That is what the marketing men tell people, and that is what some people believe..

From the time of he Honda tie up with Rover to the collapse, I had no problems with any of my vehicles, excepts a second hand mgzt i bought foolishly in 2009. and that was heart overuling head. The Epica i had a few years ago had 3 problems (fixed under warranty) the current Venga had a leaking shock absorber, fixed under warranty. I have not owned a VAG vehicle since the mid 80's...

A friend has an S type and an XF and has work done under warranty on both during the warranty periods.

Oh you have started something now Steveled, an emotive subject, everyone thinks their choice of car is best and happy to defend it.

I would say it is an oversimplification and it also depend whether you are talking about present day or in the past, the bulk of cars now are pretty good with few clunkers. Even Fiat that I used to hate with a passion, rusty unreliable things, " Fix it again Tony " they now make perfectly good cars. Wifes 2 year old panda is well made and built in the most modern European factory they say. The Japanese have a very different design philosophy to the Germans.

Having had a string of VWs you will not be surprised that I think German cars are the best on the planet, and I cant imagin anyone disagreeing with that fact. LOL Im going into hiding now.

Edited by Stanb Sevento on 15/03/2017 at 09:11

Japanese (made) cars have been reliable for all of my driving life, and i've worked on them since the 70's, that much is true even if they rusted away to nothing in no time as most cars did in years gone by, but also with few exceptions have been designed and built to be easily maintained for a long life, this is where they score highly, on all of my 4WD Toyotas when you disconnet a wiring plug that's open to the elements you usually find a white grease is evident inside the plugs from manufacture, this alone must make a huge difference to long term reliability, and usually you can still undo underbody bolts on a Japanese (built) car decades after it was made.

My problem with French cars, and these days the Germans are little better, is that they are and have been designed and built to be manufactured, invariably they are simple to service even if it only every other year, ie often oil filters are more accessible than on Japanese cars, but soon as you need to do some more in depth work on them the jobs can turn out to be anything from a headache to a complete nightmare, obviously there are exceptions to everything, but this has been my experience, plus once a few years old nut and bolt and suspension corrosion becomes a real problem with underbody maintenance.

I've been a little disappointed that some Japanese makers have followed the herd over things like electric parking brakes and removing auto gearbox dipsticks on 4x4's, buck your ideas up Toyota ( and to a lesser extent Subaru) you know better than this.

I'm not quite sure about image to be honest, if you arn't bothered by image as a person does an image a car portrays matter in the slightest, each to their own on that score, i wouldn't have a Bentley Bentayga as a gift mind, not for its image just that ugly doesn't begin to describe it and i'd hate to have to look at the thing on my drive.

Is it an oversimplification to say that Japanese cars are reliable, French cars have poor electrics and German cars have strong image and great build quality?

You omitted one word: 'statistically'. Most cars of almost any make will probably be reliable. You will normally buy only one at a time, and you will probably be lucky (I nearly always have been) especially if you are careful when you buy.

Once a car is out of warranty, and owners begin to cut costs - that is when the tendencies start to show up.

Edited by SLO76 on 15/03/2017 at 10:17