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Re: Audi Price Cuts
> From quattro-owner@swiss.ans.net Thu Oct 13 18:49:02 1994
> From: "Arun Rao" <rao%frisbee@frisbee.pixar.com>
>
> On Oct 13, 3:51pm, John Greenstreet wrote:
> [ ...]
> > Americans don't know a lot about quality, and actually believed much
> > of the propaganda spewed forth in the Harvard Business Review by Prahalad
> > and Hamel about fantastic Japanese productivity and quality. Sure, short-
> > term reliability of Japanese cars was superior to the competition for a
> > short while, but this advantage has long since evaporated,
>
> I'm sorry, John, but I totally disagree. I like my Audi,
> quirks and all, but our reliable family car is a Honda
> Accord. In my (admittedly limited) experience, modern
> Japanese cars are (a) extremely reliable, (b) as durable
> as they need to be for the market they serve, and (c)
> are remarkably well-engineered.
But aren't you comparing a *new* Japanese car to an *old* Audi. All
cars improved in reliability dramatically during the '80s; in fact, JD
Power notes that the average number of defects per new car was 6 in
1980 and is now 1.22. So you have to compare year by year, because
statistically even the worst car now is 300% better than the average
was in 1980.
>
> We can argue about the nature and quality of the driving
> experience (oh my God, Fahrvergnuegen :-)), and indeed I
> enjoy driving my Audi, but for most people, the point
> is moot.
I agree
>
> IMHO, Japanese cars are an engineering triumph because they
> satisfy a vast majority of the functional requirements at the
> lowest possible cost. It's no great trick to design an excellent
> big ticket car: the magic (and the money, as the Japanese know
> very well) is in building inexpensive cars which are really good.
Well, they *were* once inexpensive anyway. :^)
>
> For all the noise about rising prices of Japanese cars, they're
> still the most value for the money. I paid $12,500 for my Accord
> two years ago, and it has had *zero* problems in the 36,000 miles
> that I've driven it. I could probably sell it today for nearly
> $10K, and should I decide to keep it, I know I could drive it beyond
> 100K without batting an eyelid.
Now here's why I have a different viewpoint. We've had quite a few
Honda/Acura products in the family, and I've shared a garage with a few
Toyotas. And guess what, all had many annoying and/or expensive
problems: my brother's ex-wife's 1989 Honda Accord SEi (the injected
coupe) went through three A/C compressors at $800 a pop. His 1990
Acura Integra had an intermittent ABS problem that couldn't be
located. My girlfriend's Tercel had total transmission failure at 50K
miles and her Corolla had a severe hesitation/stalling problem that was
never fixed after 24 trips to various dealers. Fortunately, it was
finally stolen and stripped.
The guy who bought my 1989 Mercedes used has found it to be far more
reliable than his 1987 Mazda Rx-7, and all of the five people at work
who owned this same year Rx-7 had the same very expensive problems with
them, e.g. the heater Logicon, without which you have no heat, at $600
a pop, new clutch at 30K miles, etc.
I don't want to get into an anecdotal evidence pissing contest, so
I will post other JD Power data if people are interested.
Given that both of these people now have
owned Audis for longer than any of the above cars and have had zero
problems so far, guess what their conclusions are.
>
> Bottom line is, we buy our German iron because we like it (for
> whatever reason: perverse in my case). You don't really need
> any other rationale, but it's not surprising that the Germans
> are taking a beating in the bread-and-butter car market. The
> consumer is (contrary to what you believe) very perceptive in
> the long run: and what they buy is a good indicator of what is
> actually good quality.
>
I think you mean reliability and not quality in the above statement.
But even with that modification, the recent stampede to buy trucks
shows reliablity _and_ quality take a back-seat to image. Trucks and
SUVs are notoriously bad in almost every objective measure, e.g.
comfort, performance, reliability, yet people are buying them like
mad. Most people now realize that the difference between the best and
the worst car in terms of initial quality is less than two defects per
car, on average. So quality has ceased to be an important factor in
the the new-vehicle purchase decision as it was in the 80s.
For example, I knew that my new Mercedes is expected to have more
initial defects than a Lexus, or even a new Audi. But there were many
other factors that went into the decision, all more important than if I
have a probability of one-half defect more than a Lexus LS400 (45
defects/100 cars).
> I guess I should now don the Nomex :-)
Nah, this ain't rec.autos.misc, after all!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
John Greenstreet, Senior Engineer (jgreenst@motown.ge.com)
Martin Marietta Government Electronic Systems Moorestown NJ 08057
WPI Class of '75, Temple Class of '94
My new car history:
1975 1978 1982 1986 1989 1992 1995
VW -> Audi -> Audi -> Mercedes -> Mercedes -> Audi -> Mercedes
Scirocco Fox GTI 4000S 190E 2.3 190E 2.6 100CS S320
POSSLQ's* new car history:
1978 1981 1985 1988 1990 1993
Triumph -> Toyota -> Toyota -> VW -> Audi -> Audi
Spitfire Tercel Corolla Jetta GL 80 90S
*POSSLQ = Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters
Note: All Audis and Mercedes above were sold to friends or family.
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