Actually on most german brands (including seat and skoda) theyll pay you sometimes up to 90 percent of the engine depending on how old the car is a friend of mine got 50 percent of the engine repair after the engine blew because he did the services in the dealership and it was 10 years after the car was first sold
My parents have two korean cars. An i10 and i40. The i10 has been pretty solid, apparently the i40 has had to have a few recalls including replacing the rear suspension arms. I am pretty sure it hasn't broken down. Although I do think there was a close call with a mistake the dealer had made. But hey, at least they didn't do a Citroen by taking bolts off the car and only putting half of them back on, leading to the under tray falling off on a dual carriageway. Whether a dealer consistently screws up your car is probably more a reflection on the dealer than the car itself. I guess the conclusion I come to from anecdotes is that all budget car dealers suck, only reason I mention budget is cause my grandparents are on their second Audi S3 and they seem to speak quite highly of their dealer, including being invited to events with free drinks when new cars get launched
I wholeheartedly agree about French cars and would probably buy one if/when they become available. I've always loved their styling and unique features, but I guess a lot of older people have a different impression, which is why PSA is so scared of using the Citroën or Peugeot nameplates. I think they'd do great, at least in Canada where Fiat's introduction was very successful. We have a larger small car market than the US and French cars would fit right in. The 108/C1 would offer direct competition to the Fiat 500, which is very popular and literally holds a complete monopoly on city cars right now.
ｓａｄｂｏｉｓ In the early days Holden exported their cars to South Africa and Saudi Arabia (sometimes they were branded as Chevrolet though) They even exported their Monaro (coupe version of HK/HT/HG) to South Africa as the Chevrolet SS, featuring a unique front end: Australian Monaro for comparison:
We had an extremely similar experience with a BMW, the only differences were that 5k was not enough and it didn't have a 7 year warranty.
Yes, it's a Prelude INX, a more upmarket spinoff model featuring a revised fixed headlight front end.
Pretty much every european manufacturer gained a bad reputation in North America when they tried getting a foothold in the US during the '70s/'80s. Diametrically opposed motoring cultures are to blame. Protectionistic home market did the rest. The same happened on the other side of the pond: while French, Italian and British cars are remembered for their catastrophic reliability in the US, the same can be said of the sparse, ruinous attempts of the US brands to sell their stuff over here.
Yep. Some people seem to think "German engineering = perfect reliability" but that particular kind of german engineering went away three decades ago (Think Mercedes W123/W124/W201/W202, BMW E30, Golf mk2 etc.) Modern german cars are very expensive to maintain, which is surprising considering how well they are built. My theory is that after cars like the W123 and such, german cars got a wonderful reputation for reliability and became the first choice of people with money to spend. Now they're cashing in on that reputation, and getting easy money from the constant repairs these cars need. This reputation won't last for long, though, and soon the germans will be forced to make reliable cars again.
afaik its more to do with how complex, and over engineered the cars are. If you are on the bleeding edge of what can be done you are going to have some reliability issues. Generally if you keep a German car well maintained it can last a long time, but if you don't maintain it well it will implode sooner rather than later, due to the complexity of the cars the maintenance isn't cheap. Just look at some of BMW's engines for example, the combination of HP, Torque, displacement, Fuel Economy and so on is pretty impressive, but in order to achieve that sort of result you need to be working under very small tolerances. Hence things can go wrong despite the genuinely good build quality. Whereas in a car with far less performance (0-60, top speed etc) such as a base model Citroen C3 the tolerances can be greater in manufacturing without causing issues. Hence they can have less precise manufacturing (which is cheaper) but with similar reliability.
Then in Australia, European & American cars have a bad reputation. Japanese cars are the only imports that have a good rep here
Working on cars is fantastic fun until you pinch your thumb in a god damn jack stand. Fucking ow. In other news, I visited a Pep Boys Speed Shop today. It was basically a candy store.
