J.D. Power 2017 Vehicle Dependability Study

[ls1mike]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
I really don't get these numbers... They imply that there is (slightly) more than one issue per vehicle, which we have fortunately never encountered.



This. Of all the cars I have owned, I have never encountered anything major until I have gone in excess of 150,000 miles except for my 02 Jetta and stuff I HAVE broke at track...Not sure that counts.

I just don't see that many problems with any car that new even here on BITOG. Do you think people just like to whine?

 

[fdcg27]

Agreed.
We haven't had much trouble with cars of any manufacturer that we've owned well past 150K or ten years since the eighties and if you look at my sig, you'll see that we don't renew the fleet all that often either. We also have a '94 E350 and a '99 Legacy AWD wagon, so we're not mostly operating new stuff.
In fact, the only car we've ever owned that gave much trouble at all was my old MGB, and its problems were mainly electrical and hydraulic niggles that were easily and cheaply fixed. Nothing mechanical ever failed.
I really doubt that a new Fiat could actually need more attention than our '76 Civic 1500 did, and that car required only a new alternator, a carb rebuild as well as regular attention to the ignition breaker points but was otherwise as trouble free as any current car in the thirteen years and 160K that we used it.
An often overlooked point is that even the worst modern car is less troublesome than the best cars of a few decades back.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Yes sir, it's a Fiat 500 POP for me.

 

[DrRoughneck]

How come all brands list more than 100 issues per 100 vehicles? The wway I understand it , this means an average of one issue per vehicle.
Does anyone know?
I would think a ***good** brand would have less than 1 issue per vehicle the first year on average.

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted By: DrRoughneck
How come all brands list more than 100 issues per 100 vehicles? The wway I understand it , this means an average of one issue per vehicle.
Does anyone know?
I would think a ***good** brand would have less than 1 issue per vehicle the first year on average.


Sounds to me like all the cars suck then.

These reliability surveys are a joke honestly. Some of my family's most reliable vehicles had a few small things come up initially, then were literally trouble free for years. It's even more funny when they have the luxury and base vehicles from a similar brand (Audi and VW for example) on two opposite ends of the scale when many of the vehicles share the same drivetrains and parts.

It also isn't clear what an "issue" is. You could have a bunch of cars with bluetooth glitches being in the same category as cars with engine failures. I'd much rather have the bluetooth glitches.

 

[Hootbro]

Originally Posted By: javacontour
Fiat is quite an outlier compared to the rest of them.

I suspect the high Dodge numbers compared to Ram or Chrysler have to do with offering a warmed over Fiat, the Dart. That certainly can't help the numbers...


A lot of USA FIAT's problems lay at were they are built. The 500 in Mexico, the 500L in Serbia and the 500X in Italy from plants that have not the best track records in terms of quality.

My wifes 500 Pop has been fine so far in 25K miles of ownership, you can tell it was built to a lower quality standard in terms of fit and materials used.