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249 Posts
Yup...in the latest JD Power rankings, they took a dive as well.
Well yes Subaru does have OD, but their are suffering due to quality issues now that they have mass production.Subaru is also having OD issue? or quality issue? I never knew Subaru for quality as I used to know Honda (and Toyota).
They were a small enough brand that they got away with bad quality for decades.So Subaru never had quality issue before until now that they began to mass produce cars? Interesting. Never heard of Subaru's quality.
But you are also comparing an issues that has destroyed engines. If we had members with failing engines, the outcry would be astronomical due to sales volume.This somehow reminds me of Hyundai. Before 2011, Hyundai Sonata sales volume wasn't that high but then starting with the model year 2011, their Sonata sales increased greatly due to better styling and better quality. Sales continued to zoom upward until the metal shaving in engine issue appeared. I bet on the Hyundai forums back then, the Hyundai die-hard also brushed it off as nothing and pointed to the increased sales volume and very few cases of cars failing as their defense. Now with Sonatas with engines with 100K miles and failing in greater number, the reputation hit home. Well, now, the issue has caught up to them and their Sonata sales correspondingly plummeted. So to draw a parallel comparison, the OD issue and other issues do not seem to be a big deal right now to dent sales but once people have enough exposure to the problems, Honda sales will be hit.
This OD is too recent to know. Like I mentioned, there are Sonatas out there with over 100K miles before the engine seizes up due to this issue. My co-worker has such a car. The blessing is that Hyundai was willing and replaced the engine for him with a brand new engine. That restored some faith in Hyundai for me. However, when the issue first surface, it was the customary denial, just like what Honda is doing.But you are also comparing an issues that has destroyed engines. If we had members with failing engines, the outcry would be astronomical due to sales volume.
Didn't the Sonatas have early failure during the warranty period though? Especially since the issue was from a manufacturing fault.This OD is too recent to know. Like I mentioned, there are Sonatas out there with over 100K miles before the engine seizes up due to this issue. My co-worker has such a car. The blessing is that Hyundai was willing and replaced the engine for him with a brand new engine. That restored some faith in Hyundai for me. However, when the issue first surface, it was the customary denial, just like what Honda is doing.
The key point that, based on your comment here, I think you completely overlooked is that the CEO of Honda specifically states that Honda made a mistake decentralizing R&D and allowing different Honda regions leadership have too much control over feature and functions specific to their perceived regions needs.I'm highly cynical with these announcements. Failures of quality are failures of leaders, not structure. Blaming it on structure is a way to keep your CEO job and to keep the management consulting companies in business. All of the distributed tech center VPs will get nice packages and the employees underneath them will get left holding the bag ("we didn't eliminate your job, it's in Japan now" or similar).
The announcement is working though, look how many people here are assuming it's the solution... I think we all agree that something needs to change at Honda - this announcement is hollow, though, unless followed up with some real change in training and behavior.
I think the only thing I disagree with you on is the motive and tone of the announcement... I've seen the exact same one before, different companies, same boiler plate reasons.The key point that, based on your comment here, I think you completely overlooked is that the CEO of Honda specifically states that Honda made a mistake decentralizing R&D and allowing different Honda regions leadership have too much control over feature and functions specific to their perceived regions needs..
I agree, and your example with your Clarity exemplifies exactly the problem here for Honda with a decentralized R&D.. that is being jerked around by the regional divisions. It's nuts.A fun exercise, left to the reader, would be to catalog, for every current generation Honda and Acura, how many different head unit interfaces are present. with knob, without knob, with steering wheel controls, without certain controls, with Honda link, without a cell connection, with touch control or paddle, whatever. Our clarity has a steering wheel volume control with the same swipe action as the CRV, except the swipe is permanently disabled. it was launched in the US after the CRV, except it has the old Civic head unit design without a volume knob. So now there's a non-functional steering wheel control.
Absolutely agree with you on this. Imagine how the dealers feel about all this confusion as well.The same problem is playing out behind the scenes with the automatic driving systems. There's two different companies, Bosch and NIDEC, with different versions of the hardware and different configurations in every car that has these. It appears Nidec is the older system, but new cars keep getting launched with it instead of the Bosch. The new accords, CRV, and Civic hatchback have Bosch... Other civics have Nidec and I'm not sure what the HRVs have.
Now imagine this kind of idiotic differentiation across all of the fundamental car systems... Of course it's a mess , and a costly nightmare to manage supplier quality, systems integration, and response to customer issues, and needs to be cleaned up.
I wouldn't agree with your generalization. I had a Subaru Loyale in the late 80s. It was a serious steaming pile. I replaced it with an Accord which was fantastic.As Dilbert said "They put the K in quality"
As a 4 time Subaru owner - they had better quality than Honda in the 1980's and 1990's until they insisted on all cars being Awd. That made me leave Subaru for Honda again.
I left Honda in 1980 because they would not put factory air and cruise control on any car.
Any company that had an engineer in charge that has a bean counter replace him usually leads to poor quality or the company vanishing like Computer company Wang - great computer - insisted on more profits until all customers abandoned them.