Has car manufacturing quality gone downhill or is it just me?

CaneyJ said:
I work for a sub-supplier to some automotive companies.

Where as before for instance a basic trim piece used to be pure ABS plastic, nowadays they often mandate 20% 'Talc' filler to bulk it out and to cut down on kg costs.

Would explain why plastics are going brittle faster with all the filler they add and doesn't bode well for things like inlet manifolds which used to be castings.
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I work for a plastics manufacturer. Mineral filler has been used for years. Standard talc of various grades, chalk/calcium carbonate and mica.

It makes the material meet customer specs but is also cheaper than plastic.
 
rare said:
Materials have got worse. Cost cutting is evident everywhere.

In other ways they have got better. Overall fit and finish is largely better. Technology has become a problem, a hindrance. I blame both the manufacturers and legislators.

Although I personally think cars peaked in the mid 2000’s.
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Agreed loud and clear on that one, just enough technology in them to make them useful without having a daft tablet at the front of the car where everything is controlled from and nice enough looks without having everything be a pain to replace when it goes wrong.

Cars now look nice but when something goes wrong it's extortionate to fix (If its possible at all)
 
TechMinerUK said:
Agreed loud and clear on that one, just enough technology in them to make them useful without having a daft tablet at the front of the car where everything is controlled from and nice enough looks without having everything be a pain to replace when it goes wrong.

Cars now look nice but when something goes wrong it's extortionate to fix (If its possible at all)
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Yea if the "infotainment" system in a modern car breaks a few years down the line, you are screwed. It'll cost £1000s to replace, if you can still find one. You can't just slap a new DIN unit in anymore.
 
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sigma said:
Precision and techniques have improved but quality has definitely declined (driven by cost more than anything, I guess). Complexity has also increased, especially regarding electronics, which surely impacts longevity - a hallmark of quality IMO.
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Agree, that's advancements of tech, consumerism and the need for bigger, better, fancier whilst the manufacturers need to keep profits in check.

I still think quality has improved overall, it's easy to romanticise the past.
 
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Nasher said:
Yea if the "infotainment" system in a modern car breaks a few years down the line, you are screwed. It'll cost £1000s to replace, if you can still find one. You can't just slap a new DIN unit in anymore.
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I was pondering this recently, even with newer systems that perform automatic updates, manufacturers only support for a limited time so your entire car becomes unusable if, 10 years down the line you get a black screen of death. The infotainment and digital dash are a goner.
 
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There has been massive downturn in quality since Covid, in particular. Dont know if its less people working together doing the QC or the fact that component prices have skyrocketed but all car manufacturers, even Mercedes, are downgrading their quality
 
doopydug said:
There has been massive downturn in quality since Covid, in particular. Dont know if its less people working together doing the QC or the fact that component prices have skyrocketed but all car manufacturers, even Mercedes, are downgrading their quality
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Probably due to inflation increasing the price of everything
 
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shifty_uk said:
I was pondering this recently, even with newer systems that perform automatic updates, manufacturers only support for a limited time so your entire car becomes unusable if, 10 years down the line you get a black screen of death. The infotainment and digital dash are a goner.
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This winds me up about mobile devices also. What a colossal waste.
 
shifty_uk said:
I was pondering this recently, even with newer systems that perform automatic updates, manufacturers only support for a limited time so your entire car becomes unusable if, 10 years down the line you get a black screen of death. The infotainment and digital dash are a goner.
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And if you do get a black screen of death, you don't just lose the radio now. You'll lose AC, heating, and all sort of car options and settings. It may be a digital dash cluster as well which is all part of the same system. It will basically make the car un-usable.
 
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I’ve always thought that the plastic in my 2017 Honda CR-V was softer and more easily marked than it was in my 2014 CR-V as well as the entire cabin being a bit more creak prone.

Plastic in my 2017 Duster is as hard as 2014 Honda, with the creaminess of the 2017 model. Not a problem in a vehicle built in post Warsaw Pact Romania using 60+% old Renault parts as everything creaks or rattles or both all the time anyway.

Of course, the 2017 Duster was half the price of the 2017 CR-V.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
I’ve always thought that the plastic in my 2017 Honda CR-V was softer and more easily marked than it was in my 2014 CR-V as well as the entire cabin being a bit more creak prone.

Plastic in my 2017 Duster is as hard as 2014 Honda, with the creaminess of the 2017 model. Not a problem in a vehicle built in post Warsaw Pact Romania using 60+% old Renault parts as everything creaks or rattles or both all the time anyway.

Of course, the 2017 Duster was half the price of the 2017 CR-V.
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Completely agree on this, the 2013 Citroen I used to have had a basic but robust interior, on the occasion the plastics got marked they could be easily polished out whereas now the scratches on that horrible glossy plastic seem to cut deep into it.

Likewise interiors on previous cars whilst less "flashy" seemed to put up with a lot more stick, I'd much rather take a matte dashboard with a bit of texture over fingerprint mania of glossy plastics (I had the similar pet peeve when Microsoft changed the material between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One)

Nasher said:
And if you do get a black screen of death, you don't just lose the radio now. You'll lose AC, heating, and all sort of car options and settings. It may be a digital dash cluster as well which is all part of the same system. It will basically make the car un-usable.
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My Mrs had an issue with this a while back on her Citroen when she went over a speed bump and it knocked out the entertainment system but that also meant she lost access to the front and rear window heaters which isn't ideal when its the middle of winter

I don't get why there has been a recent push to stick everything on one system, not only that but the computers behind them are more often than not poorly optimised and laggy messes meaning if you want to change the radio and turn on the heater it takes ages to do that which is more distracting than just having a dial
 
TechMinerUK said:
Completely agree on this, the 2013 Citroen I used to have had a basic but robust interior, on the occasion the plastics got marked they could be easily polished out whereas now the scratches on that horrible glossy plastic seem to cut deep into it.

Likewise interiors on previous cars whilst less "flashy" seemed to put up with a lot more stick, I'd much rather take a matte dashboard with a bit of texture over fingerprint mania of glossy plastics (I had the similar pet peeve when Microsoft changed the material between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One)


My Mrs had an issue with this a while back on her Citroen when she went over a speed bump and it knocked out the entertainment system but that also meant she lost access to the front and rear window heaters which isn't ideal when its the middle of winter

I don't get why there has been a recent push to stick everything on one system, not only that but the computers behind them are more often than not poorly optimised and laggy messes meaning if you want to change the radio and turn on the heater it takes ages to do that which is more distracting than just having a dial
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Because cost cutting. It's much cheaper to have everything software controlled from a central panel, but it's never the best way.

But it also means there is no redundancy at all and if it breaks, everything breaks. It's like having all your data saved on one laptop with no backup. It should be banned for any basic car controls or functions. If you have a digital dash/hud and the infotainment unit dies, you'll lose the speedometer which means the car is no longer roadworthy due to the ******* radio not working.
 
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Nasher said:
Because cost cutting. It's much cheaper to have everything software controlled from a central panel, but it's never the best way.

But it also means there is no redundancy at all and if it breaks, everything breaks. It's like having all your data saved on one laptop with no backup. It should be banned for any basic car controls or functions. If you have a digital dash/hud and the infotainment unit dies, you'll lose the speedometer which means the car is no longer roadworthy due to the ******* radio not working.
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The switches often go to a main CANBUS controller anyway so its the same problem. Days of switches to dedicated relays are LONG gone.

Sky is falling Nasher as usual. Tell me you dont know how cars actually work without telling me.
 
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