I judge cars by the sound systems

seriously !

in all other ways they are just a device to move you safely from A to B

which is why we bought a Volvo utility 10 years ago

but then I also think watches are only for keeping track of time and don't understand them as fashion accessories 😂

and I am not a fountain pen collector either -- sorry 😂 😂

however I do like hiring Mercs for comfort and power, and we did enjoy a convertabile 

so I guess they can have fun elements to them

Personally, I think the difference between cars is huge... Only BMW and Porsche for me. Although I have to admit I love Maserati's, older Alfa Romeo's and Lancia's and old Mercs, especially the W 113 as well. Don't like new Mercs at all.

The main reason why I don't like Mercs for instance is that compared to a BMW a BMW feels alive and a Merc does provide transport but you feel you are left out of the action. That's fine if you want to get from A to B, but I much rather enjoy the time I spent in a car.

Not sure if you can quantify this. Sure you can say if the steering of a car is slow or fast, comparing how many turns it takes from lock to lock for instance. But how do you explain the feeling you get through the steering wheel? How do you compare the numbness of a Merc to the lovely feel you get behind the wheel of a Porsche 911, or a BMW M3? Can't tell, but I also can't imagine anyone not feeling the difference.

To me there is always a huge difference in cars. I dont know what it is but somehow cars to me seem to have characters. Italian cars are distinctly Italian, German distinctly German etc. My Fathers 3 Lancia Gamma Coupes, were all exactly the same, staggeringly beautiful, fabulous to drive and totally unreliable!

I suppose its just the DNA of the people that design and build them that gets into there structure. Also different countries need different things from there cars. A Vauxhall Carlton or whatever they are now is a totally different beast to the Aussie Holden because we have twisty country lanes and the Aussies have huge distances to cover. What people in want and indeed need from a car is not the same everywhere.

My daily car is now a 1965 Volvo Amazon and Ilet me tell you that at the moment Im very happy that it was designed to cope with swedish winters!

There are massive differences in cars from one manufacturer to the next.

I currently drive a BMW 3 series & cannot wait for the day it blows up & I can go back to driving Audi's. Anyone who has tried to drive a 3 series BMW with 255 wide rear tyres in the snow will know exactly what I mean.

Chris.

I think you're confusing reliablity, which is the question - with quality.

Only my two shiny pennies worth. 

Below was my last car.  High on quality (it was like driving a gentlemans club on four wheels) but poor on reliability..  Every time i started it, there was a cacophony of warning bleeps, bells and whistles telling me to get it straight to my nearest Bentley dealer.  I never expected that. 🙁

Back in the early 1990's when i was broke I drove a 6 year old Nissan Sunny 1.5 Diesel. Ex driving school with 174,000 miles on the clock (i paid £700 for it) - and i drove that car 1,000 miles a week until it got to 235,000 miles. It never once skipped a beat. After i sold it, I saw it around my home town for another 3-4 years and peeked at the mileage through the window one day. It had done 280,000 miles and still obviously drove.

That said it was noisy and uncomfortable - which is quality, not reliability!  I think i rest my case.. 😂

Lee

You lot should try driving some BMC/BL products if you want to talk about reliability! Some of the tales of design incompetence are legendary, like my old TR6 with a high-pressure fuel injection pump based on a windscreen wiper motor, or the Rover SD1 spray shop extractor fans that blew rather than sucked, or the appalling build quality of anything built in the Speke factory. I honestly could go on and on and on!

9 LEE wrote:

That said it was noisy and uncomfortable - which is quality, not reliability!

Dear Lee :-)

I am reminded of that old joke about the watch that does not work versus the watch that looses a minute a day ...

Which is more accurate ? 

The one that does not work 😂

So, which is better, your old clunker that got you from A to B in discomfort, 

Or, the wonderful beautiful machine ... which stalls in the driveway and where you sit all day in elegant comfort ?

Clearly 'tis better to sit in comfort ........ than to arrive 😂 

I'd rather have reliability i think.  It's all well and good having a fancy car, but if it doesn't work properly..

I see the OP's question in that as most cars are built by robots and the parts are all designed and made so much better these days, then technically they are all as reliable as each other.

If anyone ever asks me about a 'first car' which will be cheap to run, i always say 'buy a low spec german or japanese car'

Low spec as there's less to go wrong - German or Japanese because they seem to have reliability nailed better than anyone else.

9 LEE wrote:

I'd rather have reliability i think.  It's all well and good having a fancy car, but if it doesn't work properly...

From Boswell's Life of Johnson ...

There was a pretty large circle this evening. Dr. Johnson was in very good humour, lively, and ready to talk upon all subjects. Mr. Fergusson, the self-taught philosopher, told him of a new invented machine which went without horses: a man who sat in it turned a handle, which worked a spring that drove it forward. “Then, Sir, (said Johnson,) what is gained is, the man has his choice whether he will move himself alone, or himself and the machine too.”