The 90s was a sweet spot for the three luxury German brands: Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz. Mercedes in particular has had a very marked decline in quality since then.

I had a 2001 Audi and it was by far the best vehicle I've ever owned. I bought a 2016 Audi trying to replicate that and I was dumbfounded by how little it had changed in 15 years, but what _had_ changed seemed to be distinctly for the worse. I won't be buying another one :(

Like what’s the highest quality luxury brand now, Lexus? Given that it’s Toyota engineering behind it I’d assume they are still good but I’ve never been in that market so idk.

Still those three, plus Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, Range Rover etc.

Are you claiming that Land Rover makes a high quality product? Or just a luxurious one?

Mostly a luxurious one today. I test drove a 2012 Range Rover in 2020 and all the rubber on the controls had melted. Would Not Recommend, but they are popular certainly.

RR is overpriced junk.

I am currently renting and driving a Tesla from Hertz at SEA on mainland for a week of skiing at Mt Baker. I have a 2020 Lexus RXL at home. While the Tesla has better driving software and sportier handling, the Lexus rides much better and quieter and just seems nicer. Anyway, love the Lexus fwiw.

Honestly, I feel like German cars have an undeserved reputation for quality. German cars are superficially well built, quite fast, and make satisfying thunks when you close the doors. However, they are fairly unreliable, sensitive, and when they do fail, cost a lot to repair.

I'll take a Japanese car any day, however, Hyundai, Volvo, Skoda, Kia, Peugeot and Ford are also better engineered than most German cars nowadays in my opinion.

This is just a personal anecdote - I got a brand new Mercedes in 2016, it was even fully made in Germany - and it was probably the worst assembled vehicle I have ever owned in my life(and I used to own a 1995 Fiat Cinquecento), the number of creaks and rattles coming from all places in that car was almost funny if it wasn't so upsetting. I've had several visits to the dealership just to fix rattling seats, upholstery, dashboard and sunroof. Drove very well and never had any mechanical or electrical problems, but the interior was horrendous.

Then in 2020 I swapped it for a brand new Volvo XC60(made in China!) and in the last 3 years this car has literally been completely trouble free. No rattles from anywhere, nothing. Extremely well put together, comfortable, drove it across Europe multiple times now and literally no issues with it whatsoever. Such a stark contrast to mercedes for me.

Are you sure it's made in China? For most markets XC60 are built either in Sweden or indeed in China, but I always wondered about chinese-produced ones. Fellow Volvo owner (XC90/2022 - Sweden-built though), car's a dream.

Yes I'm very sure. The car was built in Chengdou in January 2020 then transported over here by train (option which no longer exists at the moment because Russia closed the land link so cars have to be brought to Europe by ship the old fashioned way). It's a T8 plug-in hybrid for the British market.

Skodas are just previous gen Volkswagens btw

I understood Skodas are usually _next_ gen Volkswagens. At least when I lived in Europe they always got the new chassis/engine/gearbox to beta before it rolled out to VW, did that change?

Not even previous gen any more. They just get interiors that aren’t quite as nice (more plastic).

My Skoda is the most boring, unsurprising, uninteresting and reliable car I every driven. I love it.

I'm sad they've stopped making functional-first cars like the Yeti, and now just do versions of VW models. I think Dacia might have taken up the mantle of no-frills and reliable though.

Mercedes' reputation for reliability is mostly a legacy of the 60s and 70s. Their cars from that era were absurdly overbuilt, especially the diesel powered models. You will still find diesel MBs from the 70s on the road today, some of them having racked up 500k miles or more.

My father has a 98 S320, with over 1 million kilometers. The engine just recently started to have overheating problems and needs to be rebuilt with new gaskets, but otherwise runs fine!

As a former Audi owner, the old saying was absolutely true: if you can afford to buy two Audis, you can afford to own one. Absolutely fantastic vehicle until it blows up and then you are buying VW parts with Porsche price tags.

I've driven mostly BMW's and their build quality has been decent.

Where does this German engineering saying come from? I find German engineering unnecessarily complicated and it looks more or less designed by a committee of bickering members.

Japanese engineering on the other hand in my experience is very solid and also pretty cheap. It is easier to repair and vehicles are like mountain goats that can go anywhere and can be handled roughly.

someone should let toyota know, because their software sucks 5 kinds of taint on my 2020 taco

> Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

My toyota is absolute crap, if this helps.

What's wrong with it? But yes it seems like more recenr toyotas are crap, especially the interior.

It has a neat feature of auto locking itself if you forgot it, so if you forgot your keys in, they will be autolocked in.

The positions of the pedals is not fit for humans (but that's a bit OT)

The integrated not readily replaceable without servicing the entire dashboard USB port just broke.

The feature to alert me when I'm about to hit an obstacle triggers when I've already done a full stop.

The radio touch interface is awful. There is basically no way to say "play everything". You've got to select the artist, then the album, blabla. Of course you need to stop the car to move on to the next album.

The detection for speed signals is so wrong. It consistently gets the signs that are meant for slow-down lanes to exit the highway as the actual limit I'm supposed to have.

In some specific places it imagines ghost speed signs every single time I pass.

Apart from the electronic junk how is the actual driving experience? Can you drive comfortably with good power?

> Can you drive comfortably

As I said, the pedals are placed in a position that was not designed with human beings in mind. So, not really. Quite uncomfortable.