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Sedans Lexus LS 400/LS 430 Luxury Lounge
21518 messages, Last post on Dec 05, 2009 at 10:07 AM
You are in the Lexus LS 400/LS 430 Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: anthonyp (Oct 30, 2009 1:41 pm) I myself was thinking about a 2010 MB Blutec E320 but here was the deal killer for me: Run flat tires! Forget it! The reason the diesel version has run flat tires is to eliminate the need of a spare tire in order to accomodate that urea bag sold with MB diesels. Run flat tires are hideously priced here in Canada ($800 each for 18' tires) and it was run flat tires that really annoyed me when I owned my BMW 335i. So you asked if I have regrets that the financial discussions here are over? No. Not at all. In my very particular case almost all my time is spent with investments. All I want here in this forum is a diversion from investments. Today I am like a Lonely Maytag Repairman who is ignored by his clients. I cherish this loneliness because I know when markets go down my telephone will not leave me alone all day. Market indexes are up almost 60 percent and now is the least exciting time to talk about markets. Unlike exciting March when almost everything was bargain priced and worth buying. |
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Replying to: clembo (Oct 31, 2009 3:37 am) True. It is a human error and is forgiveable. But the frequent recurring problems with my BMW 335i was inhuman and unforgivable....well at least until I get bored with my Prius. |
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Replying to: lexusguy (Oct 31, 2009 7:29 am)  ).
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Replying to: dewey (Oct 31, 2009 7:17 pm) I dont remember all of them but I recall 10 visits on fixing the leaking "coinslot" moonroof alone. First it leaked, and then it leaked again, and again, and... well, you get the idea. Another 5 or so involved electronic glitches (how about no display at all on the center screen?). One big bummer was stuck tranny, which refused to move from P. Nissan finally gave him another car. First they offered a new, pre-inspected fully loaded Maxima for no extra charge. He refused and the company gave him a Murano instead. A decision he sometimes regreted a bit due to it's harsh ride (hey at least your sunroof's not leaking anymore!!!)  
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Replying to: m4d_cow (Oct 31, 2009 11:55 pm) That's a lot of unscheduled visits! Sometimes I wonder what it actually is that causes a specific individual vehicle to be plagued with issues. Someone once told me that the day of the week, as well as the time of day, the car is manufactured can make a big difference in the assembly line worker's state-of-being, and if the car is built at the "worst" time, it has a greater likelihood of having issues than a car built at the "best" time of the week and day. I don't know if that is true or not, although it makes sense to a point, I suppose. But, there must be something that causes an individual car, regardless of brand or model, to be plagued with issues. They can't all be flood victims. And, a bad part would usually only cause that single issue, even if repeated, instead of many unrelated issues on the same vehicle. Any of you gentlemen truly know what causes an individual car to become a lemon? TM
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Replying to: tagman (Nov 01, 2009 8:48 am) For the answer, you need to look at failure rates in the production process. Many issues are linked to disconnects between design and mfg. The U.S. auto industry continued to ignore and put off the quality inroads Asian mfgrs made on the small cars. It was easier to get quality incrementally improved on the simpler, smaller units. Later, when marquees such as Lexus, Infinity and Accura were introduced, the Quality systems already supported extremely low defect rates learned on the simpler models. Even the European manufacturers were untimely in addressing continuous improvements in quality in both design and content. VW is a parallel to GM, F and C afaic....sporadic at best. Until recently, BMW, Merc and Audi suffered the same perceptions which, at the end of the day, ARE reality. If it weren't for the Asian embracing quality as a competitive tool, we would not be seeing late improvement in the western auto companies. As was the case in Dewey's 335i example, one unit had multiple flaws and it seems to me the systems are not yet in place to catch/fix these problems ex-assembly line in most western companies as effectively as T or H does. They should have taken that abomination off the sales roster in Germany let alone suffer the extents of incompetent perceptions that are now burned into history and Dewey's perception of BMW. As for the reason for an individual lemon, it usually means a system-wide issue that allows the defects to pop up at a certain rate. IOW its not bottom up but top down thinking that allows this to continue. The Japanese work the other way around...from the ground up. Works much better if you ask me.  Regards, OW |
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Replying to: m4d_cow (Oct 31, 2009 11:44 pm) The original rear end of the C6 A6 was basically an evolution of the C5 model. The update brings it into line with Audi's current styling cues. I didn't quite get it at first, but after seeing a brand new A6 on the road, I think it looks great. It's one of those things that just doesn't work in pictures. What I'm very interested to see is how the interior turns out in the C7 car. The C6 was the debut of Audi's current interior design theme. The A8 got MMI first, but otherwise it was in the old Audi interior school. The new A6 and A8 will determine whether Audi is still king of interiors.
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Replying to: lexusguy (Nov 01, 2009 7:41 pm)  Tag: no kidding, 26 dealer visits. I'm not sure how or why. Perhaps it's related on which line a car is assembled at, like you said... though it brings out another problem: most manufacturing lines are automatic, so assuming the assembly line theory is true, just how many other lemons are out there? 
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Replying to: m4d_cow (Oct 31, 2009 11:55 pm) That was the wrong time to buy a Nissan. They were just starting to come back after the Altima saved them from total disaster, and quality was absolutely gutted on all levels to save every last penny. The Maximas also came from the new TN plant, which took a very long time to get its act together. The absolute worst offenders were the early Quests and Armadas, quality was so bad there it would make Land Rover blush. Nissan still isn't so hot quality wise, and neither is Mazda.
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Replying to: tagman (Nov 01, 2009 8:48 am) A combination of bad plants and bad design certainly enables the possibility of lemons. As I just mentioned in my last post, the quality of cars built at Nissan's Tennessee plant in the mid '00s was horrendous. When you cut corners at the design stage and the work is slipshod at the build stage, you're going to end up with lemons. Mercedes had similar problems with their Alabama plant, leading to a lot of lemon ML320s. In other instances, it's new technology that hasn't been tested well enough, which was the cause of most of Mercedes' headaches over the last decade. A single root cause could result in a lot of faults, as parts fail as a result of an initial failure. If a suspension system for example has some kind of problem in the design, it could lead to all kinds of issues. Or it may not be mechanical at all. Computers and software control tons of different sub-systems in luxury cars, and something as simple as bad software could lead to a lemon.
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