Why do maintaining a luxury car costs more? Shouldn’t they be more reliable than the cheaper ones?
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Making things reliable and cheap to maintain usually means standardization of parts and designs that allow easy access to components. Parts would be made of common materials and overbuilt.
None of those are qualities that appeal to someone buying a luxury car. If the car was cheap and easy to maintain the poors could have one and then why would you want one?
Like apple, luxury and high price tags do not equal quality and reliability.
They are fashion statements and part of the statement is “I have enough money to throw it away on s***”
Because the main selling point is luxury, not reliability. Luxury means it’s gonna be expensive, a really reliable semi truck is also very expensive. Different priorities.
I went to fix some rich guys AC ( Canada ) had a bentley , he get’s it worked on in florida, 350$ and hour…but they bring you little expressos and what not so I guess it all balances out
It’s all about design intent. When you design an economy car, you prioritize cost, not just cost to produce but cost to use and maintain. When you design a luxury car, cost is much lower on the list of priorities. This suspension will wear out after 30k miles but boy is it smooth… The sensor that automatically turns on the wipers when it rains gets damaged by vibration but who wants to be bothered with turning them on manually.
For starters car manufacturers bet on continuing revenue through parts and servicing for every car they sell so it constitutes a big part of their income. A brand building an image of luxury can very easily charge more and people won’t bat an eye, they’ll think it seems about right, relative to the price it costs to buy one.
Secondly the parts themselves can be more expensive, working on the cars may require more technical skill than on other cars and production may be more limited which makes the cost per part higher. In some cases, usually when a not exclusively luxury brand makes a top spec model, the vehicle itself may be sold at a loss and the manufacturer relies on revenue through servicing to cover the cost of production. It’s a risky move but it can lead to opening up a new market share so it’s been attempted many times by many manufacturers.
Lastly servicing costs do not really reflect on reliability. The higher performance a vehicle is, the harder it is to make it reliable because its component are under bigger stresses. Also the more specialised the construction, the more specialised the mechanics have to be, or procedures are carried out in a non typical fashion, compared to production cars for which many things are more or less standardised. Bad reliability is only when a vehicle which is maintained according to manufacturer instructions and guidelines still suffers failures or mechanical issues. A car having shorter service intervals is not inherently unreliable.
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