It never ceases to amaze me how people are just so hung up on reliability and repair bills. Its not 1975 anymore, the vast majority of modern cars are very very reliable.
Its just carryover silliness from decades "scare tactics" used by used car dealers to try and justify high prices for very low spec cars. The only thing they can sell those cars on is supposed reliability and of course cars with nearly no features rate as more reliable when you do a survey. simply because something has to be at the top of the list.
Somehow its become quite O.K for safety, economy, features,comfortand amazingly overall cost of ownership to be thrown out the window to avoid the reliability boogyman.
Such a strange Country we live in. Other country's don't have the strange stigma's we do as they don't have a whole industry that just revolves around used Japanese imports. The comedy thing is in other countries they covet' "German Reliability" and "German build quality" its generally considered the pinicle of automotive engineering.
Anyhow, thats it from me. I won't bother coming back to read any more "car dealer stories" I will leave it up to you poster one to use your own intelligence. If you do want to ask me any questions just start a thread with my name in the title and I will be happy to help.
I am also more than happy to give you an opinion on any VW's you see locally I always enjoy an excuse to look over new VW's. (no charge, just happy to help).
Likewise if you get one I am more than happy to show you how to service it yourself if you wish. Other than spark plugs, filters, oil really the only thing of note to service is the DSG transmission. This is done every 60'000km at a cost of $500 from most agents. If you want to do it yourself it will cost you about half of that. Unlike an auto transmission you don't need a fancy machine to do the change, just a $50 hose adapter, some plastic hose and a $30 laptop adapter. Its very easy to do.
The fuel savings through having the DSG transmission pay for the cost of servicing the transmission many times over. The DSG is super reliable and no worse than any regular automatic for repair costs if you get unlucky.
trdbzr,
Nov 22, 10:33pm
All you have to do is google and read all the horror stories about them. This is one of the threads about the 'super reliable dsg'
Perhaps speak to someone at Coca-cola about their fleet experience with the "fabulous" DSG transmission.Bet Jazz won't.
db.price,
Nov 23, 12:35am
Just went and checked out the Polo at the local dealer this morning - base model is $25500 so a little outside our price range.One noted earlier could be an option if I can convince my wife!
Took the PIcanto for a good drive last night my wife and I and our 2 kids.Must say for an Auto 1.25l engine it pulled up the Kaimais in a very saisfactory manner and handled the corners well.Will be popping in to the Holden Dealers and Nissan on Saturday and check out the Spark and Micra as a comparrison.
In the end I think we will still lean towards a new car rather than used.Especially as KIa has a 5 year 100000km warranty
a.woodrow,
Nov 23, 12:37am
Just remember that if you buy a car that is say a year old, you still get the balance of the new car warranty, i.e. 4 years if its a 5 year warranty
ringo2,
Nov 23, 12:42am
Stick with your own feelings. You prefer a new car and intend keeping it for 10 years. You both like the Picanto. It has an excellent reputation for reliability and low maintainence costs. I have my third Hyundai at present and one of my friends had a Picanto which I took for a drive and was quite impressed with the value for money and the driveability. Anyway when you do decide let us all know what you have bought.
craigsmith,
Nov 23, 2:04am
How much money are you going to waste that would otherwise cover "your own" warranty!
smac,
Nov 23, 2:24am
I tend to agree with the points on reliability. People will pay new prices, or a couple grand more than they should to get a different colour or particular badge, but then complain that they need new brake rotors more often. Non-sense.
One thing about reliability though - it's not just the cost, it's the down time. I don't mind getting a whine or rattle fixed, but I travel out of town so the car HAS to get me there. That can be why people mention it.
This is all why I'm keen to see the break down (excuse the pun) of the reliability survey data above, down to the 'number of failures' rather than including the cost of repair.Doesn't seem to be available though. Three 'nuisance' repairs at $200 means little compared to one "can't drive" $100 repair.
thejazzpianoma,
Nov 23, 3:29am
I am yet to have a new or newish modern car "break down" as such (SERIOUSLY!) I think the broken on the side of the road thing pretty much dosn't happen any more.
The fundamentals of vehicles are so reliable now it just dosn't happen enough to even consider it a problem. You do on rare occasions get something that will need attention but at worst you might have to put up with "limp mode" to get you to a garage.
Now technically given I used to do some horrendous milage in what some people on here consider to be the most unreliable vehicles available that should be teling you something.
Incidentally, I have only had things get as bad as "limp mode" once and it wasn't even my car.
Even my small fleet of 5 - 15 year old Euro's were almost faultless and they all did massive km's with enthusiastic young guys driving them.
I certainly agree about the imposition of having to get a repair done, that would be annoying. However again its pretty rare and of all the new cars in our family only my sisters Subaru needed to go back to the dealer for extensive work. There has only been one other mishap and that was the limp mode one I mentioned which was a half hour wait.
thejazzpianoma,
Nov 23, 3:32am
d.b price, I can't recommend enough that you do the same Kaimais run in the Polo. Your not raving about the Polo suggests to me you havn't taken one for a good squirt yet! Feel free to prove me wrong here!
craig04,
Nov 23, 3:52am
Completely agree.
craig04,
Nov 23, 3:54am
Show me a "young guy" who is enthusiastic about driving Multipla
bmwnz,
Nov 23, 4:24am
Thank you for your viewpoint. It must be interesting living in your perfect world where everyone whose opinion differs from yours is 'dopey'.
Consider this: if no-one bought new cars, what would happen to the used car market!
curlcrown,
Nov 23, 4:49am
Euro cars are troubblesome that is a fact. I have dealt with many many japanese and australian cars and a hand full of euro ones and had just as many problems if not more with the few euros as the many many jap and austrailian. All I have to do is look around the auto sparkeys shop to see they give problems. There's a reason why dealers don't want to touch them and if they do they'll want a big proffit to cover the likely wararnty claims that will follow.
curlcrown,
Nov 23, 4:54am
Also warranty companies charge conciderably more for euros than they do for jap or australian. In fact there is at least one company who restructed the prices for warranties recently. The cost of euros went up but the cost of jap and austrialin actualy went down. There has to be a reason for that and its hard to ignore. By all means if you want a euro get one but you must be prepaird for the running costs.
theunicorn,
Nov 23, 5:14am
The VAG group total income is around 100 billion euro a year. If they spent "several hundred billion" on a gearbox, the company would have gone under long ago.
You get points for enthusiasm, but lose points for accuracy.
db.price,
Nov 23, 8:21pm
Your right I have not taken a Polo for a drive.I took the brochure home last night for them and my wife took one look at the price list and binned it.At $25K new it is too far outside our price range and even a second hand Polo is right at the very top of it.
The reality is we will be looking at a Picanto, a Spark or a demo Micra.First thing that will be considered will be does my wife like it, second price, third fuel economy and lastly spec levels and reliability.
Certainly all the research I have done on the Kia's show that they are a company that is now at the leading edge especially for small cars and their reliability is considered one of the best as well.
shelleigh,
Nov 23, 8:36pm
How many of the problems with the Euro cars were caused by the owners not servicing them on time! I'm curious to know what the main problems were as I'm looking at getting a Mk5 Golf wagon next year. I have noticed more VW's - mostly Golf hatches and Passat wagons - this year than I ever have so obviously more people are finding out they are not ALL expensive :)
db.price,
Nov 23, 8:43pm
A lot of the Golfs and Passats you are seeing are imported from Japan or Singapore.
ringo2,
Nov 23, 9:08pm
Dylan as I said earlier it is your money and your choice. I wouldn't worry too much about fuel economy as most of the small cars are very similar in real life. In my opinion the Hyundai i20 is a bit better than the Picanto BUT it is also dearer. The Picanto will give you many years of trouble free motoring and if you and your wife are happy with it buy it. Please let us know what you eventually do buy though.
db.price,
Nov 23, 9:47pm
Looked at the i20 as well and yeah it is more expensive and personally the styling is just not as good.Hyundai seem to keep the best styling for the Elantra, iX 35 and the i45 and have gone bland with their smaller cars.
I think it will be a close thing between the Picanto and the Holden - very similar cars and in the end it will depend on which one my wife prefers
trouser,
Nov 23, 9:50pm
Great car.9 years ago.
db.price,
Nov 23, 9:52pm
And the base model colt is $24K
shelleigh,
Nov 23, 10:26pm
I won't be touching one from over that way. And will only consider ones with full service records. I'd be doing that no matter what make of wagon I bought though.
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