Car reliability prediction

First, disregard consumer reports and other things like JD power. They gauge reliability on very strange things and their "long term" is usually like 2 years of ownership. One survey I read a few years ago placed a car with transmission issues as more reliable on the scale compared to another which had a few infotainment glitches. This would be fine for a lease, but I'm pretty sure someone who plans on owning a vehicle long-term would be more concerned about potential expensive transmission issues compared to infotainment needing to be turned off and back on for bluetooth issues. The purpose of these reports is mainly to try and educate consumers on the features of new vehicles, not necessarily the 5 years down the road reliability.


Read brand and model specific forums about potential issues on a vehicle you are thinking about buying. This will give you REAL WORLD problems people are having, and work arounds/fixes for them so you know what you are up against and can budget for them. All cars break, but if you are financially prepared and know what you are getting into you can avoid surprise repair bills. Have a plan for repairing the car. Is is a car you can DIY repairs? Can you take it to a local Indy shop? Are air filters $700 a piece? All things you want to know ahead of time. When shopping used look for maintenance records, or parts replaced. I try to buy cars from private owners, dealerships usually throw out any documentation relating to the car so they can hide previous owner info, and then they shine it up to try and hide any flaws. You can learn a lot about how a car was maintained by talking to the previous owner, finding out what parts they bought or where they took the vehicle for maintenance.
 
Reliability != durability.

A reliable car starts every morning and gets you to your destination. May have some warning lights, ominous noises.

A durable car makes it to insanely high mileage because it won't rust out, and because the owner isn't bored of it yet.

My prii have been my most unreliable cars-- they've left me stranded on the side of the road more than any other car. Once it was a fuse for the inverter water pump and unrelated essential services. Another was a coil pack and the car didn't want to run on 3 cylinders out of concern for the catalytic converter.

Yet the cars are easy to fix and parts are cheap, and running costs are low, so I'm chalking up the issues to a learning experience. The water pump was recalled so I can check if this was done, and I always carry a coil pack and tools now.
 
I would say Consumer Reports is the least biased most objective source. When people complain of car having a poor reliability score because of minor things like trim rattling or a confusing infotainment menus they're talking about JD Powers Initial Quality which is intended for the manufacturers to tell them how satisfied consumers are with their new car purchases. JD Powers does have a Vehicle Dependability Study that looks at 3 year old vehicles, which is the closest thing they have for long term reliability.

I'd take vehicle or brand specific forums with a grain of salt. They can be good to find common problems on a certain model, but can be misleading because you'll always run into the fanboy types. The kind of people that will say yeah my Mercedes ML has been great, really reliable besides oil changes and brakes I've only changed the body control module, ABS pump, a few coil packs, the secondary 12V battery, and the air intake plenum. So besides that $4K of extra repairs it's really reliable.
 
Originally Posted by HM12460
Carcomplaints.com, dashboard-light.com are both pretty good resources.


I found dashboard-light to be hilariously inaccurate. They lump different generations, that have VASTLY different drivetrains together.

For instance:
[Linked Image]
 
Originally Posted by Skippy722
I found dashboard-light to be hilariously inaccurate.


The site name should have told you all you needed to know. This place is the only mention I ever see of the site.
 
Originally Posted by HM12460
Carcomplaints.com, dashboard-light.com are both pretty good resources.


I took a look at that site and someone complaint about spending $3k to have a belt tensioner changed on a 3-series BMW with over 80k miles on the odometer. The owner got scammed on that repair. It takes a competent tech all of 20 minutes to do that job.
 
Consumer Reports. I will not consider anything which does not get a perfect mechanical score from them...then I join the forum dedicated to the vehicle and I peruse the posts under the drive-train sections, and then general topics. I try to get a feel, in general, for the vehicle. Some forums just come out and TELL YOU. I remember I was cruising the 335i forum, and a moderator straight up said to another poster "It's a fun car, if you want reliable, buy a Honda" or something about as blunt. I did an about-face and left, lol!

From there, I call the local dealership after searching the vehicle's manual, and ask what each maintenance service, a brake job, etc. will cost me. I also ask about any common problems. The VW dealership was quite up front and honest about what breaks on an Audi A3 when my girlfriend was considering one, so don't write it off as "they will lie to you to make a sale!" Some might. Some might not. Asking is free. Service manager's advice was dead-on with what I read on the forums.

After doing all of this, I go to AutoTrader, and I see what the vehicles look like for higher mileage avilability. Try this with the Toyota Landcruiser and try this with a BMW X5. Trends emerge...

After all of this is done, I take the end product and ask myself "Do I want this car? Is it worth paying the note on?"

If the answer is "yes", I go and buy it. If the answer is "no", I go back to the drawing board. This rarely results in me buying the fastest, slowest, cheapest, most expensive, largest, or smallest vehicle in its broad category, and more often than not, has led me to Japanese designed, manufactured, and assembled vehicles. My Mazda CX5 GT Reserve turbo is the latest of such, and it has not disappointed thus far.
 
Originally Posted by dishdude
Originally Posted by Skippy722
I found dashboard-light to be hilariously inaccurate.


The site name should have told you all you needed to know. This place is the only mention I ever see of the site.


And there are some people on this site who actually swear by dashboard-light; I just find it to be completely devoid of any useful content- it's nothing more than a collection of idiots who have left their villages devoid of numbskulls.
 
Originally Posted by eljefino
Reliability != durability.

A reliable car starts every morning and gets you to your destination. May have some warning lights, ominous noises.

A durable car makes it to insanely high mileage because it won't rust out, and because the owner isn't bored of it yet.

I've wondered about this, what the terms really mean.

A reliable car "never" breaks down, but what if the maintenance schedule called for plugs every 10k, headgaskets every 50k and rings&bearings every 100k? Despite an insane level of work, as long as it never "broke down" it technically would be reliable, as long as it always started. I don't think any of us would be interested in that level of reliability, at least not in a plain jane commuter... but it'd be reliable.

I don't think we'd consider it durable, not with such insane levels of "maintenance". Skip on anything and it sounds like it'd be catastrophic.

Now a durable car could be run out of coolant, have it seize up, a 50 cent part tossed at it, and then it motors on. Repeatedly. "Constantly" breaking but never to the point where one gives up on it. But any repair would have to be both cheap and easy.

Or durable could mean, items on the maintenance schedule are often skipped, with little to no discernible effect on operation. But that could just mean the maintenance schedule was simply overly-conservative, and not really indicative of a low stress / long life piece of machinery.

*

I gauge reliable & durable (however it's measured) off various reviews on the web. Far from perfect but most reviews from "professional" sources are hit & runs that look at the infotainment stack, the exterior lines and MSRP price, and give nadda about tire replacement cost, maintenance costs nor actual out the door cost, let alone depreciation rates.

These days its getting harder and harder to go by historical data: platforms don't last for more than a few years before they incremental improvements or drivetrain changes. Usually yesteryear's solid performers stay on top, but we've seen a few reversals that seem to indicate that all bets are off now. I've kinda given up and assume that, once warranty is up, I had better have gotten my monies worth out of it. Otherwise I'll be sad, either when it needs a repair or I go to trade. Who knows what will last 300k--and what won't.
 
Yeah, reliability is complex. I'd say that the cost and effort of getting a vehicle to 300K is the best indicator of reliability.
 
Reliability is pretty straight forward as far as I'm concerned.
If you do the required services, it should rarely need more than that for 200K miles. Or more.
Things like water pumps, alternators and starters are wear items, but should last at least 100K miles.

Just my 2 cents.
 
200K miles is my upper limit for keeping a car; I find keeping it longer than that is dangerous- I would likely die of boredom.
 
You ALWAYS hear..."Never buy a first year model car". Well, I own a 2017 Hyundai Elantra Value Edition with 40,000 miles and its been flawless. Not a single issue. No squeaks, rattles, nothing. The 2017 year was the total design first year for the Elantra in 2017. I do 5K OCI with full synthetic. At 30K, new air filter and cabin air filter and that's it! I did upgrade tires from those mediocre OEM Kumho's to the Continental True Contact Tour, which was an nice improvement for ride comfort.
 
I bought Year One models of the 318ti, E83 X3, and my M235i. No issues save an infant mortality failure of the electric fan on the 2er.
 
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