Comments for CR Reliability Study

CR Reliability Study

2004-03-10T04:47:28Z

There was a lot in the news today about the Consumer Report article showing that US autos have surpassed the Europeans in reliability. For year old vehicles, there were 18 problems per 100 cars for the US and 20 for Europe. Last year they were tied at 21.

More interesting to me was how the Asians continue to kick every one else's behind with only 12 problems per 100 cars thisyear. And look at the chart to the right. It shows that the average 8 year old Asian car has the same number of problems as a 4 year old domestic or a 3 1/2 year old European. Makes it hard not to keep buying Hondas and Toyotas.

More interesting tidbits from the breakout by manufacturer:

You were more likely to have a problem with your '03 Mini (25), Cadillac (25), Hummer (26), Jaguar (30) or Lincoln (31) that with a '99 Infiniti (24)
The '03 Hyundai's had only 14 per 100, nearly tieing Acura and Mazda at 13
Buick was the top US brand at 13 for '03 and 48 for '01. Yep, Buick.
The top '99 US car was Lincoln at 72, but they were the last of all for '03 with 31.
If you've got a VW you're headed for trouble with 19 per 100 for '03, 78 for '01 and a dead last 138 for '99. Ouch.

Comment from Bird on 2004-03-10

2004-03-10T07:27:07Z

Gosh I hope my '96 Dodge Grand Caravan keeps running well . . .

Comment from Jonathan Baker on 2004-03-12

2004-03-12T21:35:12Z

salgoud,

we are considering purchasing another vehicle and after your report, it's hard to not consider doing so. How would you classify Isuzu (Japanese)?

Comment from salguod on 2004-03-12

2004-03-13T02:59:27Z

JB - It falls in the 'Asian' group. Interestingly, the only Honda to fall on the CR list of cars to avoid (below average reliability) is the Passport, made by Isuzu and a clone of your Rodeo. If you think about it, the Asian cars also include such dubious makes as Kia, Hyundai and Daewoo. Makes that strong showin gon the graph even more impressive.

Are you replacing old faithful or the Rodeo?

Bird - The '96 Grand Caravan makes that avoid list too (boy, I'm full of encouragement!) That's why we spent the extra $ to get into a '99 Odyssey a coupe of years ago. Then it chucked its transmission 2 days after purchase. It was covered under the Certified warrant, but still not too reasuring. So much for all that CR data.

Comment from Erik on 2004-05-07

2004-05-07T19:31:01Z

Just found out our '02 Ody is in the tranny recall! Yee-ha! Did yours get recalled too? I think I'm gonna trade it in on a Sienna.

Comment from salguod on 2004-05-07

2004-05-07T21:16:32Z

Nope, mine's a '99 so it's a different tranny. I did get a 100K warranty extension about a year or so ago, though.

Why trade yours already? At only 2 1/2 years old, it's just barely broken in! We've got 85K+ on ours and planning on keeping her for at least another 5 years. At the rate we're going, that'll put us at about 185K!

Comment from virusdoc on 2004-05-07

2004-05-08T03:29:51Z

Yeah, we only have 17k miles right now. I don't think we'll trade until closer to the end of the warranty. If Honda extends our tranny warranty on the 02's to 100k, I might consider keeping it. But from what I've heard, the tranny replacements on these things cost $5-7,000 if you have to pay out of pocket. I can't ever imagine being able to afford that, so, sorry Honda. I originally bought the Ody planning to keep it for 20 years/200k miles. You know how episode one of that myth turned out. Episode Two now is also in doubt. I'm just not convinced that Honda knows why there are so many tranny failures or, if they know, that they are able to fix them without replacing them completely. The current "fix" for the recalled 02's is highly reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg device. Have you seen the Honda service bulletin that describes how to diagnose whether a given tranny needs a retrofit oil valve or a whole new tranny? It involves no fewer than 20 changes to the settings of a Canon digital camera which is used to take a photograph of a small section of the second gear through a tiny hole in the tranny case, followed by visual comparison of the gear color in that photo to "standard" photos on the Honda tech website. I'm not sure I could do it correctly, and I certainly don't trust a Honda mechanic who has no personal interest in the vehicle to do it correctly. Call me paranoid...and you would be correct!