck I have ever seen in my life and I’ve been on a passenger airplane in China.

It’s not even the same across the same manufacturer. TMMI is a dump while TMMK is a marvel. And then you go overseas and see the Passat factory in Emden, it blows anything in the US out of the water.

This stuff matters. Manufacturers really are meaningfully different from one another in regards that should affect your purchase and its not all branding.

I drive a Serbian car, I’ve had to rewire the taillights myself and I have to slip the service tech at Jiffy Lube a $20 to get him to admit that yes they have the filter and yes they will do my oil change. That’s how much of a pain in the ass it is. It’s a quality machine but it’s not user friendly. So yeah even if it has homogeneity in parts and materials from other FCA manufacturers the design decisions are very different. Also it has a sixth gear for no reason.

Honda reliability is more about the engine and drivetrain than the outsourced interior components.

While I would agree that the 100k figure is easily attainable in modern vehicles, that’s sort of the equivalent of a 1,000 yds rushing…its not really an impressive milestone anymore.

According to a recent Consumer Reports, the 6 most reliable vehicles come from Subaru, Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Acura and Mazda. You might notice a pattern there (despite their shared components).

Conversely, the 6 worst vehicles were Rivian, Cadillac, GMC, Jeep, Volkswagen and Tesla.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/

Well, you have to draw the line somewhere. Most people don't really care if the new car they are buying will have the same engine at 200,000 miles though especially at the lower price ranges that these reliable but boring cars are mostly talked about.

100k miles is basically when all resale value is done with almost any car.


But isn't your point that it is about engine and drivetrain? The reliability rankings are about a lot more than that.

When you look at the overall car industry it's all pretty much the same with different marketing. They all use most of the same parts or at least comparable parts since the industry it pretty standard globally.

When you look at the overall car industry it's all pretty much the same with different marketing. They all use most of the same parts or at least comparable parts since the industry it pretty standard globally. American cars are slightly more expensive mostly because the employees get paid better and less government subsidies. However, it's also pretty easy to wait it out and find a good deal on a new American car.

American cars were mostly terrible in the 80s, and retained some terrible cars in the 90s while Asia flooded the market with cheap, "reliable" cars that no one really enjoyed looking at or driving in by far the ugliest era of car design we've ever seen.

But people bought a Honda in the 90s, it worked well in the most boring way possible, and now they buy another non-descript Honda at the lowest price range and since pretty much all cars easily get to 100k with little to no issues they can't believe how good it works compared to the terrible car from a terrible era of cards they remember. Even when the Honda has a massive recall for air bags they just blame the air bag company now.