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

sigma said:
Quality isn't also purely reliability either. It's many things. Look at how used the seats on fairly new Volvos look, for example.
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I recently had a look at a friends new car, a 2018 Volvo S90 D5, he's the second owner it's done 53k miles, the first thing I noticed which surprised me greatly is how sagging and worn the seats looked especially compared to my 18 year old V70's seats with 208k miles of use, whilst they are a little marked in places there's no obvious wear or sagging whatsoever.
 
Housey said:
If you compare the 106 GTi i bought my ex wife back in the day from new to the 208 GT i bought my current partners lad this year new it’s no comparison. On any level bar driving, the 208 kills the 106. It’s a far far better car.

The old pocket rocket GTi still the most fun mind, but the quality of everything and the safety is vastly better on the new car.
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Safety is definitely improved on newer cars and with Peugeots the paintwork has probably gotten better granted the 208 me and my partner went to view back in 2021 was a shocker. Looked like someone had poured paint stripper over it there were that many reactions on the roof (Hadn't been resprayed either)

Granted I guess sometimes there is bound to be a "lemon" although with Peugeot/Citroen theres a heck of a lot more lemons :D
 
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Scania said:
I recently had a look at a friends new car, a 2018 Volvo S90 D5, he's the second owner it's done 53k miles, the first thing I noticed which surprised me greatly is how sagging and worn the seats looked especially compared to my 18 year old V70's seats with 208k miles of use, whilst they are a little marked in places there's no obvious wear or sagging whatsoever.
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Thats an interesting one as I would have said the seats are one of the bits that has improved as when I compare the old MR2 and MGF that my dad had to the V40 he had with leather seats they had faired much better considering they had been around for the same amount of time at the time he bought the cars.

However that could be more due to the better leather protection products that are around nowadays (Or that the other cars were convertibles and got battered by the weather)
 
Housey said:
They have certainly become more complex to maintain when they go wrong. My current Mercedes and BMW have suffered with temperamental technical issues that simply would not have impacted previous cars because they didn't have the high levels of sensors the current ones do.

My BMW as an example has ongoing issues with auto full beam deciding it won't work on occasion, pedestrian protection sensors the same, outside temperature intermediately reading a 50 degrees which in turn impacts my internal AC for some reason. Recent issues with front nearside brake disk caused by a seized caliber pin and a tyre sensors system that determines what the pressures would be each time you start the car. 38psi today, 41psi tomorrow etc. This has been the most unreliable BMW and I think most unreliable cars I have ever owned, not least when you add in diesel filter issues.

My Merc has had 2 failed seat belt sensors, full set of engine mounts (they are clever dynamic mounts) and full set of dampers (another glitch). Never stopped me using the car and we all fixed under warranty, but annoying. Also, why is it when 1 car has issues the other car INSTANLY has issues. Seems you can never get to the point of "at least one of them is fine".

I really think the new BMW 5 Series is poor. Too big, hated the infotainment and felt lifeless and powerless in 2L Diesel form.

I do think manufacturers have cut conrners on materials, be that soft touch plastics and seat leather, just doesn't feels as good or has hard wearing.
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Agree with the number of sensors etc causing problems, "my" 2023 Scania - the one you sat in at the motors meet - whilst mechanically has been great so far over ~ 130k miles, the electronics have been a real pain especially compared to the 2018 model it replaced.

Numerous sensor faults, engine temperature sensor fault (twice, both time making the ECU think it was overheating which it it into an effectively undriveable limp mode as it drastically reduced the engine power) the radar collision avoidance system whilst great when it works keeps activating needlessly as the sensors lose calibration, not great for following traffic as the damn thing performs an emergency stop for no reason!

The infotainment system freezes every couple of weeks, you can hard reset it which loses any stored data, it's not just my truck that does this from what my colleagues tell me they all do.

Every time it goes to Scania for it's mandatory inspection or service I mention the numerous issues and am met with a shrug of the shoulders and an "they all do it" attitude, although they do acknowledge it's a common problem across the industry as a whole not just Scania.

Whilst mechanical reliability has improved greatly over the years on vehicles in general, I think in the future it'll be the electronics that sends them to the breakers long before the drivetrain does.
 
TechMinerUK said:
Thats an interesting one as I would have said the seats are one of the bits that has improved as when I compare the old MR2 and MGF that my dad had to the V40 he had with leather seats they had faired much better considering they had been around for the same amount of time at the time he bought the cars.

However that could be more due to the better leather protection products that are around nowadays (Or that the other cars were convertibles and got battered by the weather)
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Mine is an ex Police car (so I'm told) and has cloth seats so you'd expect them to be completely wrecked especially given its former life but not at all, my mates S90 has leather seats which hadn't cracked but they still looked so sagged and generally tired...
 
Scania said:
Mine is an ex Police car (so I'm told) and has cloth seats so you'd expect them to be completely wrecked especially given its former life but not at all, my mates S90 has leather seats which hadn't cracked but they still looked so sagged and generally tired...
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I never liked leather seats, cloth is always nicer in cars and is breathable unlike leather. More comfortable all year round and seems to last a lot longer.

Especially leather seats in sports cars, the bolsters always wear from people getting in and out.
 
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Scania said:
Agree with the number of sensors etc causing problems, "my" 2023 Scania - the one you sat in at the motors meet - whilst mechanically has been great so far over ~ 130k miles, the electronics have been a real pain especially compared to the 2018 model it replaced.

Numerous sensor faults, engine temperature sensor fault (twice, both time making the ECU think it was overheating which it it into an effectively undriveable limp mode as it drastically reduced the engine power) the radar collision avoidance system whilst great when it works keeps activating needlessly as the sensors lose calibration, not great for following traffic as the damn thing performs an emergency stop for no reason!

The infotainment system freezes every couple of weeks, you can hard reset it which loses any stored data, it's not just my truck that does this from what my colleagues tell me they all do.

Every time it goes to Scania for it's mandatory inspection or service I mention the numerous issues and am met with a shrug of the shoulders and an "they all do it" attitude, although they do acknowledge it's a common problem across the industry as a whole not just Scania.

Whilst mechanical reliability has improved greatly over the years on vehicles in general, I think in the future it'll be the electronics that sends them to the breakers long before the drivetrain does.
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I agree, mechanical reliability has improved but I think whilst the increase in sensors has given us a better ability to identify when something is going to go wrong (Or when it has gone wrong to compensate until its fixed) half the battle now is that diagnosing issues on the sensors has become a near impossible task.

Take my old 308, when all the electrics in the car went off it then started coming up with a P20E08 warning which covers a multitude of things from emissions to the Adblue tank however despite using various readers I could get no further to actually fixing the problem without going to Peugeot and dropping £200 on a diagnostics test which would likely tell me the same thing.

All these sensors but the actual ability to advise customers of what the issue is is still locked behind high cost paywalls and even then guarantees no fix.

On a similar note my old Skoda had a known fault where the sensors on the timing belt had a habbit of "misalligning" which put the car into limp mode despite nothing being wrong, I never had that with the 107 I had before which whilst a "completely basic" car just seemed to work regardless of the circumstances with no issues of sensors going awol, and that car was 10 years old when I bought it :D

Scania said:
Mine is an ex Police car (so I'm told) and has cloth seats so you'd expect them to be completely wrecked especially given its former life but not at all, my mates S90 has leather seats which hadn't cracked but they still looked so sagged and generally tired...
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That is interesting unless they gave it a deep restoration before they sold it however it seems unlikely. Your friends Volvo with sagged seats is surprising as well as I would have put Volvo as one of the better manufacturers for interior quality
 
sigma said:
I was at a car show once where a 20 year old Nissan had better paint quality than a McLaren, they were parked next to each other. Anecdotal I know but still... The McLaren was flaking, and body trim was loose also.

Orange peel is so common also.
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McLaren's are notoriously bad --- the panels aren't prepped well enough.
 
TechMinerUK said:
Thats an interesting one as I would have said the seats are one of the bits that has improved as when I compare the old MR2 and MGF that my dad had to the V40 he had with leather seats they had faired much better considering they had been around for the same amount of time at the time he bought the cars.

However that could be more due to the better leather protection products that are around nowadays (Or that the other cars were convertibles and got battered by the weather)
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Have a look on auto trader, the interiors are full of scratches and the seat fabric showing signs of use on fairly new cars, especially Volvos. I guess their (Volvo) new owners have cut down the costs.

Can you actually blame them though? Perhaps the original Volvo ethos was unviable because people don't want to pay for premium, just perceived premium, aka shiny plastics and sport badges etc.
 
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Housey said:
If you compare the 106 GTi i bought my ex wife back in the day from new to the 208 GT i bought my current partners lad this year new it’s no comparison. On any level bar driving, the 208 kills the 106. It’s a far far better car.

The old pocket rocket GTi still the most fun mind, but the quality of everything and the safety is vastly better on the new car.
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I don't think the 106 was even classed as high quality when it rolled off the line :p
 
sigma said:
Have a look on auto trader, the interiors are full of scratches and the seat fabric showing signs of use on fairly new cars, especially Volvos. I guess their (Volvo) new owners have cut down the costs.

Can you actually blame them though? Perhaps the original Volvo ethos was unviable because people don't want to pay for premium, just perceived premium, aka shiny plastics and sport badges etc.
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You are likely right about the premium aspect as that is why SAAB bit the dust
 
adam cool dude said:
Saab were just nuts on so many levels. Name me one high end manufacturer that developed their own proprietary ECU in house.

Some of the stuff they did from a bean counters perspective just made zero sense.
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Bean counters and health and safety run everything now.
 
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Is the problem with paintwork down to regulations as to the materials and substances they are now stricter with in terms of the make up of the actual paint and laquers? You know a bit like how white gloss paint used to be oil based and never yellowed for interior wood work etc, but over the years there has been a big push to water based paint and some of them had issues with yellowing. I think Dulux had a load of claims against them for some of their paint years ago. I wonder if there have been similar things in the car industry where durability has suffered from being "cleaner" and "greener" etc?
 
sigma said:
Umm when health and safety was ignored people died...
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Yes but it has also led to some ridiculous thing.

Like mandatory lane assist (seems to actually make things more dangerous on some cars) or reversing cameras. Or whole roads being closed off because there is a "flood", which is actually a large puddle. Which is what happened near me during the heavy rain we had :/
 
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jaybee said:
Is the problem with paintwork down to regulations as to the materials and substances they are now stricter with in terms of the make up of the actual paint and laquers? You know a bit like how white gloss paint used to be oil based and never yellowed for interior wood work etc, but over the years there has been a big push to water based paint and some of them had issues with yellowing. I think Dulux had a load of claims against them for some of their paint years ago. I wonder if there have been similar things in the car industry where durability has suffered from being "cleaner" and "greener" etc?
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Surely it's all down to cost? What's the thinnest layer of paint they can get away with.

In fact loads of cars are sold just in crappy primer! Although not seen as many recently, has the fashion changed?
 
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