what is also odd... is my father had nothing but bad luck with a mercedes and a guy I work with has a terrible porsche cayenne but does not like to admit it ... and he says neither does the dealer allow any of his employees to acknowledge theirs issues.
so I did a bit of clicking...
http://dougdemuro.kinja.com/german-reliability-the-greatest-myth-ever-sold-to-amer-1572026115
For proof, I start with my own experience owning German cars. I've owned eight, in total: one from every important German automaker, and also Volkswagen. And they were all complete pieces of crap.
OK, so maybe they weren't
that bad. Oh, sure, the transmission died in one of them. And yeah, so I had to replace the ignition switch in another, and a differential in a third. There were failed window regulators, check engine lights, prematurely worn suspension components, and phantom tire pressure monitors. And my Mercedes G-Wagen suffered throttle response problems until I realized it was rusty enough to be a Civil War-era shipwreck. But they were great when they were
working, right?
Unfortunately, this is the greatest problem with German cars:
they're never working. Oh, sure, they have relatively few problems for the first few years of ownership. (Technically defined as:
"Right up until the Thursday after the warranty expires.") But even then, you're still losing an insane amount of money in depreciation. And once the depreciation curve starts to flatten, the problems start to crop up, which means you can't safely own a German car for more than an afternoon without spending as much money as round trip airfare to Bermuda.
Of course, my own anecdotal experiences aren't my only evidence here. We also have years of JD Power Long Term Dependability Studies, which routinely place American or Japanese cars into the top dependability spots, while German cars go into entirely different categories, such as
Broke Down on the Way to Test Facility.
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/05/are-german-cars-reliable-myth-german-engineering.html
These results are reflected in numbers released by J.D. Power & Associates as well. In the both of the latest J.D. Power Surveys, the German brands can’t match up to their luxury peers. In the most recent vehicle dependability survey, Mercedes-Benz only gets a four out of five, which is “Better than most” rating, while Audi and BMW get 3/5 or “About Average.” Volkswagen falls below average with 2/5, what J.D. Power describes as “The Rest.” Porsche is also ranked “Better than most” in J.D. Power’s dependability survey, which give Mercedes-Benz some nice company. It’s important to note that only one car maker had a score of 5/5, and that’s Lexus.
Nothing changes in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality rankings. Mercedes and Porsche have 4/5 ratings, BMW and Audi get just 3/5 and VW only achieves 2/5. Lexus tops that ranking as well with a 5/5.
The J.D. Power ratings are based on consumer surveys. Initial Quality is measured after 90 days of a new car’s purchase. Vehicle Dependability Ratings are surveys based on the past 12 months of original owners of three-year old cars.
POOR RANKING NOT JUST ABOUT QUALITY
Some of the reasons why German cars struggle in J.D. Power’s rankings in the past are entirely trivial and are not related to actual vehicle quality at all says Karl Brauer from Total Car Score.
