Clio vs Tiida build quality.

I think quality in vehicles is very hard to define. Sure a tape wrapped wiring loom doesnt look as nice as an individually sleeved one, but does it perform any worse? I dont think so.
How things perform in the real world is the only measure.
Jazz's point that it is silly to take the reliabilty that cars of the nineties had as a measure of the brand today is a valid one.
Equally, the prevalence of Jap imports here means that workshops all over the country are familiar with them. Euros not so much, particularly when you get away from the cities, which usually have specialist independent workshops.

I Googled: 'Car brand reliability statistics UK' and got this:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/best-small-cars-a8084206.html

A Survey in 2017 asked 14000 new car buyers whether they had any faults
over the past year. The first results are for small cars, which are most commonly argued about here.
Honda Jazz came first, and Toyota Yaris second, an Audi A1 third.
Worst car was the VW Polo!

The results across all classes of cars had a few surprises!:
From best to worst, the first 10:
Lexus
Mitsubishi. ? Surprise there!
Toyota
Suzuki
Alfa Romeo. another surprise!
Honda
Hyundai
MG. surprises keep on coming! The Chinese must be on to it!
Ford
Subaru

Fiat came 24th, just behind Mercedes Benz at 23rd, both well ahead of Nissan at 29th. Renault beat those three at 20th!

Have a read of the article!

Snoop me old china. Please learn how to use the quote system.

I genuinley believe that Euro cars have better driving dynamics, its just that most small car buyers dont understand that.
I have an elderly aunt in her 80's who has a Citroen (C3 I think), who decided to drive up from Whangarei to visit me in Kaitaia. Coming up SH1 you have to traverse the Mangamukas which means quite a few KMs of winding hilly bends. When she arrived at my place I said I had been a bit concerned about her coping with the Mangamukas. Her reply was that she positively enjoyed that part of the trip as her car felt completely at home on those bends and she felt like she was driving a gokart!

I agree, when it comes to small cars it's very hard to find something Japanese that doesn't just feel like cheap disposable junk by comparison. People say I am biased but, what are you supposed to recommend that's Japanese, small but still a proper car these days?

Even the likes of a Honda Jazz is awful to do any distance in compared to almost all the European equivalents. It really is like the Japanese small cars are designed to be cheap and city use only. Especially all those weirdo JDM only bubble vans that get pushed so hard here.

All that aside though, at least most of them are reasonably reliable, the Tiida on the other hand just doesn't do well once past its short use by date so becomes compeltely pointless in my opinion.

Geez, shall I get a Subaru and give her my Bluebird?

Funny how the guy who repairs these says it comes back to maintenance.
http://cvt-parts.co.nz/reof08a-cvt-transmission-jf009/

Thank you Jazz, but I never went anywhere.
The thread I started last week simply said I would only address the OP of a thread directly, or if someone asks me a specific question.
Since you started this thread.

Well nice to see you around anyway. I am concerned that you felt I was attacking you and not your opinion. I love a heated debate but attacking the person is not something I want to do. It should always be about the topic. So my apologies for anything I wrote that made you feel that way. In particular the bit about the psychology of selling cars and cognitive dissonance. Sometimes I get so fascinated by what I see that I forget stuff like that could be taken very personally.

That's very gracious of you. I just feel we should offer our opinion to the OP and not go after each other. I guess I have been guilty of doing that in the past as well. If someone offers an opinion I don't agree with, I am just going to respect their right to have one and leave it at that.
All good and no offence taken! Cheers Jazz.

This is only an issue for the third world.

The average age of a car in the EU is 9 years / 90,000 km, in the UK a bit less at not quite 8 years, and Japan around the same.

These countries don't build cars to last 20 years, because they don't have them for 20 years.

Australia gets out to 10 years, the Philippines around the same.

Its not until you get to the real third world that you see see cars much older than that - Peru at 14 years clips NZ at 15.

The jap cars are just plain horrible to sit in full stop, im only 182cm tall and the seats dont even go back far enough for me, hate to think what its like for the tall people out there. In even small euros I can put the seat right back and can hardly reach the pedals

I think my 185cm 110kg brother would dispute that. Owned many Nissans, Bluebirds, Maximas and now an Xtrail. No problem with room and I can assure you the seat goes back far enough. Being on the short I struggle to reach anything yet alone see over the steering wheel when I get in his vehicle. I have found all have to do is raise the seat height and nothing else and I can reach everything I need and actually see. When he drives my Wingroad he just drops the height down and no problems.