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Porsche looks good on this list, but they only moved 59K units vs 298K for Lexus. Yes it's still problems per 100 vehicles, but Lexus has 5X more chances for failure.
Also, Porsche owners probably drive their cars less. So less chance for failure there too.
Same questions (and more) need to be asked for everyone on the list. What problems were they? what is the criteria for a "problem?" How serious were the problems? Honda could have had 10,000 TPMS failures while Hyundai could have had 5,000 engine failures. Which problem would you rather have?
Also, the problems may not be evenly spread across the manufacturers vehicle lineup. Lexus is ranked higher than Acura overall, but [Hypothetical example:] if you're shopping mid size and the Lexus ES300 has more problems than the TLX, it is not necessarily accurately reported in this simplified chart. It could be that the Acura SUV's MDX/RDX have all the problems and are bringing Acura's number down.
Charts always have a story behind them, it's the job of the consumer to do the proper research.
Porsche looks good on this list, but they only moved 59K units vs 298K for Lexus. Yes it's still problems per 100 vehicles, but Lexus has 5X more chances for failure.
Also, Porsche owners probably drive their cars less. So less chance for failure there too.
The fact that it's "problems per 100 vehicles" ostensibly accounts for this difference in sample size. However, I agree that at least a subset of Porsches are probably driven less frequently than average. You have to remember though, the bread and butter of Porsche is their SUV lineup these days. I see those as being daily-driver vehicles.
Honda Engines are strong as a Lexus, maybe more tuneable etc. DI is a problematic system long term for carbon buildup but I`d check the respective Acura forum for any longterm issues.
Honda Drivetrain/transmissions are probably its weakest link. Honda of recently have gone through some whopping transmission part changes in the past 4-5 years. Your best bet is to figure out if the vehicle you are driving has some weird upshift/hesistation and see if any TSBs were done or if anything transmission related was replaced (cooler etc). If the vehicle in question has the 9 speed ZF FWD transmission, run away. The Honda in house designed DCT have better reliability, and if you find the 6 speeds of yore better probably then anything on the newer vehicles.
No, problems per 100 vehicles is problems per 100 vehicles, so there is no such thing as "5X more chance".
Your other point is legit, it has to do with seriousness of the problems, but for that it is much easier to go and look up the cost of car maintenance for the first 10 years, I think it is the best metric of all, unfortunately I haven't seen data updates since 2016.
Ok let me try to better explain what I'm trying to say, I might not have worded it correctly the first time. When I said “5X more chances for failure,” I really meant 5X more opportunities, not that Lexus is 5X more likely to fail. The chart clearly shows both Porsche and Lexus have virtually 1 problem per 1 vehicle according to JD Power—so the chances are essentially the same. What I meant is, Lexus has 5X more vehicles on the road, so they have much more total opportunity for failures to occur.
What I’m also leading at is that there’s more to infer from this chart, specifically about capability vs just quality—if that makes any sense.
Although their current quality is the same, in regards to quality in manufacturing, it’s much easier to keep quality up when production volume is down. For Lexus to have [slightly] higher quality ratings than Porsche here, and doing it with 5X the units, speaks to Lexus capability. If Porsche were to increase production by 5X, I’m betting their quality would take a dip. That might not mean anything to some people, but Lexus garners more respect from me in that regard. It’s awesome that Porsche can create a limited car like the 918 Spyder, but how amazed would everyone be if they could make them on the scale of a Toyota Camry while still keeping the overall quality?
Edit:
Keeping in mind the idea that consumers really need to understand what's behind the study-- the more i read the JD power report, the more i learn myself. https://www.jdpower.com/business/pre...dability-study
In fact, the 2018 report is based on 2015 vehicles. And it's only based on 36,896 owners of said 2015 vehicles. If you consider in 2015 Lexus alone sold 41K vehicles, Toyota as a whole sold 238K vehicles, then it's important to understand that this survey is a tiny fraction of the total annual US vehicle sales for 2015. I'm sure manufacturers pull their hair out over how much power the JD Power report has on their brand considering what a small sample group JDP uses.
No, you are still missing the point and it has to do with basic math and probability. Having 5X more vehicles does mean they have 5X more chances for problems but all these problems are divided by number of vehicles which equalizes things, JD Power would never provide nonsensical data where you would have to account for number of vehicles, it would make no sense. To make it plainly obvious if I produce one car per year and the car develops 5 problems it is the same as if my neighbor produced 4 cars and his cars developed 20 problems, our 'brands' have identical statistics regarding number of faults. Or you can say probability of developing a fault is the same for our two brands.
No, you are still missing the point and it has to do with basic math and probability. Having 5X more vehicles does mean they have 5X more chances for problems but all these problems are divided by number of vehicles which equalizes things, JD Power would never provide nonsensical data where you would have to account for number of vehicles, it would make no sense. To make it plainly obvious if I produce one car per year and the car develops 5 problems it is the same as if my neighbor produced 4 cars and his cars developed 20 problems, our 'brands' have identical statistics regarding number of faults. Or you can say probability of developing a fault is the same for our two brands.
Failure rate is equalized, but CLUM is commenting on the manufacturing quality of Lexus vs Porsche. Lexus produces 5x the amount of cars in the same amount of time as Porsche, so Lexus is going to theoretically spend less time building each vehicle. With that said, for Lexus to maintain the same low level failure rate is a feat because that means their quality control/production processes are top notch. However, this doesn't account for other factors such as Lexus probably having a much larger employee size to meet the higher production rate. A more valid point in my opinion would be to look at man hour's required per build.
A more valid point in my opinion would be to look at man hour's required per build.
Normal users don't care about such things, or that Lexus is building cars 'faster', no one cares about it, or how many employees build a single car. Theses are production details, good for factory managers. What counts for end user is the measure of quality of the individual car.
But someone above mentioned Porsche's could be driven less which would help artificially drive up their reliability, but I have no data about number of miles driven by Porsche versus Lexus.
Normal users don't care about such things, or that Lexus is building cars 'faster', no one cares about it, or how many employees build a single car. Theses are production details, good for factory managers. What counts for end user is the measure of quality of the individual car.
But someone above mentioned Porsche's could be driven less which would help artificially drive up their reliability, but I have no data about number of miles driven by Porsche versus Lexus.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with the failure rate being the most important. Like CLUM said, Lexus' capability of making reliable cars on a much larger scale vs Porsche is what is being inferred beyond the low failure rate per 100 cars.
No, you are still missing the point and it has to do with basic math and probability. Having 5X more vehicles does mean they have 5X more chances for problems but all these problems are divided by number of vehicles which equalizes things, JD Power would never provide nonsensical data where you would have to account for number of vehicles, it would make no sense. To make it plainly obvious if I produce one car per year and the car develops 5 problems it is the same as if my neighbor produced 4 cars and his cars developed 20 problems, our 'brands' have identical statistics regarding number of faults. Or you can say probability of developing a fault is the same for our two brands.
I did, in fact, say that the two brands have the same quality level based on the study. Simply put, yes I agree that it is important to equalize the data to ‘per 100 cars’ in order to try to compare apples to apples in order to provide a broad, generalized chart, but ideally, all things would be equal to make the best comparison. IMO, production numbers (and thus capability) is a huge factor.
Using your example, yes your quality is the same as your neighbors for your 1 car to his 4. And yes, IF manufacturing stays the same and your neighbor then produced 1 car only, the quality would still be equal. But in reality, that’s not the case because his manufacturing capability would likely get exponentially better by going down to 1 car, resulting in a higher quality car. The fact that he produces more cars than you gives him more opportunity for error.
Another example: You spend 30 days to paint your 1 vehicle and it results in 1 flaw in the paint. Your neighbor spends the same 30 days to paint 4 total vehicles resulting in 4 total flaws in the paint (1 per vehicle). Let’s also say that prep time has a direct correlation with surface finish. Yes the problem rate is the same but your neighbor had much less prep time per vehicle. At the end of the day their quality is considered equal. BUT, if you asked your neighbor to paint 1 vehicle only in 30 days would you not think having 4X the prep time that he did before, that he could do a considerably better job? I would think so. If he’s capable of matching your quality with rushing to do 4 vehicles, then he’d likely be able to exceed his previous quality when tasked with 1 vehicle.
I get that the above example is hypothetical and the manufacturers are not producing equally. As I said, this may not mean anything to some people. I fully acknowledge that. But that’s just what I see when I look at a chart like this. I try not to take things like this at face value. Could Porsche really match Lexus quality at equal production levels? Who knows. The original comment was, ‘surprised to see Porsche up there’…my response is that they have lower volume, so quality is higher. If they produced cars on the level of their parent company Volkswagen, then I’m sure the survey would tell a different story (and more closely match VW’s spot lower on the chart).
Having that said, all of this is speculation and as I already pointed out, the survey pool is only 36K owners out of a millions. Definitely something I’d take with a grain of salt and not something I want to waste any more of my time on
I the survey pool is only 36K owners out of a millions. Definitely something I’d take with a grain of salt and not something I want to waste any more of my time on
Please don't waste your time but others use those numbers regularly, because they DO make sense and they convey important data, again probability theory is required but you can actually compute how good is the sample of 36K comparing to millions, believe me it is enough, you can compute (I don't have Poisson formula handy) but you can actually arrive at some number that would tell you that 36K sample out of a million gives you a (say) 99.XX percentile of confidence, how do you think political polls are done in this country, you can't call 200 mil voters, you only take a sample, the sample has to be large enough but it doesn't have to include everybody, sorry this is the basis of all statistical analysis, you are welcome to dismiss it, but that's just out of sheer ignorance.
had a 2009 tsx, then went to a subaru brz, and now a 16' is200t.
The acura - never had any problems. i had the base model, but tons of features for a base model. (it had memory seats and side mirror reverse tilt that my lexus doesn't have!)
- build quality was decent.
the lexus - build quality is definitely much better. materials, attention to detail, etc
- no problem so far
- missing some basic features, unless you pay for more premium features.
IMO you can't go wrong with either. both are great daily drivers. having both, i think i would go with the lexus. the quality and style won me over, though you may not get every feature you get in a base model acura...
02-13-19, 11:48 AM
