Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeFromPA
German premium brands vs. Japanese premium brands...
They both use the latest technology in their products and have for a long time now.
They both engineer very solidly.
Germans appear to be more profitable overall at a given price point, indicating their costs are lower.
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Everyone has their own experiences. My observation would be that Japanese automakers have tighter quality control. With german vehicles you see ones that are perfect and the next one is a reliability mess - this is why people still buy VWs, because enough people have perfect ones to counterbalance those who have awful experiences. Whereas it's extremely rare to find ANYONE who has a terrible experience with a Lexus (for example); their consistency and quality control is better somehow.
As an anecdote: My m3 is now 4 years, 5 days, and 51k miles old and has been absolutely perfect. Technically it's been the single most reliable vehicle I've ever owned as it's needed less maintenance and repairs than any other vehicle over 51k miles.
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if someone tells me a japanese company like toyota has a lower profit margin that bmw; then i'd have a heart attack seeing as how they have reused and abused virtually every engine and tranny in each of their cars for about 15 years now... look at the tundra, tacoma and camry as perfect examples. If their profit point is lower than bmw; they are doing something severly wrong. Also, you mentioned premium; Lexus is just as slow to adapt powerttrain and tranny tech. The rx (lexus's top seller in USA) was using the same old V6 and 6 speed tranny as other toyota models 10 years before.