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Is it important where they are built?
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Personally I think it probably is important where they are built if there is a possibility of different perceptions of quality control. Do I want to buy or expect reliability from a Suzuki built in India or Bulgaria rather than Japan? Given the option, I will opt for the Japanese version. Probably it boils down to individual factories being different if one can find out where your car was built. For example, the first American-built Mercedes 4x4s were slated by Top Gear for build quality but I wouldn't condemn either Mercedes as a whole or all US car plants as a result.
David Woollard will correct me, if I'm wrong, but I think the BX estates were not built by Citroen; the XM estates certainly weren't although I think the company that was sub-contracted was eventually bought out by Citroen. My old VW Syncro was built not by VW but by Steyr in Austria. Some of these specialist builds can be better quality, I suspect, than the factory model. It isn't necessarily always the case if stories about quality of finish on the Kia Sportage are true. It's built by Karmann in Germany.
Sorry about the ramble but it is interesting sometimes to know who built what and where.
David
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Thanks for the fanfare, HJ!
Firstly - RHD VW's Mercs and BMW's have been exported from SA for a number of years now, to Australia and UK. I read recently that UK will now have ALL their Golf IV's made here. Massive retooling at Uitenhage (VW plant).
VW also exports a RHD called a Fox - like a golf 1 with a boot - to mainland China, in substantial numbers.
BMW in Rosslyn, near Pretoria, is shifting a lot of 3 series out, and importing the bigger marques (The market won't justify a production line here).
Ford used to export pick-up trucks (looked like a Cortina from the front) to UK in the 80s as well.
As far as quality goes, it is a curates egg. VW is very good, and Merc is improving all the time.
But at one stage (due to a lot of militancy amonst the workers, as the nation changed) the QC at the plants was very poor, and there was much sabotage of cars on the line.
That is now sorted out.
In a nutshell, yes we export cars. Yes, their quality has improved, and yes, they are to a high spec.
In fact, SA has been a great user of German cars since long before UK woke up to the fact...
SO... do you want a car put together by somebody who has been making RHD's all his life, or by someone who has shifted across from the LHD line temporarily?
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I remember opening the bonnet of a Hillman Hunter in Johannesburg that had broken down to be confronted with a Peugeot engine!
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David,
Thank you for you faith in me but i'm afraid I don't know the build locations of different Citroen bodies. I realised years ago remembering informatioin was more efficiently acheived on a "need to know" basis. Hence I remember the useful tech bits and leave others with a different kind of coat to tell me how many model variants/where they were built/who designed the seat material etc. No disrespect intended ;-).
I am aware the estates are often built in a different plant. Some say there are problems with the Xantia estates for this reason. I'm not convinced.
David
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This reminds me of a 'Car' magazine from the early '90s which featured a VW-badged lemon on the front cover. This was in honour of their long term test Golf VR6 which was dogged by problems. They advised readers to buy the Corrado since it was built by Karmann and did not suffer the same problems.
Now VW have have got their act together perhaps it's Karmann's turn for a quality slump!
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