5 most unreliable luxury cars

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

Here's my mantra. Buy purpose built cars and you'll find yourself with more satisfaction and less maintenance problems overall.

Example of what not to do. If you want a truck but you're wants also include carrying passengers, having luxury, or any kind of performance, DON'T try to cover all the bases and buy a $50-$60k Quad cab luxury model truck with all the goodies.. Do that and end up with an overpriced, overwieght, gas hog, that you're afraid to use like a truck because it cost $50-$60k's. $40-$60K SUV's are even worse (Range Rover/Escalade/Touraeg).

Why? 5000 - 6000lb vehicles are not meant to be daily drivers. Even trucks with upgraded brakes, and suspension parts have to bow to physics. With these kinds of stresses things break. You have to fix them. In addition, by trying to get an inheriantly noisy truck with a truck suspension to do non-truck tasks, weight is usually added! Purpose built cars (or anything for that matter) are typically BETTER at doing the assigned task then general purpose options. Common sense.

Luxury cars suffer similarly. They have the newest electronics and shortest test cycles thus generally have the most bugs. They also tend to have more gadgets, soundproofing, and luxury ammenities, thus more weight. Don't expect a car with all new electronic systems and plenty of extra weight to be as reliable as cars with tried and true reprogrammable electronics that weigh less. Once again, common sense. These cars are also not intended to be daily drivers (no matter how much you spent on them).

Now as automakers continue to consolidate (Jag/Ford, Saab/GM, MBenz/Chrylser) luxury cars will continue to grow more reliable, but will still suffer from electronic bugs. Japanese automakers took a different route by growing/rebadging/refitting long time consumer models as luxury marques (Lexus/Toyota, Infiniti/Nissan, Acura/Honda). This helped their reliability by borrowing from longer established vehicles to fill the in the luxury marques volume models (Lexus ES line, Infinity M Class), but as you choose newer/heavier models the reliability bug problem will continue to crop up. Note, there has been an leveling on quality across all auto makers that will continue.

Still the best way to get good reliablilty is to look at the main purpose of the vehicle, then buy a car to match. Want a car for a secondary purpose? Get a second car.

Want a pickup to tow/work that will also be good around town and for passengers, instead of buying a $50k pickup truck with every option filled, try this instead...

A base model full size pickup with upgraded engine/axle/bed length for work/towing. That you won't be afraid to beat up (if it happens) for $15-$20k (Ford F150XL, GMC Sierra WT, Nissan Titan XT)

AND

A $30 - $35K entry level luxury sedan or a high end mid-size family car. That'll get great mileage, has full luxury ammenities, and is great around town or on long trips.

You won't be putting tons of miles on the truck (that physics pretty much guarantee will be under more stress, and will get terrible mileage), and you'll be much more comfortable cruising in a sedan anyhow. The sedan will last longer, have a better waranty, and will have better resale value then the truck. On top of that they will share the mileage, and offer you redundancy, just in case one breaks, or you need to loan one out. This sensiblity works the same if you want a good passenger car, and strong peformance. Buy a real sports car instead of just a "sporty" car, AND a decent sedan. This can be accomplished for much less money than you might think, and in the end will be much more satisfying.

My "not a hypocrite" list of vehicles
'05 Lotus Elise - currently own @ ($32k)
'06 GMC Sierra W/T standard cab & box w/V6 auto w/std pwr stuff ($13k OTD (final year model, just purchsed in May)
'05 Mazda 6 - currently in the market for @ ($14k)

All bases covered for $60k.
I actually use my truck for "truck tasks" and am not worried about beating it up. My Lotus is faster than anything through a curve, and is flossy when I take my girl to a nice restaurant. The Mazda will soon be a daily driver with great mileage, and failry fun to drive. All do a great job at what they're intended. If I hadn't bought the Louts, the Mazda 6 and Pickup would still fill a lot of requirements, and I coulda bought a 5-8K Miata, or MR2 for pure fun. None would have the pimp factor of the Lotus, but in a way, who cares (guess I did). I love them all and didn't spend a grip all at once. With some luck I'll likely have fewer maintenance issues, and no reliance on just one car. If I didn't have that much to spend, I could've re-created this group for $25K less, and still covered all the bases with good reliability. All in all just use common sense.

Thugnomoe · Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:40 pm Post subject:

^^ smart man...thanks for the advice...

Mike@LG · Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:30 pm Post subject:

Mike@LG · Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject:

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

Mike@LG · Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:16 pm Post subject:

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

postandpivot · Retired Number Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 36822

Mike@LG · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:26 am Post subject:

postandpivot · Retired Number Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 36822

postandpivot · Retired Number Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 36822

on another note. hey Mike and Money$hot. you guys need to hook up a Reliable Car thread. have different price ranges as well.

Mike@LG · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:37 am Post subject:

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

Mike@LG · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:17 pm Post subject:

j-dawg · Franchise Player Joined: 12 Apr 2001 Posts: 12177

Mike -- You have a 99 ES300? I had a 99 ES300 as well, before I traded it in for an SC400, and then eventually my GS430.

Wish I still had it as my daily driver beside my GS430, now with the gas prices on the rise. Not a sports car by any means, but it was smooth and comfortable.

skumbag · Starting Rotation Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 843

I agree with Postandpivot about the SUV thing. Statistics shows that an average American family has less than 2 kids. Yet, something like 60% of households have SUVs. These numbers don't indicate that American family use their SUVs because they need it! Don't tell me you need an SUV haul 2 adults and less than 2 kids in an average family. Soccer moms don't account for this 60% because on average even a soccer mom only has 2 kids.

Go to Europe and Asia and you'll see that most families of 4 do not own SUVs.

The fact is Americans own SUVs because it's partly convient but more importantly they can because gas prices are relatively low compared to the rest of the world. I guarantee you if gas prices were like $5/gal like in some part of Europe, you can forget SUV, you'd hard pressed to find people driving even mid-sized cars.

hmm, but another factor as to why Americans could be attracted to large vehicles (not just SUVs) is due to their size. Statistics show that 2 out of every 3 Americans are clinically obese. Yes, we are a fat nation. Go to Europe and you can't help but say, "damn, we are a fatass nation", (and ironically, Americans are exercise freaks copmared to Europeans, but apparently exercise can't compensate for all the McD and In-n-out burgers). I've heard one study that suggests that because of the extra weight Americans are carrying around, it is costing us something like $260 million/yr in additional gasoline cost to haul that weight. Perhaps weight is also a factor in determining the trend of cars (in conjunction with gas prices).

skumbag · Starting Rotation Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 843

Mike@LG · Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 6:31 am Post subject:

Mike@LG · Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 6:34 am Post subject:

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

skumbag · Starting Rotation Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 843

Money$hot! · Star Player Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Posts: 5911

Vancouver Fan · Franchise Player Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 17740

j-dawg · Franchise Player Joined: 12 Apr 2001 Posts: 12177

What happened to the reliability of German vehicles?

There use to be a time where Mercedes Benz vehicles would run forever as long as you maintained it. I'm talking about the cars from the 60's, 70's 80's and even early 90's. Now they are ranked upon the worst in just about every credible (and non credible for that matter) study.

Forgotten roots? Unproven electronics? Or is it just a case of the Japanese catching up with the times? Keep in mind that just 20 years ago, people would laugh off at the thought of a Japanese car competing with Mercedes. 30 years ago, Japanese cars were the laughing stock of the car world in this country, sort of like Korean cars were 5 years ago. 20 years ago, a Mercedes owner would NEVER think of trading in their prestige and valuable Mercedes for some lowly and cheaper more inferior Japanese brand, such as Lexus. Fast forward 20 years and more and more people are trading in their German for Japanese brands. I myself looked at German products before going Japanese. Mercedes Benz and BMW will have that prestige and brand name recognition for a long time.

Lexus has a supercar and 400-500 HP cars in their future, for the first time ever. Infiniti may bring over the next Skyline and bring more into the horsepower wars. It's going to be interesting how the future holds for Luxury German brands.

Mike@LG · Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 8:59 pm Post subject:

Demand.

Production had to increase at a higher rate than expected. Mercedes, BMW, Audi all went through the roof trying to keep up with demand in OC as it is.

That, on top of the typical Germanic electronic gadgets... and you get a bad reliability factor.

Even Toyota... killing the field in auto/truck sales the past season is hitting reliability issues for multiple vehicles.

I don't really trust any german car made after 2002. That seems to be when reliability took the biggest hit.

Now, it's ironic how (if I recall correctly) the 300c, Magnum, and Charger are based on the older E-Class chassis's and drivetrains. No doubt the Daimler/Chrysler merger is affecting US perception (along with the Hemi's and aggressive styling).
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