After a lifetime of owning German cars, I consider European cars garbage. They are so bad that they can make a garbage car like Chrysler look good.
Cars! Cars! Cars!
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
After a lifetime of owning German cars, I consider European cars garbage. They are so bad that they can make a garbage car like Chrysler look good.
I have had European cars for a very long time. I am not a young person and I have had them since the seventies. I have had several BMWs, Mercedes Benz, as well as other family members and friends who own them. Some of these are high end. Yes, even with 12 cylinder. The earlier the BMW and the Mercedes Benz, the better they are. But as they gain more technology, the later and the more modern they are, the more junk they become. Its not just mechanical reliability. The interior materials become cheaper and cheaper. You got lots of plastics, rubbers, and seals that deteriorate over both cold and heat, leading all sort of interior anomalies to issues with hoses in the engine.
There are many junk American cars, but I am personally lucky with them because either I am lucky or I choose wisely. I had a Ford Taurus for many years, while simultaneously having BMWs, and the Ford not only had less trips to the shop, but each trip costs far way less. The interior plastics lasted way longer and the seats were more comfortable to boot. Much later had a Jeep Wrangler with a 4.0 liter inline six. Other than the legendary reputation of the AMC six, Wranglers don't have a reputation for reliability, but when you compare it to the BMW X5, the Wrangler is an angel.
Mercedes Benz had legendary engines. One engine which we still have in our possession and still running in a W210 is the M104 inline six which some may even say is the German 2JZ because of the similarity of this engine to the legendary Supra inline six. But after they stopped production of that engine, the next engines they made were 90 degree V6s with contra rotating shafts, and these engines were garbage until many years later, MB reintroduced a new inline six but it was only reserved for very high end models. I am very proud of this car and lucky we didn't get the next year iteration of this model that had the V6, which is the same engine as the ML320 SUV, which turned out to be junk from the cheap interior to the mechanical failures.
American cars are big hit and miss. You need to research them carefully to separate the junk from the collectibles and classics. When its bad its very bad but when its good its very good. I think Ford is generally the better of the three American brand car makers but Ford has stopped making sedans in the US, leaving only trucks, SUVs and Mustangs. Ford greatly benefited borrowing Mazda's MZR engines into the Ecoboost engines while Mazda borrowed the Duratec V6 into its lineup.
Japanese cars are very good but they are not perfect in my experience, as these recall emails and mailed notices from Lexus proves. My experience is confined to those using the 1UZ, 2UZ and 2GR series of engines, but now in hindsight, wished I should have bought something with a 2JZ engine then for mods.
You are lucky to get Volvo. Its the best of the European brands when it came to reliability and being Geely made, makes it better in the more modern times. The fact that Volvo had shared parts with Ford which in turn from Mazda, also helped, particularly with the four cylinder engines. Geely however, could not save the Jaguar brand but it ain't over yet.
Mistaken. Tata asked BMW and Geely to get Jaguar and Land Rover off their hands. JLR does have a current JV with Chery on the mainland.
Geely did poach a noted Aston Martin and Jaguar automobile designer though, to head up a new design studio, while poaching another executive to run Lotus.
Maybe Li Shufu will do another genius and take over Jaguar-Land Rover.
Tata Group screwed up Jaguar. Indians....... le sigh.
Honestly if Li Shufu manages to take over Jaguar Geely is gonna become one fucking behemoth.
Stonks go UP!
When Tata bought it, I was sure it was doomed. Not because of some racist idea like I think Indians are stupid, but it was a sinking ship to begin with, and Tata automotive has no global footprint (to be profitable in the industry you have to be big, share resources). Tata is making cheap cars for India, and trying to sell 6 figure cars elsewhere, no overlap.
However, they came out with some nice Land Rovers, F-Type and other new vehicles and I thought maybe I was wrong. Now it looks like the only thing wrong was my reconsidering.
F-Type is nice but not a sales-getter. They didn't sell their SUVs in large enough numbers