American vs German Quality

In fact Clarkson makes a point of using and emphasizing national
stereotypes. It's so easy. Some months ago an article drew readers'
letters saying he had taken his foreigner-bashing (Americans in this case)
too far.

Today I watched a video picked off the Top Gear site I referenced about a
race Jeremy Clarkson organised between the new Aston-Martin DB9 and the
train, from London to Monte Carlo.

Clarkson was driving the DB9...in an otherwise enjoyable clip I found his
frequent references to Frenchies not very nice.


Of course there are many possible real reasons why quality is poor. Here's
a thing: the vast majority of the workforce in Merc's main plant in
Stuttgart is/was of Turkish origin. When I did my works tour in the mid-80s
there weren't all these quality issues, so it had little to so with the work
force.

DAS

 

Dori A Schmetterling wrote:

surveyed in the UK, the M-Class was BOTTOM for reliability.

Clarkson is a narrow-minded, ignorant, bigoted, addlepated asswipe if
that's what he thinks. And I'm not even FROM Alabama.

The M-class stinks because its a wretchedly pitiful engineering design,
not because of where its built. Why it remained in production as long
after the merger as it did remains a mystery to me- Mercedes would have
avoided the beating over inadequate offroad capability AND poor
reliability if they had just slapped a 3-pointed star and rock-hard
black leather seats in a Jeep Grand Cherokee and called it an M400 or
M470 (depending on engine). Its gotta be embarassing when the low-tech
solid-axle corporate sibling kicks your fancy design's butt in every
quantifiable test ever devised.

 

While Chrysler has changed the computers so they aren't programmed to eat
the transmissions, and done some other improvements, they still aren't quite
100% of what they should be. Same with Ford, early AXODs were absolute
disasters, but they improved somewhat in 1996, and even more in 2000. Again,
not 100%, but better then they were.

Also Chrysler had it's fair share of not supporting owners with known faulty
2.0L and 2.4L head gaskets.

 

Geoff wrote:

And if you look at the last SIXTY years, Chrysler has been even better.
The only real problem periods in that whole time in additioni to the
transmission and Neon you mentioned were:

-Rust and QA problems on the '58-60 vehicles
-Rust and QA (again) on the '77-80 vehicles

And in both of those cases, the cars that survived (were at the high end
of the QA curve) proved that the basic engineering was excellent even
then- just a lot of the cars were VERY poorly put together.

During that whole time, Chrysler has NEVER had a widespread recurring
engine flaw in a Chrysler-designed engine (the Mitsubishis were crap)
until the 2.0L head gasket problem with the first-gen Neon. That in
itself is very remarkable when you compare Chrysler to GM (Olds diesel,
Cadillac HT-4100 and V8-6-4, Chevy 60-degree v6 failures, the odd-firing
Buick 3.8 fiasco, engine replacements due to piston slap in the current
Chevy GEN-III v8s), Ford (early and often failures in the Modular V8
series with numerous recalls and warranty replacements, including piston
slap, head failure, and high oil consumption), BMW (say 'Nikasil' and
watch the BMW fans scream in agony), and most other brands.

 

Bill 2 wrote:

No modern automatic transmission is 100% of what I think a transmission
should be. But then my gold standards are the Chrysler A-727 and the
Ford C6, and nothing made today comes even close. Even the GM TH-400,
which I admit was a good transmission, wasn't up to 727 and C6 standards.

Weak transmissions have been virtually mandated by CAFE and emissions
requirements. In order to make transmissions efficient enough to meet
cafe and not increase emissions, makers have had to take all the safety
margin out of the hardware to reduce weight and frictional losses, and
then protect what is left of the transmission by doing annoying things
like closing the throttle, retarding timing, or dropping alternate
cylinders during shifts to reduce the power dissipated in the clutches,
running heavily friction-modified fluids, and plain old praying for
longevity. Modern GM front-drives AUDIBLY throttle down during shifts,
and it just makes me want to scream every time I get one as a rental car!

The 42LE is every bit as good as ANY of its competitors from any
continent or manufacturer.... the problem is that NONE of them are good
ENOUGH.

 

Well, *there's* a ringing endorsement!

Yep, you can rely on the modular V8 engines to eat intake manifolds and
cylinder heads, in addition to the rotating-electrics problems most all
Fords have.

 

Sorry that just doesn't quite line up with reality. The engines might start
to smoke after 350 000km, but other than the car is very reliable.

 

2000+ Taurus does that, but it probably helps with the transmission
reliability.

 

If you're talking about the various incarnations of the 4.6 (single and
dual overhead cam), that hasn't been my experience at all. From what
source have you drawn this conclusion?

Cheers,

 

Yeah - what he said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Ford spent a lot of time on the Edsel.....................and many other
vehicles during their long history, but it really hasn't done much good. As for
Chrysler garbage, you really DON'T know much about Chrysler, do you????????????

 

What a surprise. You come into a Chrysler group to brag about Fords and bash
Chrysler so the assumtion is.............. (yes, I know I shouldn't ASSuME but
in this case I am the "ME"!).

and continued:

You don't?

 

I'm not bragging about Fords, I'm just saying Chrysler isn't vastly (if at
all) superior.

 

Your reality is not the reality of the fleet managers -- several of them,
over the years -- I've spoken with. What's your sample size, there, Bill?
One? Two?

 

That's entirely probable. How many of them have you owned, and for how
long?

 

Funny, it sounded like bragging - and many people here will disagree on your
statement that Chrysler isn't superior.

 

I haven't owned a single one, but I have customers (maybe 20-30) that
own those engines in various cars. The last Ford V8 I owned was a fox
body Mustang 5.0L, which was a completely different engine.

Cheers,

 

Grand. Go talk to motor pool maintenance managers who have to keep
hundreds of them on the road.

 

The Stuttgart designed, Kokomo built 5-speed automaticac used in the 300C is
what is now a mainstream transmission. The Kokomo management and union
workers just need to have an attitude adjustment and get the quality in line
on what is basically a good design. It's design is not too complicated for
it's own good. 5-speeds are now what 3-speeds were in the late 50's.

 

Why don't you have these people tell us what they think or post a
citation to a credible source?

Thanks,