A strange question: are cars made in this time of shortage (pandemic related) of the same quality as before?

[Bill7]

Well, in general, I believe cars made up until about 2010 to be made with high quality materials and made to last. So using arbitrary numbers here, to make a point: In the 2000-2010's, a new minivan selling for $35,000 might have cost the Japanese Automaker $25,000 to make. This resulted in a vehicle with high quality materials that is nice to own, but with decent but not great profit for the automakers.

But I think the Japanese saw what the German Automakers were doing, which was using the cheapest possible materials (ex: plastic not metal) on everything and cheaper dashboard materials, etc, and selling a car for $100,000 that only cost them $10 to make).

Cheapen the product, increase the profit.

 

[wemay]

No problems and very satisfied here...

22 Palisade
23 Sonata

 

[KCJeep]

I’ve had 2 pandemic era cars and they have seemed fine. Appliances on the other hand . We were forced to buy three and have had some issues with all of them already replaced one.

 

[VQ35DE]

No.

 

[lizpat]

You know, there may reallllly be something to this idea:

2023 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study for cars shows ... less quality

Dodge was the best automaker on the 2023 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, but the average rate of problems per 100 vehicles hit a new record.

www.yahoo.com

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/2023-j-d-power-initial-160000286.html

I've noticed a number of brand new computer purchases that came defective straight from the factory:
2 laptops, and 1 desktop computer.
So, 3 defective brand new computers out of 12 recent purchases..

 

[atikovi]

So, 3 defective brand new computers out of 12 recent purchases..

You probably shouldn't waste your money on lottery tickets with that kind of luck.

 

[John105]

My son-in-law works for a major car dealership consortium. He has stated that the upper end cars are having electrical problems etc since the pandemic. Especially Lincoln. On a different note: He also said that new vehicle inventory is at or above pre-pandemic levels. There are concerns that the manufacturers aren’t doing enough with incentives and lower interest rates to allow dealers to sell and move out the current inventories. If anyone is in the market for a new vehicle, this fall could be a decent time to buy. They may be back to selling much lower than sticker price..

Prolly depends on the model. I never see Suburbans or Tahoes on any lot today. I have always seen tons of Navigators and the smaller one through the pandemic.

But what’s interesting is when features are omitted, same price.