Cars built during the Covid pandemic

I don’t see any reason to avoid vehicles built during the pandemic period, 2020-?.

For historical reference, were recession cars built in 2008-2009 any worse than cars built in 2007 or 2010? Not that I’m aware of.

What about in 2001 after the Sept 11 attacks? Some US factories were idled for weeks and in some cases months due to low demand and uncertainty. When production resumed, were there quality concerns with vehicles built after Sept 11 which didn’t exist prior to the factories being idled? Not that I’ve heard.

What about during WWII when US factories started shifting production to produce military weaponry and defense goods? Did vehicles begin exhibiting major manufacturing flaws now that production and manufacturing was heavily focused on national defense? Nope.

How about the Great Depression? Yes, many automakers closed their doors for good during that time, GM and Chrysler remained profitable for essentially that whole period. I’ve never heard any adult from that period in time ever say that the cars built during the Great Depression were of worse quality. In fact, there was a major push to make quality a top priority. Luxury car sales practically became non existent, and consumers in fear of uncertainty wanted the absolute best car for as little money as possible. A crappy product would get a bad reputation quick, and the company would fail.

Look back in history at any historical event and ask yourself if it ever impacted the quality of automobile manufacturing.

The only time in history when cars were seen as low quality was during the time of the oil crisis. The EPA was formed a few years prior to the embargo and manufacturers were preparing for a wave of new emissions laws. Then the oil crisis hit and consumers demanded better fuel economy. The U.S. manufactures didn’t know what to do with their fleets. It became a period of downsizing, using thinner metal, expanding the use of plastic, implementing new technology, and investing in more efficient manufacturing, while at the same time having to adhere to the ever changing EPA laws. Honda, Toyota, and Datsun were known for great fuel economy during that time, but they were also known for being cheaply built cars. Not every car model produced during this time frame was lackluster, but it was evident that the auto industry had a lot of work ahead of themselves. As a whole this affected every manufacturer back then. Also worthy to note, each manufacturer eventually overcame this era of low quality.

I wouldn’t be worried about vehicle quality for vehicles built during this pandemic period. If history has any insight to the future I would say vehicles built during the pandemic are of higher quality. During times of uncertainty the last thing you want is for your company to get a tarnished reputation or for a product to be known for low quality. And for an auto manufacturer the last thing you want during an uncertainty period is to be pumping out junk and then have to eat it in warranty costs. It’s much easier to ride out a bad reputation or bad customer perception during the good times. As they say during bad times, batten down the hatches.
 
I bought a 2021 Grand Cherokee in Nov 2020 that was build Oct 2020. Fit and finish were excellent, there wasn't a flaw on it.
 
I don’t see any reason to avoid vehicles built during the pandemic period, 2020-?.

For historical reference, were recession cars built in 2008-2009 any worse than cars built in 2007 or 2010? Not that I’m aware of.

What about in 2001 after the Sept 11 attacks? Some US factories were idled for weeks and in some cases months due to low demand and uncertainty. When production resumed, were there quality concerns with vehicles built after Sept 11 which didn’t exist prior to the factories being idled? Not that I’ve heard.

What about during WWII when US factories started shifting production to produce military weaponry and defense goods? Did vehicles begin exhibiting major manufacturing flaws now that production and manufacturing was heavily focused on national defense? Nope.

How about the Great Depression? Yes, many automakers closed their doors for good during that time, GM and Chrysler remained profitable for essentially that whole period. I’ve never heard any adult from that period in time ever say that the cars built during the Great Depression were of worse quality. In fact, there was a major push to make quality a top priority. Luxury car sales practically became non existent, and consumers in fear of uncertainty wanted the absolute best car for as little money as possible. A crappy product would get a bad reputation quick, and the company would fail.

Look back in history at any historical event and ask yourself if it ever impacted the quality of automobile manufacturing.

The only time in history when cars were seen as low quality was during the time of the oil crisis. The EPA was formed a few years prior to the embargo and manufacturers were preparing for a wave of new emissions laws. Then the oil crisis hit and consumers demanded better fuel economy. The U.S. manufactures didn’t know what to do with their fleets. It became a period of downsizing, using thinner metal, expanding the use of plastic, implementing new technology, and investing in more efficient manufacturing, while at the same time having to adhere to the ever changing EPA laws. Honda, Toyota, and Datsun were known for great fuel economy during that time, but they were also known for being cheaply built cars. Not every car model produced during this time frame was lackluster, but it was evident that the auto industry had a lot of work ahead of themselves. As a whole this affected every manufacturer back then. Also worthy to note, each manufacturer eventually overcame this era of low quality.

I wouldn’t be worried about vehicle quality for vehicles built during this pandemic period. If history has any insight to the future I would say vehicles built during the pandemic are of higher quality. During times of uncertainty the last thing you want is for your company to get a tarnished reputation or for a product to be known for low quality. And for an auto manufacturer the last thing you want during an uncertainty period is to be pumping out junk and then have to eat it in warranty costs. It’s much easier to ride out a bad reputation or bad customer perception during the good times. As they say during bad times, batten down the hatches.
You are missing 1 major point - COVID situation is NOT the same -the big reason for quality risks are manpower being low and lots of new people doing jobs they never did before. That is the issue with manufacturing - people are absent and companies trying to build something that requires, for example 100 people but they only have 75. People rushing, doing jobs they are not fluent in etc - quality issues. Secondly, with cars, they are being built out of normal parameters....shipping shy electrical parts due to chip shortage. Cars have error proofing and other quality processes on the line to keep quality high - well that goes out the door when they ship parts shy and build it later somewhere else.

Your examples simply halted or reduced production and they had mostly the same available employees - not the like the current situation where employees are hard to get. Heck - even fast food has issues because turn over is high and I see poor food all the time.
 
The Bronco Sport has a rear brake pad recall and Ford said they will have a replacement part maybe in May or June.

A set of premium Powerstop aftermarket rear brake pads for the Bronco Sport are $40 and available now. They will be better than anything Ford ultimately offers. Sure, Ford will "fix" the issue for free but why wait 6 months on something like brakes? In this case, just get the aftermarket pads put on and tell the dealer the recall was taken care of.
 
You are missing 1 major point - COVID situation is NOT the same -the big reason for quality risks are manpower being low and lots of new people doing jobs they never did before. That is the issue with manufacturing - people are absent and companies trying to build something that requires, for example 100 people but they only have 75. People rushing, doing jobs they are not fluent in etc - quality issues. Secondly, with cars, they are being built out of normal parameters....shipping shy electrical parts due to chip shortage. Cars have error proofing and other quality processes on the line to keep quality high - well that goes out the door when they ship parts shy and build it later somewhere else.

Your examples simply halted or reduced production and they had mostly the same available employees - not the like the current situation where employees are hard to get. Heck - even fast food has issues because turn over is high and I see poor food all the time.
You may think that. But is there any evidence anywhere that vehicle quality dropped in 2020 or 2021? So far I haven’t come across any industry data showing vehicle quality dropping. It’s just human nature to assume everything is bad when times are bad.
 
You may think that. But is there any evidence anywhere that vehicle quality dropped in 2020 or 2021? So far I haven’t come across any industry data showing vehicle quality dropping. It’s just human nature to assume everything is bad when times are bad.

*Duplicate error post - delete*
 
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That’s been an issue ever since the beginning of time.
Likely, but it's not something we've personally seen until the past year. And it's not like been an occasional car, every truck load we've gotten lately has had a car with something wonky.
 
Likely, but it's not something we've personally seen until the past year. And it's not like been an occasional car, every truck load we've gotten lately has had a car with something wonky.
Do you work for a CDJR dealer?
 
You may think that. But is there any evidence anywhere that vehicle quality dropped in 2020 or 2021? So far I haven’t come across any industry data showing vehicle quality dropping. It’s just human nature to assume everything is bad when times are bad.
Yes I actually do...I work in an auto plant so I witnessed it first hand. The good thing is we have error proofing processes and other means in place to catch defects. While it works very well - it is not perfect. So, to your point I have not looked for data to prove the drop in quality - but the chances of it are very high. Had this been the 80's or sooner we would see defects of all sorts at the dealerships for certain. I could say so much more but bottom line is vehicles (and other mass produced goods) were effected by lack of skills, talents, employees out of position etc and quality always suffers as a result. I think in most cases defects are caught but not all of them. I still would not buy a new vehicle at this time.
 
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