I think that almost all cars offer reasonable reliability. Most come with or you can get ABS and Stability control. After that the differences are ride, drive, and to a small degree quality. In general its hard to justify paying an extra $20,000 +/- for a German car. Since most of are all BMW we have a different view point that does not square with CR.

People are we all forgetting that this is all based a combination of testing and owner feedback.

With the rising cost of everything in our lifestyles here in the good ole USA, people do not want a thermostat to go while driving in traffic on a 36 month old car that still has 36 months of payments left on and a factory warranty that only has 14k left on it. People do want their budgets or schedules throw out of whack so they are gravitating to longer lasting aggravation free rides.

BMW makes the most exciting car to drive on the planet that most people can afford but their focus on quality issues takes time...for instance the 01 BMW X5 is a maintenance nightmare to own past 50K on the clock. The 2006 is much better. Now if one reviews the history of the CR rating on the X5 you can see that 01,02 are the worst years and then it gets incrementally better, but I ask, why does it take five years to fix a common problem like window regulators, cam sensors or rear door latches?

I have the answer and the answer is simple.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES!

When the Japanese have a recall the lead engineer and quality control managers responsible for that part or design are usually demoted. It all stems from a situation of embarrassment and losing face to the competition, a black eye for the company that brings shame to organization. These are things that are at the very micro levels of their culture and of course extends to business.

The quality focus is all about incremental improvements and each year they review commonly reported issues from all the data provided by all of the dealerships and work with the suppliers to resolve the issue and the next year with out even listing a change a part maybe replaced that statistically had a quality fail rate that was higher than the acceptable level which is already below the industry standard.

I think that if BMW wants to compete with the Japanese auto makers on quality that they would need to adopt a cultural change of accountability and possibly hire away some top Japanese talent to begin to sort out the quality issues that plague some the models. Shake up the system, hold the suppliers accountable for quality or take the contracts else where. Like take the 7 series there is no way that model should be scoring lower in initial quality than the Sonata for Pete sake!

Also one can make the argument that even the way that the cars handle on the road is based on the different cultures. The Germans are straight to the point, aggressive, decisive and statement makers. The Japanese, quiet, modest, humble, and practical and if one considers what these things mean and apply them to the way the cars drive it only makes sense at how different the two cars approach the road.

At the end of the day more and more Americans want to spend no more on the car than the payment and insurance. So they hear about their neighbor who never has to go to the shop and have a car that is ten years old and is still more reliable than the 2006 that he has in the driveway and they begin to think about reducing overhead to save for retirement, higher education or wedding etc… CR is not looking at nothing more than numbers, the fact is the numbers are giving a cold hard truth to what ever they are measuring and like it or not it is placing things within or out of a mean and people are moving towards that.

I gave my Dad my 1993 Acura Legend L with 120K on the clock this was years after owning Oldsmobile’s, that car runs and drives like the day I tossed him the keys with 211k on it and little rust in the corner wheel well. Never been to the shop other than for preventive maint, so guess what…he is a convert…that is all it takes.

Now when I brought home my 01 X5 he was all over it and wanted to know when I would sell it to him. That was until I told him about my fuel sender problem which ran about $840.00.

That is how most people approach these things.

CR has no emotion for how they handle or how at 6400 rpm merging into traffic at 7:12am, 10 miles into a 35mile commute, the big smile your 4.8is just put on your face as blow the doors off the Jerk that would not let you merge, but you already knew that!

Couldn't have been said better. :thumbup:

:iagree: