how is it that the cheapest cars (Camry/accord) are the most reliable and longest lasting compared to luxury cars that cost more?
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You need a large amount of data to detect reliability problems, and you need a large volume of production to justify engineering upgrades to fix those problems.
Suppose you have a part that fails once every 100 million miles driven. If you sell a model that only sells 10,000 vehicles and each vehicle only gets driven 10,000 miles a year, it might take you a full year to detect the problem. On the other hand, if you sell 1 million vehicles each year, it might only take you a week or so to detect the problem.
On the second point, if it takes $3 million in R&D to fix the problem, that increases the cost of the first model by $300 each but only increases the cost of the 2nd model by $3 each.
Japanese manufacturers learned early on that if you put the time into items that are universal across multiple products like engines and HVAC systems you can have superior products in less expensive packages.
On top of that every person on the assembly line is empowered to make quality control decisions. Toyota would rather stop the presses and fix a problem before it leaves the factory than sell an inferior product.
2ldr they have very high quality control standards.
Robotic manufacturing is expensive, but delivers high levels of precision, exacting tolerances, better fitting parts.
When you make millions of them then the cost comes down per unit. It becomes cost effective to have millions invested in an assembly line, not only for the car assembly but the engine/transmission units.
Look at handblown xmas ornaments, basically a glass ball with pretty colors, they cost $30 and a lot more. Compared to light bulbs that were a buck each.
i assume cheap cars are basic and have less complex gadgets and stuff, which means less maintenance, so they break down less
I don’t think that’s accurate based on entire classes or pricing tiers, there may be some individual outliers that serve to stereotype the category as a whole.
Tight tolerances are needed to maximize performance and functions. That’s part of what makes them so high quality. This also means that small changes or damage can have major effects.
Because price is an indicator of *social status*, not quality. “Luxury” products are deliberately more expensive so that everyone can see that you spent a lot of money.
They’re not actually really all that much more reliable. They are a little more reliable though, which leads to a lot of them being made, which leads to greater availability of replacement parts and service technicians, which means repairs are cheaper and easier, which makes them even more reliable, which means more high-mileage specs on the road, which means even greater availability of replacement parts and service technicians even for high-mileage problems, which just makes them all the easier to maintain and therefore even more “reliable.”
There are plenty of reliable luxury cars though, they are just expensive and the reliability isn’t a selling point. M3s are known for their reliability but it’s just one of many selling points.
In addition to what others have said, the Camry and Accord have been manufactured for so many decades, the companies have it down pat. So, experience plus volume of sales. Parts; assembly; personnel; everything is very standardized which contributes to keeping costs low.
It’s not to say that cheaper cars last longer than luxury cars. Look at Lexus, a premium car brand under Toyota that constantly defeats Mercedes Benz or BMW in terms of quality and reliability.
It’s more to the commitment of the brand to produce high quality products rather than the pricing of their cars. In Southeast Asia you can find plenty of Japanese cars around selling for about $10k after conversions, and people are saying it’s more reliable than continental cars, like Peugeot and BMW.
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