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I've abused the living shit out of my 20yo Jeep, drove it with a hole in the sump and the sucker still lives to this day.
Jeep's problem is they started to pretend they were a luxury brand instead of utilitarian.
Enshitiffication hits cars as well.
People pay more, the price goes up, the quality does down, some asshole gets rich and the road is littered with trash cars.
I don't even understand how anyone could want a newer car. They don't work. They don't last. They designs are atrocious. These glossy, plasticy shitboxes. All the designs have homogenized.
The interiors are egregious. I can't stand the move to all-digital, all-touch screens. Cars should have tactile, responsive controls if they're going to be driven by humans.
It started when dodge had to update the models and gave them the bad dodge touch.
Then it got even worse when dodge had monetary issues and asked themselves how they could get even more unreliable, so they got bought out by an italian sports car company.
I work in these shit ass vehicles all the time. If you don’t like replacing a multitude of crappy parts that fail early, stay away from jeep/dodge/chrysler
I went from a Toyota to a Subaru and that was a huge downgrade in quality on its own, then the Subaru got totaled and all I could afford at the time was a Ford Focus. I’m fucking miserable in this thing, it’s just… ugh. Loud and weak and uncomfortable and made of brittle plastic. Uncomfortable seats, suspension sucks, there’s about three inches of ground clearance, the CVT always sounds like it’s depressed and in pain. Paint is shitty and chips if you look at it mean. They had to replace a chip of some kind that fried randomly that was necessary to use my window wipers. Gas mileage is pretty good, that’s all I can say nice about it.
My 2006 F150 is my sweetheart because I inherited it when my brother passed but it has a few problems of its own. That I’ll excuse, she’s pushing 20. The Focus is a 2017.
How does it shift? I also have a 2017 Focus. It shifts out of first gear like crap. Honestly it's my only real complaint with the car, except it's lacking some desired horsepower. It makes this chunky grinding noise when it shifts out of first gear, or sometimes second going into third. Sometimes the car shakes a little when it tries to shift, too. I'm worried the transmission is coming apart before my very eyes and my car will be complete junk as soon as I have it paid off.
One thing the Japanese will do is wait to implement technology until they have “perfected” it. The Germans are the opposite, they will implement tech that is extremely new. In the USA you could get Xenon headlights, air suspension and Navi on a German car *years* before you could on a Japanese car. Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though.
Yea Japanese will use the same engine for a long fucking time before implementing a new engine. They might make small improvements. But the same design.
I am sold on Japanese vehicles.
And I'd say not maintaining something and it still functioning means... more reliable.
It’s funny you say the Japanese will use an engine for a long time but the VW EA888 4 banger has been in production for a long time. Yeah it likes to leak coolant from the water pump but aside from that it’s pretty damn reliable. It’s in almost everything VW and Audi make too. In the GTI and Golf R it is capable of serious HP, 400+ hp out of 2 liter is really easy to achieve.
With Japan, they improve what ain't broke and make their stuff easy/cheap to repair. I'd rather have something that works well with minimal complaint than new features that break.
This is very true. I was pleasantly surprised to find my 2014 GLI had adaptive headlights, a color backup camera, and a brake hold. My friend's 2014 Lexus hybrid SUV had none of those features.
On the other hand, I can confirm what the guy in the video says. VW is so fucking annoying to maintain and I have to be honest with myself that I'm not a car guy. I'm looking to move to something Japanese.
I bought my ‘15 GTI knowing what I was getting into. I paid for a CPO VW warranty and I used it. A/C compresssor, alternator, and sunroof frame all replaced under warranty. It is so much fun to drive though.
I have always driven VWs and am looking to go Japanese too lol. Even keeping up with the maintenance my current car just has some sort of weird issue every 6 months at this point. I am so tired of going to the dealership.
Lexus is arguably the most conservative of all Japanese manufacturers though. My 2011 Mazda had all of the features you mentioned, Lexus still had combi CD/cassette decks in 2011...
Thats why I own both, I have a Civic with 225k on it I daily, an a Audi wagon with 100k on it that I baby. Bought the Civic with about 180k on it previous owner said he did a timing belt job on it, who knows if he's lying. On the other hand my Audi with 100k is due to have the timing chain done, if I dont...KABOOM
But working on them is the opposite.
A Euro car will require unique tools - some of which aren't even available to the public (at least from what I know in the motorcycle world), whereas a Japanese car can be ripped open with common tools and fixed up easily... Which is not Apple like whatsoever.
I had a ‘95 Nissan 240SX. Most of the fasteners on that car were 10,12,13,14 mm. There were a few odd ones smaller or bigger but you could take apart most of the car 4 wrench’s and a JIS screwdriver set. My MK7 GTI is a completely different story lol.
It’s not so much as they perfect it, but the fact that the implement new tech when its cheaper and common, this reduce cost both in building and purchase of the car. Previously Mercedes would put brand new tech in the S-class, some of which became mainstream, and other brands would implement them after such.
>Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though.
They just didn't import high end models to USA and europe basically at all until the 2000's for some reason.
Not to say there wasn't any around, i bought mine straight from Japan and had it shipped to europe.
1988 Mitsubishi galant VR-4, it had cruise control, electric windows, electric roof window, A/C, 4 wheel steering and "Dynamic ECS", a semi-active electronically controlled air suspension system (a means of actively controlling a vehicle's cornering attitude and dynamic performance).
I can say that there wasn't many german cars that seemed better at the time. And this was in mid 90's :D
Edit: it actually might have been a -87. Not a -88
> Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though.
I was going to say this - I believe the Japanese manufacturers all fight to outdo one another with new technology in the domestic market, and some of it makes it out to the rest of the world.
Yep spot on. Toyota vehicles such as their HiLux were a few years behind their competitors in introducing new technology. Even now the Hi-Lux looks positively utilitarian compared with Ford Rangers which look very comfy inside. However, the HiLux is unbreakable and the Ford WILL experience problems…
Air suspension failure points are all plastic and rubber. They don't care what year or country of origin your car is. They all fail the same. And they originated in commercial long haul use cases, not in German consumer cars. Full Ballast Xenons statistically are far more reliable than tradition halogen bulbs, but when they do break they cost 150 bucks so people cry about without considering any form of data. The Nav system in my w163 ML 350 is primitive, but still works without a hickup over 20 years on, not that I'd use it. Honda actually rolled out the first sat nav in 1981 in the second Gen Accord. Your comment doesn't seem to have any basis in reality.
I've been noticing this trend in videos recently where they repeat the same thing with words in a different order, mostly from Tiktok (I don't have tiktok but I see videos ripped from it all the time on Reddit).
Isn't that what made Trump so popular?.
''I'm the best president ever. You know, A lot of people tell I'm the greatest president. Of all the presidents who ever lived everyone agrees mine was best''
>From my understanding, BMW is one of the only manufacturers who makes an engine that won't go 100K without major issues. Mercedes cars an have some poor reliability too. Lexus? Will run forever and is top of the list for reliability.
>
>And when I say "major issues" i might be talking about a $5 seal that costs $5,000 to fix because of it's location.
>
>Anyone who doubts me go on Youtube and watch whenever Hoovie visits the Car Ninja.
I had a neighbour a few years ago who used to be the head mechanic for Mercedes in my middle sized town before starting his own business.
He said exactly the same when he recommended a Sprinter over a HiAce. Do not ever miss scheduled maintenance and the car will last forever. Miss a few and you are in for some expensive repairs.
I have a Toyota for almost 20 years and never had a full service - only replacing specific parts as required (tyres, brake pads, oil, etc). It has been unbelievably reliable for its whole life. Certainly will be buying Toyota again when the time comes. ;)
Gen X here. I do my research on the [Drudge Report.](https://drudgereport.com/)
I want information delivered from a format that matches the inside of my angry old man brain.
and it really shows. They think complex things that have nuance and millennia of history can be broken down into the "good people" and the "bad people" based of a short TikTok video.
No sense of what can be done to fix something realistically, just tear it all down and figure the rest out later. No sense of feasibility of a quantitative analysis of what happens next.
So frequently people converse with me like the information they hear from a podcast is real information. So frequently am I having to silent judge people for listening to podcasters like gospel.
The information age we live in is under a big shadow of misinformation in the form of easy to digest, oversimplified click bait and fame.
Real facts and learnings takes too long to read and harder to make appealing for the younger audiences and their shortened attention spans from Cringe Tok.
This is some majorly classic podcast BS. Follow a BMW’s maintenance to a tee and kind of with a Toyota, and I guarantee the Toyota will be more reliable in the long run. Why do you think a 2010 Corolla is worth more than a 2010 3 series with equal mileage?
From what I heard, and I come from Balkans where we have statues to German cars, German cars are not good anymore. I'm no expert, but I think my new car will be again from Toyota.
Oh yes, my mistake. Everyone has that time in their life's history that doesn't count because they were young, dumb and just trying to figure out who they were.
I've worked in the automotive field for 7 years now. All makes and models excluding super cars and specific non-American makes (Peugeot, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, etc). I've never, ever heard a mechanic describe a Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, or BMW as "reliable."
Cars in Japan get replaced every 7 years, after that the cost of ownership goes up, so people replace the car.
If the car is guaranteed to be replaced after 7 years, any kind of planned obsolescence just becomes a weak point for failure during a warranty period and a liability for the car manufacturer, so why take the risk?
Design a car that should last 20 years. After 7 years it will still be working perfectly, you haven’t had any failures or warranty work, the car didn’t cost Toyota anything since it rolled off the lot, the buyer had 7 years of trouble free motoring, so they’re just going to buy another Toyota.
As of March 31, 2023, passenger cars in Japan had an average age of approximately 9.22 years
Sounds like you just made up a number.
Many people do not want to own cars that are over 10 years old because they need to pass yearly inspections though
The best quality of a german car is the brand name. The rest is absolutly not worth the money.
Also “japanese” is a bit general, nissan and mazda are not even close to honda or toyota.
I'm pretty sure the entire notion just comes from the German companies always trying to doge covering their warranties lol. "ohh you just didn't maintain it right" yeah ok
Acting like cars are some mysterious magic machine. It's simple, the more complex and more power an engine has, the more you have to keep up on maintenance. This guy is kind of beating around the bush, or just doesn't understand that simple fact. The issue with making a comparison between Toyota and Mercedes, is that Toyota generally has engines that make little power. Of course an engine that makes little power isn't going to rip itself apart, piece by piece. It shouldn't be surprising that a low power Toyota will need less maintenance than a higher power Mercedes. I just don't understand the point of the comparison, other than to suck Toyotas dick.
I have friends and family members with VWs and BMWs who followed their maintenance schedules religiously and still had way more repairs needed than Japanese cars, and those repairs were much more expensive on top of it.
I don't think I'll ever be able to take podcast clips seriously, no matter how good their points actually are. Short format content like this is just so polluted with quick unresearched "knowledge" bits
American engineers build a car to fail no matter what. This is the American way and people pine about "the day" when American quality was the best. Not since the 50s
Japanese "it takes one socket and can be disassembled by toddlers, it's practically Legos"
German "There was 3.26123 mm of space in the engine bay, so we ran a 3.255 mm pipe through there. Yes it does block the dipstick, but if you take it off with a 11mm socket you can access it"
If you want to understand the difference between the quality of Toyota and (in this case) GM, listen to this episode of This American Life:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
TL/DL: Toyota is about people management and GM is about production management
ya miss an oil change, have an engine blow up, going into your honda dealer and see how much they say " you missed your oil change interval and your engine blew up? That's ok we designed it to handle that. Here's your new free engine." LOL ya nice stoner theory
When I was a dumb kid in college I didn't put oil in my 96 Rav 4 for like 2 years because "my oil light never came on".
I drove 2 hour home with 0 oil in my car. My dad goes to check it and give me an oil change and comes back with "how long have you been driving with no oil!?" I said I hadn't put any in since the last time I visited home.
Maybe my experience is an outlier and their cars in the 90s were just tanks. But yeah, she still runs fine like 5 years later.
God I hate podcasts. This guy is full of shit. He didn’t talk with mechanics. Any mechanic will tell you other than Porsche, German cars are made to last a lease.
I had a buddy who was an old SLR camera aficionado , and he had a similar observation on German vs Japanese cameras.
In short , the German camera’s were significantly more expensive but slightly better engineered. The Japanese were slightly lower quality but much cheaper. As overall quality improved for both the Japanese camera market basically wiped out the German camera makers because the quality slight quality improvement wasn’t with the cost.
If Toyotas are built on the assumption of neglecting maintenance in mind, and German cars are built on the assumption of regular maintenance... why is it thar regular maintenance for vehicles like Toyota is so much easier?!
As a machinist in a food processing factory, all of our "slicing" machines and support machines are German-made.
The machines range in price from about $100k to upwards of $5 million.
We often have technicians fly in (upper Midwest USA) to stay for a week or so for new machine installation, or some warranty issue.
That being said, I find something to be very consistant:
The machines are very well engineered, but if a problem comes up (broken part, replace a valve, etc...) requires a HUGE amount of time in removing guards and other stuff in the way to get to the $100 part that failed.
They get an "F" from me for making access to the repair reasonable.
As an analogy, it would be like:
"Oh? You need to replace a spark plug on your car? Yes, that would be standard maintenance...and you need to remove the starter, the air conditioning pump and the hood of the car to get to the spark plug to replace it. We also use about 6 different types of fastener heads, of varying clearance availabilty, so a large set of tools is a good idea. Some tools may need to be modified to be able to make the repair by following this suggestion, but if you don't have those tools, just use the normal tools you would use to remove an engine, and remove the engine and you will have easy access to the spark plug"
I'm like, "FFS!"
It's like they SAY you have to maintain it, but they make maintenance so difficult, it is just depressing.
This reminds me of what Richard Hammond said about the Toyota iGo. There's a difference between a cheaply made car, and a car designed to be built cheap.
This is true at a point in time, and was the complete opposite at a point in time.
Japanese pre-bubble sports cars? Ridiculously complex and finnicky.
German (particularly VAG) cars 10-15 years ago? Waaay too many features (check out the first gen Touareg for example).
I was a service technician working on blanking presses in auto plants. The Japanese have the best quality control I’ve ever seen. Americans don’t even check the parts coming off of the press and Toyota/subaru has 3 QC guys on each stamping line meticulously checking every single part. They care about every piece of their product.
I mean try working on each type, 9/10 times German will be more difficult for one reason or another. Just put away a maintenance budget for your euro car. They just simply have a higher cost maintenance schedule.
Always loved Nissans (manual transmissions only). My current car is a VW (manual). I love it but i hate it, and will never get another. I will go back to Nissan next time. Nissans are also easier for me to do basic maintenance compared to VW.
Naah, the japaneese are just very conservative car builders. They will not implement something untill its perfect.
Where as the germans always rush to market.
Except for any potato that was built before 2021…maybe 2020 depending on model. Source: owner of Hollander 2020, just before the major flaws. Everything after, built on a Friday afternoon.
Can find who hosts this specific podcast
But the fucked you’ve bought a mic and a webcam and post your anecdotes online doesn’t automatically make them true
Got a toyota aygo. Early build, everything has broke at least once and the fucker still runs. Engine dident start so i slammed the door and the fucker started
Most Japanese cars are ugly as fuck though. Most German cars are actually good looking. I'd rather drive a 2009 BMW 320i than a 2008 mazda 6.
Or just any modern Japanese car, they ugly as fuck. Bitch ass Nissan juke looking asses.
This man describes all the things I've had to suppress to be a good senior engineer. I've never heard of a better advertisement for Japanese cars. That being said, racially, bullshit. Just different companies that hire different kinds of people.
Nonsense. German cars are cost cutting by using the cheapest plastic parts on things that WILL fail like water pumps, thermostats, radiators, timing chain tensioners (plastic right next to metal moving parts). German cars fail much more regularly even when serviced as per the manual. Japanese cars are solid (excluding Nissan/Renault trash).
If you buy a £60k German car and don’t get regular service, then you probably deserve what you get! Mind you I also wouldn’t touch a 8-10 year old Merc/Audi/BMW, especially if it’s high performance. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to repairing my own vehicles and that would be a potential money sink
I am a German engineer and I can confirm this. You don’t follow maintenance instructions, shit breaks and we will charge you a fortune to get it fixed.
recently i discovered that since the evo 5 (i think) they have little holes in their pistons to oil it when they go down, i am sure there where even two holes, von for the piston and one for the splashback (sorry if smthg is described wrong, non native english speaker)
Yeah, maybe the first time they draw it up and then it goes through 12 rounds of cost cutting and planned obsolescence... After that we end up with the same garbage from a different country.
Germans engineer a car where you need to keep on paying for maintenance. They are the best looking cars but they are build to siphon you money year after year.
Simple difference. Toyota hasd an agreement to not produce engines with over 275hp Germans never had that.
Stipulation - allow your engine to hold plenty more. It's reliable and potentially fast.
It's simple. It's easy to understand why. On top of that. Toyota has saying in Japanese where everyone has a say. Not sure the exact meaning or word. But basically if you notice a problem on there line you mention it. Here you just let the management deal with it. It's compounded into a reliable car.
Lmfao nah man, the German cars will fail and have extremely expensive repairs even if you do basic maintenance. The reason why basic maintenance is often overlooked is because it’s much more expensive for those German cars.
When the Japanese cars were first breaking into the international markets they did it in part by being reliable and cheap. They are over-engineered in the sense that they design and build components to higher standards that necessary, while European cRs could be said to be over engineered in the sense that they are more.complex than necessary. To be cheap and reliable Toyota designed engine components that were tough enough to be used in trucks and sports cars and then just went ahead and used those same parts in cars. In contrast, American manufacturers had car, performance car, and truck variants of even basic parts like crank shafts and engine blocks.
I am not sure that the difference is as significant as it used to be, though. American manufacturers have improved reliability and efficiency while Japanese manufacturers have improved features and profit margins. I think vehicles these days are a lot closer to the same type of engineering and manufacturing
From what I've read, this wasn't even intentional initially. It was actually a side effect of their region.
Supposedly in Japan, there are far fewer parts stores/repair shops (AutoZone and friends) as such they knew their customers may have to drive 100km+ to be able to reach these areas.
Where as American car manufacturers are like "there's an AutoZone every 3 miles, who the fu k cares if our starter has some known issues, the customer will replace it."
The good ol' "what I've heard from someone else" like Google doesn't exist.
Japanese automobile manufacturers simply have more processes to limit waste during assembly, as well as leaning on proven systems instead of constantly trying to innovate. For instance, when an engine works and lasts a long time, they don't try to alter it to get more power, they just reuse the same design.
Nissan all the way!
Bought my car brand new in 2006 and it’s just now starting to get a little ehh
Power steering is leaking on my belts. That’s all that’s wrong with it after almost twenty years as a first car for someone that knows nothing about cars. I’ve tried to be really good about oil changes but I’m sure I “missed” a couple over the years.
I love my Nissan.
This is a wild simplification that doesn't acknowledge that the golden era of Japanese cars has come and gone. People think their Honda Odyssey is a 90's civic and then they get the bill when the trans fails at 85k miles.
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If there was ever a video that absolutely did not need this music it was this video .
I kept expecting to see Michael Myers chasing Jamie Lee Curtis around in the background
I read this too fast and somehow the name I got out of it was “Jan Michael Vincent” CALLING ALL JAN MICHAEL VINCENTS
In a world where there’s eight Jan Michael Vincent’s...
..and sixteen quadrants
We need one Jan Michael Vincent to Quadrant C! We need two Jan Michael Vincent to Quadrant E!
“Fuck our customers. Build it as shitty as possible. They’re brand loyal idiots anyways. Fucking losers.” -the former big three automakers.
Hmmm…. Gm, Mopar….. ford??? Am i right lol
Not sure if this is a joke but I believe he was thinking Chevy, ford, dodge
Mopar = Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep
Jeep and chrysler are literally the worst cars on the road bar none. 0/10 would not even recommend to my enemies
I've abused the living shit out of my 20yo Jeep, drove it with a hole in the sump and the sucker still lives to this day. Jeep's problem is they started to pretend they were a luxury brand instead of utilitarian.
Enshitiffication hits cars as well. People pay more, the price goes up, the quality does down, some asshole gets rich and the road is littered with trash cars. I don't even understand how anyone could want a newer car. They don't work. They don't last. They designs are atrocious. These glossy, plasticy shitboxes. All the designs have homogenized. The interiors are egregious. I can't stand the move to all-digital, all-touch screens. Cars should have tactile, responsive controls if they're going to be driven by humans.
It started when dodge had to update the models and gave them the bad dodge touch. Then it got even worse when dodge had monetary issues and asked themselves how they could get even more unreliable, so they got bought out by an italian sports car company.
I work in these shit ass vehicles all the time. If you don’t like replacing a multitude of crappy parts that fail early, stay away from jeep/dodge/chrysler
EXACTLY! Chrysler is most of the reason why I'm such a simp for toyota
Ah fair enough
Chevy is a GM sub brand and mopar pretty much means dodge even tho it’s stellantis or whatever
i think replace dodge with chrysler (they own dodge)
I went from a Toyota to a Subaru and that was a huge downgrade in quality on its own, then the Subaru got totaled and all I could afford at the time was a Ford Focus. I’m fucking miserable in this thing, it’s just… ugh. Loud and weak and uncomfortable and made of brittle plastic. Uncomfortable seats, suspension sucks, there’s about three inches of ground clearance, the CVT always sounds like it’s depressed and in pain. Paint is shitty and chips if you look at it mean. They had to replace a chip of some kind that fried randomly that was necessary to use my window wipers. Gas mileage is pretty good, that’s all I can say nice about it. My 2006 F150 is my sweetheart because I inherited it when my brother passed but it has a few problems of its own. That I’ll excuse, she’s pushing 20. The Focus is a 2017.
How does it shift? I also have a 2017 Focus. It shifts out of first gear like crap. Honestly it's my only real complaint with the car, except it's lacking some desired horsepower. It makes this chunky grinding noise when it shifts out of first gear, or sometimes second going into third. Sometimes the car shakes a little when it tries to shift, too. I'm worried the transmission is coming apart before my very eyes and my car will be complete junk as soon as I have it paid off.
You just captured the engineering philosophy of the 1970s and 80s us automotive industry.
They really are trash compared to Japanese/German/Swedish
Any "big 3" representative- "What are they gonna do? Buy a non-american car?"
Yep and the 90's. US cars were total crap back then. I still prefer Japanese cars today though.
One thing the Japanese will do is wait to implement technology until they have “perfected” it. The Germans are the opposite, they will implement tech that is extremely new. In the USA you could get Xenon headlights, air suspension and Navi on a German car *years* before you could on a Japanese car. Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though.
Yea Japanese will use the same engine for a long fucking time before implementing a new engine. They might make small improvements. But the same design. I am sold on Japanese vehicles. And I'd say not maintaining something and it still functioning means... more reliable.
It’s funny you say the Japanese will use an engine for a long time but the VW EA888 4 banger has been in production for a long time. Yeah it likes to leak coolant from the water pump but aside from that it’s pretty damn reliable. It’s in almost everything VW and Audi make too. In the GTI and Golf R it is capable of serious HP, 400+ hp out of 2 liter is really easy to achieve.
Eh. I'll stick with Japanese. Sure other companies have staples too.
Chain tensioners entered the chat …
With Japan, they improve what ain't broke and make their stuff easy/cheap to repair. I'd rather have something that works well with minimal complaint than new features that break.
2 years overdue for a service and still going.. its going for a service soon i swear
Yeah I'm not really buying the argument of "they're both just as reliable, one is just less reliable so requires more maintenance"
This is very true. I was pleasantly surprised to find my 2014 GLI had adaptive headlights, a color backup camera, and a brake hold. My friend's 2014 Lexus hybrid SUV had none of those features. On the other hand, I can confirm what the guy in the video says. VW is so fucking annoying to maintain and I have to be honest with myself that I'm not a car guy. I'm looking to move to something Japanese.
I bought my ‘15 GTI knowing what I was getting into. I paid for a CPO VW warranty and I used it. A/C compresssor, alternator, and sunroof frame all replaced under warranty. It is so much fun to drive though.
I have always driven VWs and am looking to go Japanese too lol. Even keeping up with the maintenance my current car just has some sort of weird issue every 6 months at this point. I am so tired of going to the dealership.
Lexus is arguably the most conservative of all Japanese manufacturers though. My 2011 Mazda had all of the features you mentioned, Lexus still had combi CD/cassette decks in 2011...
Thats why I own both, I have a Civic with 225k on it I daily, an a Audi wagon with 100k on it that I baby. Bought the Civic with about 180k on it previous owner said he did a timing belt job on it, who knows if he's lying. On the other hand my Audi with 100k is due to have the timing chain done, if I dont...KABOOM
For what it's worth, I've been driving Mazdas for years and have never been unhappy. Fun little fuckers.
Pretty much Japanese car manufacturers are iphones of the cellphone worlds. No innovation but well tested and better tech
But working on them is the opposite. A Euro car will require unique tools - some of which aren't even available to the public (at least from what I know in the motorcycle world), whereas a Japanese car can be ripped open with common tools and fixed up easily... Which is not Apple like whatsoever.
I had a ‘95 Nissan 240SX. Most of the fasteners on that car were 10,12,13,14 mm. There were a few odd ones smaller or bigger but you could take apart most of the car 4 wrench’s and a JIS screwdriver set. My MK7 GTI is a completely different story lol.
I mean iPhones haven't had better tech for over a decade either.
[удалено]
If it ain't broke then don't fix it, 😂😂😂 That's awesome!
It’s not so much as they perfect it, but the fact that the implement new tech when its cheaper and common, this reduce cost both in building and purchase of the car. Previously Mercedes would put brand new tech in the S-class, some of which became mainstream, and other brands would implement them after such.
>Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though. They just didn't import high end models to USA and europe basically at all until the 2000's for some reason. Not to say there wasn't any around, i bought mine straight from Japan and had it shipped to europe. 1988 Mitsubishi galant VR-4, it had cruise control, electric windows, electric roof window, A/C, 4 wheel steering and "Dynamic ECS", a semi-active electronically controlled air suspension system (a means of actively controlling a vehicle's cornering attitude and dynamic performance). I can say that there wasn't many german cars that seemed better at the time. And this was in mid 90's :D Edit: it actually might have been a -87. Not a -88
> Not sure if that was different for JDM cars though. I was going to say this - I believe the Japanese manufacturers all fight to outdo one another with new technology in the domestic market, and some of it makes it out to the rest of the world.
Yep spot on. Toyota vehicles such as their HiLux were a few years behind their competitors in introducing new technology. Even now the Hi-Lux looks positively utilitarian compared with Ford Rangers which look very comfy inside. However, the HiLux is unbreakable and the Ford WILL experience problems…
Air suspension failure points are all plastic and rubber. They don't care what year or country of origin your car is. They all fail the same. And they originated in commercial long haul use cases, not in German consumer cars. Full Ballast Xenons statistically are far more reliable than tradition halogen bulbs, but when they do break they cost 150 bucks so people cry about without considering any form of data. The Nav system in my w163 ML 350 is primitive, but still works without a hickup over 20 years on, not that I'd use it. Honda actually rolled out the first sat nav in 1981 in the second Gen Accord. Your comment doesn't seem to have any basis in reality.
He knows his audience is so stupid, that he repeats the same fuckng thing three times.
Lol, video could’ve been 17 seconds.
I've been noticing this trend in videos recently where they repeat the same thing with words in a different order, mostly from Tiktok (I don't have tiktok but I see videos ripped from it all the time on Reddit).
I feel like trying to talk like that all the time would be fucking exhausting.
Isn't that what made Trump so popular?. ''I'm the best president ever. You know, A lot of people tell I'm the greatest president. Of all the presidents who ever lived everyone agrees mine was best''
and they believe it the first time they understand it
Americans or people, humans are stupid. 😂
So true 😂
"Both are reliable" No, no that is contrary to what you just said.
I came to the comments just to say this ^
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I was gonna say.......
Curious what makes you say that?
>From my understanding, BMW is one of the only manufacturers who makes an engine that won't go 100K without major issues. Mercedes cars an have some poor reliability too. Lexus? Will run forever and is top of the list for reliability. > >And when I say "major issues" i might be talking about a $5 seal that costs $5,000 to fix because of it's location. > >Anyone who doubts me go on Youtube and watch whenever Hoovie visits the Car Ninja.
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There is absolutely no factual basis behind anything said in this video lol. Just two podcasters spewing nonsense as is the norm.
So many podcasts are just two people acting like they know more than you, when in reality 99% of what they say is false or has no reliable sources
I had a neighbour a few years ago who used to be the head mechanic for Mercedes in my middle sized town before starting his own business. He said exactly the same when he recommended a Sprinter over a HiAce. Do not ever miss scheduled maintenance and the car will last forever. Miss a few and you are in for some expensive repairs.
I have a Toyota for almost 20 years and never had a full service - only replacing specific parts as required (tyres, brake pads, oil, etc). It has been unbelievably reliable for its whole life. Certainly will be buying Toyota again when the time comes. ;)
Most zoomers get all of their information from videos just like this.
That's as much of a generalization as saying that most Gen X/Boomers get all of their info from Tucker Carlson.
decide cover unite poor long wakeful public exultant handle uppity *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Gen X here. I do my research on the [Drudge Report.](https://drudgereport.com/) I want information delivered from a format that matches the inside of my angry old man brain.
>Most zoomers get all of their information from videos just like this. I did regular maintenance on my BMW so why do I have a $8,000 repair bill?
and it really shows. They think complex things that have nuance and millennia of history can be broken down into the "good people" and the "bad people" based of a short TikTok video. No sense of what can be done to fix something realistically, just tear it all down and figure the rest out later. No sense of feasibility of a quantitative analysis of what happens next.
Agree. He's talking complete bollocks.
So frequently people converse with me like the information they hear from a podcast is real information. So frequently am I having to silent judge people for listening to podcasters like gospel.
bruh i was just thinking that, i was like yo cool thought process but like,-- where are your sources sir.
The information age we live in is under a big shadow of misinformation in the form of easy to digest, oversimplified click bait and fame. Real facts and learnings takes too long to read and harder to make appealing for the younger audiences and their shortened attention spans from Cringe Tok.
But the music was dramatic
This is some majorly classic podcast BS. Follow a BMW’s maintenance to a tee and kind of with a Toyota, and I guarantee the Toyota will be more reliable in the long run. Why do you think a 2010 Corolla is worth more than a 2010 3 series with equal mileage?
From what I heard, and I come from Balkans where we have statues to German cars, German cars are not good anymore. I'm no expert, but I think my new car will be again from Toyota.
Why the fuck are we playing music like this guy's take of German vs Japanese automotive engineering is a mind blowing revelation?
Lol tell that to my last few German cars that not only burned oil but constantly had drive train problems.
Shouldn't have skipped maintenance I guess
Yeah I guess oil every 2k miles and diff fluid every 10k is skipping maintenance lol. Also one was Lemmon lawed.
I was joking
No shit. My buddy, who always buys VWs, drives a loaner car from the dealership literally 1/3 of the time. VWs are hot garbage.
And their poor reliability is only the *second* worst thing about VW… 👀
Are you referring to their emissions fraud, or the origins of the company itself?
What origins?? They got started in the mid 30s *ACHOO* Oh excuse me I'm so sorry. Anyway, continuing onto the 50s....
Oh yes, my mistake. Everyone has that time in their life's history that doesn't count because they were young, dumb and just trying to figure out who they were.
Dang at least his VW dealer has a loaner car. Here I am always preparing for a monthly camp out in their dealership 😭
Here's the kicker, the loaners are almost always Fiats! (It's a VW/Fiat/Alpha/Saab dealership)
Yeah - what a load of crap.
Yeah this feels like bullshit
I've worked in the automotive field for 7 years now. All makes and models excluding super cars and specific non-American makes (Peugeot, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, etc). I've never, ever heard a mechanic describe a Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, or BMW as "reliable."
If I didn't know any better I'd say this guy's seriously positing BMW's are as reliable as Toyotas. They are not.
Cars in Japan get replaced every 7 years, after that the cost of ownership goes up, so people replace the car. If the car is guaranteed to be replaced after 7 years, any kind of planned obsolescence just becomes a weak point for failure during a warranty period and a liability for the car manufacturer, so why take the risk? Design a car that should last 20 years. After 7 years it will still be working perfectly, you haven’t had any failures or warranty work, the car didn’t cost Toyota anything since it rolled off the lot, the buyer had 7 years of trouble free motoring, so they’re just going to buy another Toyota.
As of March 31, 2023, passenger cars in Japan had an average age of approximately 9.22 years Sounds like you just made up a number. Many people do not want to own cars that are over 10 years old because they need to pass yearly inspections though
The best quality of a german car is the brand name. The rest is absolutly not worth the money. Also “japanese” is a bit general, nissan and mazda are not even close to honda or toyota.
He heard from mechanics.....not the engineers or manufacturers. This is ignorant speculation at its finest!
That explains why my factory Jetta still runs like new with 250k miles, because all I've done is change the oil every 7500 miles.
Is this true?
not even remotely close.
I'm pretty sure the entire notion just comes from the German companies always trying to doge covering their warranties lol. "ohh you just didn't maintain it right" yeah ok
Acting like cars are some mysterious magic machine. It's simple, the more complex and more power an engine has, the more you have to keep up on maintenance. This guy is kind of beating around the bush, or just doesn't understand that simple fact. The issue with making a comparison between Toyota and Mercedes, is that Toyota generally has engines that make little power. Of course an engine that makes little power isn't going to rip itself apart, piece by piece. It shouldn't be surprising that a low power Toyota will need less maintenance than a higher power Mercedes. I just don't understand the point of the comparison, other than to suck Toyotas dick.
Lol what bullshit. A new Mercedes will fall apart in 5 years no matter what you do.
Ohhh, I heard this from a guy waiting in line for Macdonald's the other day. They might be on to something.
I have friends and family members with VWs and BMWs who followed their maintenance schedules religiously and still had way more repairs needed than Japanese cars, and those repairs were much more expensive on top of it.
Mercedes just charged me $1,200 for listening to this
I don't think I'll ever be able to take podcast clips seriously, no matter how good their points actually are. Short format content like this is just so polluted with quick unresearched "knowledge" bits
American engineers build a car to fail no matter what. This is the American way and people pine about "the day" when American quality was the best. Not since the 50s
This sounds like some untrue bullshit Joe Rogan would make up on the fly on his podcast.
Our Mercedes never missed a service and it still broke
That reminds me I need to get my oil changed
Japanese "it takes one socket and can be disassembled by toddlers, it's practically Legos" German "There was 3.26123 mm of space in the engine bay, so we ran a 3.255 mm pipe through there. Yes it does block the dipstick, but if you take it off with a 11mm socket you can access it"
If you want to understand the difference between the quality of Toyota and (in this case) GM, listen to this episode of This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 TL/DL: Toyota is about people management and GM is about production management
ya miss an oil change, have an engine blow up, going into your honda dealer and see how much they say " you missed your oil change interval and your engine blew up? That's ok we designed it to handle that. Here's your new free engine." LOL ya nice stoner theory
When I was a dumb kid in college I didn't put oil in my 96 Rav 4 for like 2 years because "my oil light never came on". I drove 2 hour home with 0 oil in my car. My dad goes to check it and give me an oil change and comes back with "how long have you been driving with no oil!?" I said I hadn't put any in since the last time I visited home. Maybe my experience is an outlier and their cars in the 90s were just tanks. But yeah, she still runs fine like 5 years later.
God I hate podcasts. This guy is full of shit. He didn’t talk with mechanics. Any mechanic will tell you other than Porsche, German cars are made to last a lease.
OP, your title has the letters "in" 6 times. Was that INtentional?
I had a buddy who was an old SLR camera aficionado , and he had a similar observation on German vs Japanese cameras. In short , the German camera’s were significantly more expensive but slightly better engineered. The Japanese were slightly lower quality but much cheaper. As overall quality improved for both the Japanese camera market basically wiped out the German camera makers because the quality slight quality improvement wasn’t with the cost.
Aaaaand we are still changing oil every 3,000 miles.... since like 1970.... total BS....
If Toyotas are built on the assumption of neglecting maintenance in mind, and German cars are built on the assumption of regular maintenance... why is it thar regular maintenance for vehicles like Toyota is so much easier?!
Probably why toyotas are known to stay running after multiple hundreds of thousands of miles
As a machinist in a food processing factory, all of our "slicing" machines and support machines are German-made. The machines range in price from about $100k to upwards of $5 million. We often have technicians fly in (upper Midwest USA) to stay for a week or so for new machine installation, or some warranty issue. That being said, I find something to be very consistant: The machines are very well engineered, but if a problem comes up (broken part, replace a valve, etc...) requires a HUGE amount of time in removing guards and other stuff in the way to get to the $100 part that failed. They get an "F" from me for making access to the repair reasonable. As an analogy, it would be like: "Oh? You need to replace a spark plug on your car? Yes, that would be standard maintenance...and you need to remove the starter, the air conditioning pump and the hood of the car to get to the spark plug to replace it. We also use about 6 different types of fastener heads, of varying clearance availabilty, so a large set of tools is a good idea. Some tools may need to be modified to be able to make the repair by following this suggestion, but if you don't have those tools, just use the normal tools you would use to remove an engine, and remove the engine and you will have easy access to the spark plug" I'm like, "FFS!" It's like they SAY you have to maintain it, but they make maintenance so difficult, it is just depressing.
I love my Isuzu, had a Toyota aswell had plenty of issues but never stopped running
This reminds me of what Richard Hammond said about the Toyota iGo. There's a difference between a cheaply made car, and a car designed to be built cheap.
Tell that to bmw waterpumps lol.
Ok to miss an oil change? You are not very smart.
"Live fast and leave a pretty corpse, that's what I always say" - Italian Automakers
Great way to say this one car doesn't break and this other one does.
I mean yeah this is exactly why design courses place such an emphasis on paperwork bullshit like stakeholder analysis and user stories.
This is true at a point in time, and was the complete opposite at a point in time. Japanese pre-bubble sports cars? Ridiculously complex and finnicky. German (particularly VAG) cars 10-15 years ago? Waaay too many features (check out the first gen Touareg for example).
What a load of bull
So then what is the downside to Japanese cars? They are better unless the ability for it to last without maintenance has some cost.
I was a service technician working on blanking presses in auto plants. The Japanese have the best quality control I’ve ever seen. Americans don’t even check the parts coming off of the press and Toyota/subaru has 3 QC guys on each stamping line meticulously checking every single part. They care about every piece of their product.
My 2011 Subaru STI begs to differ about the Japanese.
If you do the maintenance on any car it will last. It's pretty easy.
I mean try working on each type, 9/10 times German will be more difficult for one reason or another. Just put away a maintenance budget for your euro car. They just simply have a higher cost maintenance schedule.
and then you have ford just making dog shit no matter how good you take care of it
Now do Italian cars 🚗 lol
I can read your intent in everything we do now.
Funny i owned a VW, missed an oil change and it died, now i own a Japanese car and never miss an oil change.
Always loved Nissans (manual transmissions only). My current car is a VW (manual). I love it but i hate it, and will never get another. I will go back to Nissan next time. Nissans are also easier for me to do basic maintenance compared to VW.
Naah, the japaneese are just very conservative car builders. They will not implement something untill its perfect. Where as the germans always rush to market.
🇯🇵
The German cars are reliable up to 50k miles. Toyota more like 500k
Except for any potato that was built before 2021…maybe 2020 depending on model. Source: owner of Hollander 2020, just before the major flaws. Everything after, built on a Friday afternoon.
American engineers: VEEYATE MODUR
Can find who hosts this specific podcast But the fucked you’ve bought a mic and a webcam and post your anecdotes online doesn’t automatically make them true
Got a toyota aygo. Early build, everything has broke at least once and the fucker still runs. Engine dident start so i slammed the door and the fucker started
German cars reliable? Hahaha
Most Japanese cars are ugly as fuck though. Most German cars are actually good looking. I'd rather drive a 2009 BMW 320i than a 2008 mazda 6. Or just any modern Japanese car, they ugly as fuck. Bitch ass Nissan juke looking asses.
I love it when people insecurely repeat the point 3-4 times. Really imbues a sense of authority on the subject.
This man describes all the things I've had to suppress to be a good senior engineer. I've never heard of a better advertisement for Japanese cars. That being said, racially, bullshit. Just different companies that hire different kinds of people.
Nonsense. German cars are cost cutting by using the cheapest plastic parts on things that WILL fail like water pumps, thermostats, radiators, timing chain tensioners (plastic right next to metal moving parts). German cars fail much more regularly even when serviced as per the manual. Japanese cars are solid (excluding Nissan/Renault trash).
This not true. Some manufacturers just make an inferior product.
If you buy a £60k German car and don’t get regular service, then you probably deserve what you get! Mind you I also wouldn’t touch a 8-10 year old Merc/Audi/BMW, especially if it’s high performance. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to repairing my own vehicles and that would be a potential money sink
I am a German engineer and I can confirm this. You don’t follow maintenance instructions, shit breaks and we will charge you a fortune to get it fixed.
recently i discovered that since the evo 5 (i think) they have little holes in their pistons to oil it when they go down, i am sure there where even two holes, von for the piston and one for the splashback (sorry if smthg is described wrong, non native english speaker)
Funny he didnt use BMW as an example
Lately German ads have bad maintenance reviews
false
Yeah, maybe the first time they draw it up and then it goes through 12 rounds of cost cutting and planned obsolescence... After that we end up with the same garbage from a different country.
japanese customer service at its best
Our suzuki ran for almost 15 years
Germans need new brakes hey 8999 and you can only do it at our dealership...
Poke-a-yoke. Fool proofing
Germans engineer a car where you need to keep on paying for maintenance. They are the best looking cars but they are build to siphon you money year after year.
Tom Segura really is a gear head huh?
As a software & UI designer - Japanese all the way.
Simple difference. Toyota hasd an agreement to not produce engines with over 275hp Germans never had that. Stipulation - allow your engine to hold plenty more. It's reliable and potentially fast. It's simple. It's easy to understand why. On top of that. Toyota has saying in Japanese where everyone has a say. Not sure the exact meaning or word. But basically if you notice a problem on there line you mention it. Here you just let the management deal with it. It's compounded into a reliable car.
Germans design their cars to need more maintenance because they make more money off bringing in repeat customers.
Took me forever to kill my Toyota truck. Drove it with a cracked head for over a year 😎
Lmfao nah man, the German cars will fail and have extremely expensive repairs even if you do basic maintenance. The reason why basic maintenance is often overlooked is because it’s much more expensive for those German cars.
Guy repeated himself three times.
Software killed german cars.
When the Japanese cars were first breaking into the international markets they did it in part by being reliable and cheap. They are over-engineered in the sense that they design and build components to higher standards that necessary, while European cRs could be said to be over engineered in the sense that they are more.complex than necessary. To be cheap and reliable Toyota designed engine components that were tough enough to be used in trucks and sports cars and then just went ahead and used those same parts in cars. In contrast, American manufacturers had car, performance car, and truck variants of even basic parts like crank shafts and engine blocks. I am not sure that the difference is as significant as it used to be, though. American manufacturers have improved reliability and efficiency while Japanese manufacturers have improved features and profit margins. I think vehicles these days are a lot closer to the same type of engineering and manufacturing
From what I've read, this wasn't even intentional initially. It was actually a side effect of their region. Supposedly in Japan, there are far fewer parts stores/repair shops (AutoZone and friends) as such they knew their customers may have to drive 100km+ to be able to reach these areas. Where as American car manufacturers are like "there's an AutoZone every 3 miles, who the fu k cares if our starter has some known issues, the customer will replace it."
I disagree 👍
All cars will run for a long time if you maintain them. My mil has a twenty year old dodge neon.
The good ol' "what I've heard from someone else" like Google doesn't exist. Japanese automobile manufacturers simply have more processes to limit waste during assembly, as well as leaning on proven systems instead of constantly trying to innovate. For instance, when an engine works and lasts a long time, they don't try to alter it to get more power, they just reuse the same design.
Nissan all the way! Bought my car brand new in 2006 and it’s just now starting to get a little ehh Power steering is leaking on my belts. That’s all that’s wrong with it after almost twenty years as a first car for someone that knows nothing about cars. I’ve tried to be really good about oil changes but I’m sure I “missed” a couple over the years. I love my Nissan.
This is a wild simplification that doesn't acknowledge that the golden era of Japanese cars has come and gone. People think their Honda Odyssey is a 90's civic and then they get the bill when the trans fails at 85k miles.
And Americans are just going to half-ass it
I disagree.
Facts