Ok, I understand a lot is owner maintenance, but, like, they are making the same basic thing and molding parts, unless the molds are wildly off or drills to put in screws don’t work (less of the occasional bad unit that will just happen), how does reliability vary so much between brands when they should all be building the same thing. Did the Americans just not care if stuff was tightened down or out of spec?
In: Engineering
You’re talking about a complicated machine under a lot of stress when it’s in use. Over time, this stress causes wear, and wear causes things to eventually break.
Engineers know this, and they try to design cars so that stress is minimized across the vehicle. This makes things break down more slowly. “Reliable” cars are ones where all of the little bits and pieces have been designed in ways that there’s less stress and wear.
Why aren’t all cars reliable then? Because things cost money. You could probably make a car practically indestructible—but very few people can buy that $10 million dollar car. As a result, corners have to be cut, cheaper parts and designs have to be used, and companies need to find a balance between reliability and cost. Some companies are better at finding that balance than others.
There’s *a lot* more to it than that, obviously, but this is the ELI5 version.
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