From: gjp@sei.cmu.edu (George Pandelios)
Subject: Re: Junky Japanese cars? (Re: Production Delay)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 04:07:04 GMT

In article <Aug25.190026.12518@engr.washington.edu> eliot@stalfos.engr.washington.edu (eliot) writes:
>In article <1992Aug25.101404.2523@mdcbbs.com> jan@camhpp12.mdcbbs.com (Jan Vandenbrande) writes:
>
>>>Someone else equated Japanese style with
>>>quality, but I find that very hard to believe! The Jap cars since '90 seem
>>>to fall apart ridiculously fast. 

In my humble opinion, the aura of Japanese quality, at least as projected
by Honda, is pure MYTH.  In 1990 I bought a new Honda Accord LX.  It
was, by far, the worst car I have ever owned - right off the showroom 
floor.  It had a squeak (which they could hear, but never fix), a very 
poor paint job, and a fungus contaminated a/c (took 6 service calls and 
a part from Japan to fix).

>>However I must comment that when we looked at '92 GTI's (Hecho en Mexico)
>>the quality seemed a far cry from our US made 86 GTI. 
>>Little things like rattles and squeecks in the BRAND new car, chinsier (sp?)
>>feel of the controls, cheap stickers as labels (e.g. "unleaded..."
>>or "fasten..") that weren't even put un straight, trim croocked,
>>sunroof crank already tearing the headliner, etc.
>

When I compare my new 92 GTI 16V to my 84 Wolfsburg Scirocco, it does 
come up short on some assembly aspects.  Road feel and handling though,
seem as good or better.  The major shortcoming, in my opinion, is that VW
is not paying attention to the wants of its aging US market.  Those of us
over 30 who like VWs would like to have our creature comforts, too.  In 
the GTIs, VW didn't even make available power door locks and windows.  Here 
we are eight years later and roughly $4,000 higher in price, and VW seems
to be going backwards.  I realize a lot of the $4000 is inflation, but VW
didn't even give me those options.  I think VW may lose some older customers
this way.  Yeah, I know, I'm supposed to spend the big bucks for an Audi ;^)

>I think that you two may be talking about different things altogether.
>Gayla is talking about durability and you are talking about quality of
>assembly, quality of materials.  A very well assembled car can have
>short-lived components which die at an earlier age than a shoddily
>put together car with longer lived components.  I do think that the
>quality of materials used in Golfs/GTIs is on the cheap side and
>recent drives in Mexican built cars have not been all that
>encouraging.  But in general Japanese cars do tend to be designed
>(i.e. intended) for a shorter life than a VW.
>
>
>eliot

On the whole, I love this GTI 16V.

George
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  George J. Pandelios				Internet:  gjp@sei.cmu.edu
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