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

TechMinerUK said:
Vauxhall are attrocious for quality now, my sister has a Adam and the paintwork on that is appalling to the point where you can see through to the undercoat where the bumper meets the the bonet.

My step-dad had a Insignia and that was no better as well considering it's meant to be an answer to the Mondeo, the engine decided to see gods garage 6 years in with mainly motorway miles
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A friend had a brand new Corsa last year (new company car every year) and it had electrical issues right from the start. Things like auto wipers not working etc. Vauxhall never figured it out and it was still knacked when it was handed back a few weeks ago.

The Vauxhalls from the 00s and earlier are much better built. They even feel more solid to the touch.
 
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Nasher said:
A friend had a brand new Corsa last year (new company car every year) and it had electrical issues right from the start. Things like auto wipers not working etc. Vauxhall never figured it out and it was still knacked when it was handed back a few weeks ago.
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One of my mates at work had a relative with a Corsa where the car came what can only be described as "miss-alligned" where the doors were completely out of wack and wouldn't shut properly.

I've never heard of that before or since and I have no idea how they managed it but I would but Vauxhall as one of the worst brands out there
 
TechMinerUK said:
One of my mates at work had a relative with a Corsa where the car came what can only be described as "miss-alligned" where the doors were completely out of wack and wouldn't shut properly.

I've never heard of that before or since and I have no idea how they managed it but I would but Vauxhall as one of the worst brands out there
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The replacement seems ok though, which is another Vauxhall lol. An Astra estate this time.

Like most cars now, the inside looks nice. But you can tell the quality isn't what it used to be just by how it all feels. Body panels are thin etc.
 
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sigma said:
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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Seems to be a common trend unfortunately as I noticed that the Vw golf I looked at was just painted with primer under the bonnet and in the engine bay. Stocking state of affairs on a supposedly premium hatchback costing north of £40k!

Paint in new cars seems to be rubbish since the early noughties when they brought in environmental regulations around its use iirc.
 
silvagti said:
Seems to be a common trend unfortunately as I noticed that the Vw golf I looked at was just painted with primer under the bonnet and in the engine bay. Stocking state of affairs on a supposedly premium hatchback costing north of £40k!

Paint in new cars seems to be rubbish since the early noughties when they brought in environmental regulations around its use iirc.
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I think VW/VAG always did that. I had an A3 about 20 years ago which wasn't painted under the boot floor/carpet :/

In contrast I remember pulling interior panels off the GT86 I had, to find everything was fully painted and lacquered even in places you can't see.
 
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TechMinerUK said:
One of my mates at work had a relative with a Corsa where the car came what can only be described as "miss-alligned" where the doors were completely out of wack and wouldn't shut properly.

I've never heard of that before or since and I have no idea how they managed it but I would but Vauxhall as one of the worst brands out there
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Alignment was an optional extra
 
sigma said:
EU term too

www.europarl.europa.eu

Right to repair: the EU’s actions to make repairs more attractive | Topics | European Parliament

After pushing for it for years, MEPs have adopted legislation that guarantees the right to repair products that can be fixed.
www.europarl.europa.eu www.europarl.europa.eu
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I mean, right to repair is a descriptive term isn't it, it's hardly tied to one country although it may be more prominent in some due to a lack of regulations :D
We've been pushing it as well:
 
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dave28 said:
My near 20 year old French car has been massively more reliable than the Fords and Vauxhalls I used to own. The Ford was especially a heap of junk that rusted into oblivion by age 12. Total rubbish that Ford was.
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Whilst my comment was strictly tongue in cheek, it has to be said early French car / vehicle electrics were truly awful,
I'm especially talking about the 70's,80's, I remember in my early driving years Renault (Master) vans where you'd pray it wouldn't rain at night as the headlights had a habit of shorting out, Renault Premium and Magnum HGV's were notorious for electrical problems and in my pre driving career, I worked at a Citroen dealer where they employed as many auto electricians as they did mechanics.

It's gone full circle now though, in the early 90's they really upped their game with cars like the Xantia but now as already said, the sheer complexity of vehicular electronics be it French, German whoever is almost undermining the engineering progress demonstrated by pretty much any modern era car.

As I said earlier, it won't be mechanical issues that send the cars of today to the breakers at the end of life it'll be electrical.
 

I forgot to add this, Chris Harris and his brief take on the new M5 pretty much says the same thing about the quality of it, the seats already showing signs of use after a couple of thousand miles, the poor quality plastics the awful fit of the charge /filler cap whichever it is...

You'd be annoyed if you found this on a run of the mill car but on a £110k+ car?

And you do have to wonder why they won't let him drive it on a track, you'd be forgiven for thinking they know it would break!
 
Wow, looks so tacky. Also he seems a bit fed up of it lol, probably boring AF.

The depreciation on that thing is going to be horrendous.
 
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If I ever bought a new car (having bought a new 140i in 2020), I'd wait until the current cycle of dangerous infuriating interiors (ipad style), poorer quality and unnecessarily heavy and huge, phase out. Oh and when EVs are replaced with a viable alternative of course :p

I'm happy with the quality (for a 1 serise) and it has buttons! I've never touched the screen since I've owned it, never needed to. No stupid lane departure warnings, or speed alerts. The good old days (and even before that was better in some ways too). Miss my old Lotus (not that quality was at the top of their priorities, but as a driver's car.....tough to beat).
 
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The one I rented in Italy. I had actually rented a new 4 Series but that came with 3 pages....yes, 3 pages of damage so SIXT got given that back in an instant and I got a choice of the new 5 Series or an Alfa Stelvio (which be clear, I should have chosen, what the heck was I thinking).

Really hated the small icons, too much to press to access simple stuff and confusing and the plastics have gone lower rent over the years sadly in terms of feel.
 
Nasher said:
The replacement seems ok though, which is another Vauxhall lol. An Astra estate this time.

Like most cars now, the inside looks nice. But you can tell the quality isn't what it used to be just by how it all feels. Body panels are thin etc.
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If it's anything like mine then the interior looks good when brand new but the "piano black" they insist on using scratches if you look at it.

Actually, mine had several scratches when I received it brand new! Panel alignment isn't great either, not masses out but things that the masses aren't meant to notice that jumped out to me. Like the boot lid being slightly lower than the rear wing at one side and slightly higher at the other.

While I'm getting it all off my chest... The bumpers are a distinctly different shade of white and the black roof has imperfections in it, was masked by a blind man and was buffed with what must have been a scouring pad.

To me this is the stuff that seems to have crept in now. The "meh, if they complain maybe we'll sort it." attitude. Then again this is my first new new car. Last one was a pre-reg and had been **** on by the resident seagulls and poked by the looky Larries in the dealership for 6 months before I got it. Maybe this has always been the case but honestly, if it was my money I'd have rejected it.

Mechanically it seems fine but the software gives the nagging feeling that it's going to do me over one day. It's no where near as bad as a Mk7 (or do I mean 8?) Golf. My time with one of them was less than endearing and a colleague of mine found the same. Luckily mine went back once my car was fixed, he paid over £30k for his :p
 
Main thing with Vauxhall was at least GM made solid engines. Most of them were best in class in the hot hatch wars. Just a shame they couldn't do the same with gearboxes.

The same with Peugeot. When I was at 6th form and college in the early 2000's. The 205,306,106 were the cars to have. Peugeot 405's were tanks that you could run forever on Kebab waste oil.
 
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