Are Cars Getting LESS Reliable?

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Today we're looking at the topic of reliability and the question of whether or not new cars are actually getting less reliable.

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[zornslemon]

My sister has a 2024 Corolla, it constantly complains at her for not paying for the app subscription. I miss when cars minded their own business.

[JayRides-uluf]

90s to mid 2000s car I think were the peak of reliability. No distributors or carburetors, yet not overrun by zillions of sensors, electronics, turbos or di.

[Rookie_Speed]

My friend has a 2019 Toyota Highlander and one day his battery died. He got his battery replaced and then his center screen kept turning off causing the car to go into a sort of panic mode, turns out to fix this at Toyota was around 5k to replace the entire screen & center console. So being the only car enthusiast of the friend group my friend took it to me instead, so I did a bit of research and turns out all you have to do to fix this is to turn on the e brake and shift to reverse and leave it in reverse for 10 minutes and this worked, he never got the error screens again after that. I saved my friend 5k, honestly these overhauls of screens and sensors in modern cars is stupid.

[Blabus]

What breaks my heart is quality of replacement parts which is dogshit. You can't stop wear on older cars so sometimes you need to replace stuff but the parts are so bad that you are replacing broken pieces with trash

[jess]

the person who buys 1 car every 20 years has much less sway in market trends than the person that leases the newest cars every 2 or 3 years.

[mochi_]

13:35 the problem is that (at least in the US) car companies heavily lobby against "normal" vehicles. There are so many trucks and SUVs because they allow the car companies to bypass the emission laws. You can't get a car without screens as the backup cameras are mandatory in all cars since 2018. We would first have to get rich private entities out of the politics which is simply impossible in America

[petesime]

I never want a car that needs a firmware update.

[cybair]

The frustrating part is that the customer has no choice.
The manufacturers don't care about what people really want.

[tonyl]

New cars are less fixable and more sensitive to neglect. Old=/=better, but usually means less stuff to break, therefore more "reliable". Cars generally surrender reliability when unproven technology is added, regardless of decade.

[jamesmustin]

I am an original owner of a 1997 Honda Del Sol Si. It has 224, 000 miles. Since I wanted a small two seater, that is what I bought. The cars
comes with, a five speed transmission, multipoint fuel injection, 127 horse power Sohc Vtec motor, front and rear double wishbone suspension, front and rear sway bars. It will easy cruise at 90 to 100 miles per hour. Mileage is 30 in town 35 highway 0n 87 octane fuel. Its handling is like a go cart. It’s
Acceleration is quick and lively. It is a two seat car. Unlike the Miata it has luggage for two people. My Late mother and I would travel from
Florida to Hackettstown New Jersey luggage and small dog. When not travel the roof top is stored in trunk and there is still space for groceries.
At the time it was called the Thinking Man’s Convertible. I still have it because it does everything I want in a small two seat car. I have not had car payments since 1999. It cost me $16, 500. How many cars do the average person have in 27 year and still happy with their car. I hear car payments
are running from $700 to $1000. Per month.

[VanagonsEva]

My worry is that I might use up all the good old cars. My 4 cars from 1990 to 2002 collectively have 700, 000 miles. At some point I will have to start stalking nursing homes for replacements.

[kurticusmaximus]

I worked in Detroit in a tier 2 supplier to major automotive companies. Engineers don’t deliberately design components to fail in 10 years. Cars are less reliable because they require TOO MANY people to design all that complexity. With all the complexity comes human error, which reduces reliability. It’s a fact, it’s easier to make a hammer reliable than a robot handling a hammer.

[jfygt]

In South East Asia, there are specific cars that are targeted in this region only. Those cars are built to be reliable, cheap, and basic. Because those are what the people are looking for as they want their money's worth.

Just Air Conditioning, Basic Radio (No oversized touchscreen), Power Windows, and Classic Transmission (No fancy dials or Selectors).

[rabd]

Cars today are overloaded with tech prone to breaking down. It feels flashy when driving off the lot, but the novelty wears off FAST.

In other words, every new car today is a Pimp My Ride gimmicky toy.

[ZERO]

I worked in a Toyota service department from 1991 to 2019. I lived it. Toyota vehicles, as a whole, are just as reliable now as they have ever been. Most of the stories regarding bullet proof 80's/90's Toyota's going 200K miles with only oil changes are complete bs. They needed quite a bit more... BUT Toyota owners actually followed thier owners manual and did the maintenance. If social media would have been around in the 90's, keyboard warriors heads would have exploded.

[SugarFreeTargets]

Either stuck buying an old car that's going to break down on you because it's old or buying a new car with very questionable reliability. Your average driver can't win in this situation unless that driver starts becoming a mechanic and wishes to throw their weekends away working on their cars.

[valengreymoon]

With the increasing amount of plastic engine parts in cars now, it's no wonder the failure rate is high. That coupled with poor build quality, even among the once great European makers.

[Teen_Drama]

My dad got me a '98 Corolla, while both my folks have newer Toyotas. Quality of life may be different for both, but I like how zippy it is and how connected I feel with it. And aside from good milleage, parts for it are everywhere for cheap.

[daleolson]

Yes they are too complex. I don’t want or need lane deviation, entertainment systems, automatic braking, antilock brakes, on and on. Who is going to fix all of those complex systems in 20 years?

[CowpokeChris]

Well if the Chicken Tax wasn’t c*cking us, we could be getting brand new Toyota work trucks for 10k and the list goes on and on.
If we had this market available to us, it’d force manufacturers to make either better vehicles or proper base model vehicles again with no tech. Heck, even roll up windows. Whatever it takes.