J.D. Power isn’t an unbiased review.<p>There is zero chance that Dodge and Chevy have real world reliability greater than makes like Toyota, Honda and Mazda.<p>They also play games like counting “problems” without a weight. Infotainment problem fixed in firmware and transmission problem both increment the count by 1?
Initial quality always seemed like a silly measure to me. I'm more interested in total cost of ownership through 150k-200k miles. Own a GM for 90 days vs own a GM for 15 years and you'll have vastly different results, IMO.
These type of articles that do not breakdown the type of complaints are worthless.
The trend of increased complaints has been present for a few years now, but when broken down the increase comes vastly from infotainment and SW related issues.
And it is expected, SW complexity in the infotainment part has skyrocketed and automotive companies are in their core HW companies, not SW companies and are slow to adapt.
I wouldn't consider infotainment complaints to be a sign of drop in reliability.
<i>Electric vehicles (EVs) performed worse than gas-powered models in the study. EVs had 240 complaints per 100 vehicles on average, plug-in hybrid vehicles had 239, and gas-powered cars averaged 175.</i><p>This never fails to baffle me. An ICE vehicle has a hundred times as many moving parts as a BeV. Just how much lower is the BeV production quality to give them <i>more</i> problems?
My 2014 WRX has had a myriad of reliability issues. Bone stock, always maintained, and just constantly going into the dealer for issues. Thankfully I have an extended warranty.<p>Issue #1: 19k miles - OEM turbo blows. Subaru FSE determines a bearing seized prematurely. Turbo replaced.<p>Issue #2: 23k miles - Replacement turbo starts making more sounds mimicking the same noises the OEM turbo made before it blew. Subaru replaces it again.<p>Issue #3: 28k miles - Third turbo goes bad yet again. I cause more of a ruckus at Subaru and they call in an another FSE. FSE determined that all of the turbos blowing caused metal shards to shoot into the engine and that's why the turbos keep blowing. They ended up replacing the long block as well.<p>Issue #4: 8/1/16 - Car goes back after I keep hearing a rasp. Subaru determined that it wasn't the exhaust shields as suspected and called in an yet another FSE. The FSE determined that the clutch that went bad prematurely. Other misc issues they addressed during this visit:<p>- Rear seat driver side window has some sort of regulator issue/noise
- Plastic bezel on the radio is peeling
- Creaky clutch and brake pedal<p>Issue #5: Burning odor from transmission. Subaru says its not an issue.<p>Issue #6: Yesterday, driving home from Burlington VT to NYC. Reverse gear fails. No reverse option. Third gear also pops out.<p>It's one of the most fun cars I have ever driven but Jesus it's a nightmare to go to Subaru non-stop. I am contemplating getting a 2022 WRX and attributing all the issues to it being a Lemon...
Mo' tech mo' problems. Just give me a car that goes forward, backwards, left and right with a roof, windows, seats with few luxuries: air conditioning, power locks/windows, remote start (winter savior). For safety I will take ABS, maybe ESP. Leave me an industry standard DIN or double DIN opening for a radio and speaker locations; factory options always suck. Transmission can be manual or automatic. The rest is fluff that easily breaks.
I think that the base claim that "Car quality is slipping" is <i>generally</i> true. But I think that this is a trend that began a decade ago. Comparing the track records of the vehicles I've owned:<p>2002 Corolla (used) - rock solid reliability, only cosmetic issues with vinyl and a need for break pads.<p>2013 Elantra (brand new) - reliable, except for an electrical issue caused by an off-brand Rocket Fish (Best Buy in-house brand) car charger for my phone. The charger would send dirty electrical signals back into the car, and the new 1st generation power system would trip up... and I wouldn't have climate controls, defrost, wipers, stereo, etc for a random amount of time. I eventually reproduced it for the dealership, but was told by Hyundai that they wouldn't do anything since it wasn't a "defect". I traded it in ASAP for the next car, while it still had trade-in value.<p>2013 Civic (used, current daily driver) - so far rock solid, except for a tendency to burn up the brake's rotors. I had to replace calipers, pads, and rotors shortly after purchase of the vehicle (they were brand new at purchase IIRC). Occasional power system (maybe the battery?) issue where the airbag system shuts off randomly at start up.<p>I'm definitely cautious about buying a newer car now. I always try to review the lists at CarComplaints.com when considering what I might want to look for.
> EVs Reported More Problems<p>I think it's important to keep in mind that 1) ICEs are many generations beyond EVs so it's natural to expect more issues but also 2) ICE vehicles came into being in an age where maintenance was assumed to be inherited with the vehicle (and a lot of it if not all of it could be done by the owner or a neighborhood mechanic) while PHEVs were born into the "weld the hood shut" generation of owners and can only really be worked on by dealers and certified professionals.<p>I'm very handy with cars but when I bought my PHEV for the first time ever I also bought the extended warranty and any time anything happens that car goes straight to the dealer because not only is the process for fixing EV components alien to me, but they're also not built to be user-serviceable in the first place and there's limited to no documentation out there.
We own a 2018 Pacifica minivan, when we bought it the manager told us the electronics were the most added parts on the vehicle. I purchased the upgraded warranty, which I never do. Thank God I did! The Uconnect system is wanky, we had battery problems almost from the start. The last recall for the ESS seems to have fixed the problem. Many people online have given up and said they dumped the van. The van itself is really an awesome vehicle, the electronics side still needs some sorting out. I can't help but feel that Chrysler made us owners guinea pigs.
A “problem” can be that your car breaks down or that you don’t know how to use the infotainment system. That’s a pretty wide berth. JD power has bad incentives to track these things.
IME the <i>overall</i> quality of pretty anything is falling, not just cars, the race toward cost-cutting have reached the point of no-return in general assembly output quality.<p>New stuff, not EV in particular, have bigger problems in mean just because they are sold as production ready while are just beta quality prototypes.<p>For cars, not EVs in particular, the issue is in target mismatch: cars now are pushed to be services, rolling infotainment stuff, while people actually tend to need and desire vehicles so less crappy crapware, less surveillance capitalism stuff, less useless interfaces and more effective tools. As a result the end product is bad. It's the mix of some managers and engineers and customers deeply divergent views.