Lexus Bumped Of It Throne In Reliablity

[killerFatty]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-0...htm?csp=usat.me

I just read this article and wanted to see what you guys think. The study is only on three year old cars, so I bet after a few more years those Jag and Buick drivers will be wishing for a lexus. Still though to be the third most reliable car maker acorrding to J.D. is preety amazing.

[cduluk]

I'm surprised that Acura and Honda are so low...

My guess buick's have a high rating because the majority of people who drive them are old farts who drive 100 miles a year... And for jaguar- who drives a jaguar??

And Scion is so low probably because the majority of its owners are younger kids who don't know how to treat a car right, never mind take care of it :)

Not really surprised Lexus dropped though... they need to wake up a little!

[RX in NC]

Who drives a Jaguar? Well, we do, and have been doing so since just before Christmas. Our 2005 S-Type is the best car I've ever owned, and I've been driving for nearly 40 years. Jaguar has really stepped up its efforts towards quality over the past few years and it is beginning to show across the Jaguar product line....

Our S-Type has been smiling at me ever since that latest Powers study came out. Of course, I still smile every time I get in that car, fire it up, and hit the highway. If you haven't driven a Jaguar lately, check out a 2005 or 2006 just-off-lease well-maintained S-Type. Best bang-for-the-buck highway cruiser out there, hands down. I love my 10-year-old Dodge Ram 5.9-litre V8 pickup, but I really love this Jaguar S-Type as well for very different reasons. My wife loves it too and her 2004 RX330 has been demoted to dog-hauling duty in our household. She would rather drive the Jaguar every chance she gets and leaves her RX crackerbox in the driveway....

[amcdonal86]

What an embarrassment. I've heard from a lot of LS owners that the new Lexuses just aren't as solidly built--lots of creaking/buzzing interior panels, etc.

The Jaguar XJ is a really nice car. I'd rather have one of those than an LS, but maintenance costs are probably higher.

[RX in NC]

The solution to high maintenance costs with a Jaguar (or even a Lexus for that matter) is making the commitment to learning the complexities of the car and doing as much of the maintenance as you can possibly do yourself using the correct fluids and parts. I've done a tremendous amount of research on this S-Type and it has really paid off as we move forward with it. I know what to watch out for and what to do as a result. I'll be doing my first full service on the S-Type tomorrow - that will indeed be interesting. I've got one more free full service at the Jaguar dealership, but I'm going to save that until just before my factory warranty runs out in mid-July so I can also get them to take care of any punch list I may have accumulated by then....

Also, the best car forum I've ever discovered is jaguarforums.com. There are four different certified Jaguar technicians from four different parts of the U.S. who monitor that forum and answer technical questions from members every single day. I've learned more about our Jaguar's strengths and weaknesses in three months than I've learned about our other two current vehicles in years spent on forums. The Jaguar forum is that good....

Fortunately, the S-Type has remained dead-level perfect since we brought it home just before Christmas. I don't expect to need an extended warranty as long as I maintain it properly and drive it intelligently....

[SW03ES]

Also, the best car forum I've ever discovered is jaguarforums.com.

Gee, thanks ;)

[RX in NC]

This one's good, Steve, no question about it. But it cannot match the 24/7 technical expertise of either jaguarforums.com or dodgetrucks.org. Extremely experienced technicians monitor both of those boards and can decipher even the quirkiest of issues in a matter of minutes if the poster is able to completely and correctly describe the problem in semi-decent English. A couple of the Jaguar techs continue to amaze me with the infinite knowledge they seem to possess up and down the complete Jaguar line-up. One of them even tracked down and obtained a replacement fuel pump that an owner in Malibu needed for his 2000 S-Type when every Jaguar dealership parts manager in Southern California repeatedly told the owner that there wasn't one available in the entire U.S. and new fuel pumps would not be available here for at least two months. Now that's going the extra mile, especially when the owner you're helping is a complete stranger on the other side of the country....

[SW03ES]

I'm just picking on ya RX ;)

I think part of the reason why we don't have a lot of techs on here is that they have been run off of CL and are afraid to join and post. The guy that I use in Rockville (Lexus master tech) told me a story about how he had joined CL and was answering questions and got banned because he had put the name of his shop in his signature. Nobody even took the time to realize the guy was answering people's questions from all over the country and not hawking his services in Maryland, they just saw an "advertisement" and shut it off.

We wouldn't have banned him here, but the experience there kind of turned him off from spending his time to post...

Part of it is probably a "passion" thing too, people are Jaguar-heads, there aren't a whole lot of "Lexus-heads".

[nc211]

My brother is on that site. He has a 94' Jag with 45k miles. His is the last year where a 8 foot piece of copper tubing consisted of 10 seperate pieces with 20 connectors. So, he's on there quite a bit. He's currently trying to figure out how to yank the CEL fuse, because of some purge pressure regulator thingy that, I kid you not, has a funky name like a "flux capacitor". I told him to get the flux capacitor fixed, travel back to 1994, and buy a LS400 instead. Hahaha....

But he LOVES that Jag! He's definetely a "jag-head". As opposed to RX, who's a "jug-head". Hahaaa... Sorry RX, I just couldn't resist! :D

[RX in NC]

Yep, I think that "passion" has a lot to do with it. I still can't believe the number of folks on that site who have $300,000 or $400,000 worth of Jaguars sitting in their four or five-car garages, especially in Southern California. Sure, they're beautiful, fast cars, but at the end of the day they're still just depreciating bundles of steel. Only a handful of classic cars are truly "investments" these days - the bottom has fallen out of that market and is likely to stay there for years. I love our S-Type, but I took advantage of the terrible economy and paid a fraction of what it's worth to acquire it and don't consider it anything more than another means of transportation for us. I want to spend as little money and time as I possibly can keeping it in good working order....

It's a shame that Club Lexus would run their techs off the site. On the Jaguar forum, the techs are treated like royalty and are always profusely thanked whenever they pitch in to help....

The Dodge truck forum is a bit more challenging because along with the actual techs, you have the wannabe techs who are extremely knowledgeable but also want to prove that they know just as much or more than the actual techs. The testosterone and bullsh*t levels are often pegged to the max over there, so you have to learn to recognize fact from speculation. Those guys really know their trucks, though, and I've gotten fantastic spot-on help there the couple of times I've needed it with my truck. It can be a lot of fun if you have thick skin and don't get caught up in the macho man thing....

[SKperformance]

No suprise at all when you drive a new Lexus , they are not even close to what they were in the 90's.

I hope they realise they can only go cheap for so long before it gets out and their marketing is shot as being reliable because they just are not pulling their weight anymore.

My 03 GS is nice but my 98 LS feels way better , more solid and secure feeling . Not like a tin can that clinks down the road and is noisy , and the biggest thing is the stupid styrofoam in the front fenders for being cheap to reduce noise.

[lenore]

Oh man styrofoam, makes me think of the squeeking noise when it is loose in the car and rubbing on something.ech......and you cant reach it when you are driving.... Maybe that is LEXUS problem with noises....

[Kyle Petree]

Well since everyone is talking about Jag I'll vouch for the Buick owners. My mom has a 2002 LeSabre (purchased new in September 2001) that just hit 100,000 miles a few weeks ago and it runs like the day she bought it and she is not an old !Removed! nor does she drive like one. She actually speeds in it all the time, she scares my dad and I sometimes the way she drives. A few things have gone wrong in it, the motors in three of the four windows burned out and the driver's heated seat died but other than that it is perfect. Although she likes my ES because it is quieter and has a slightly better ride.

[yeskay]

may be due to the ownership (Tata India owns Jaguar) change the quality might have improved.

[RX in NC]

Yes, I've communicated with Tata corporate in India via e-mail with questions I had about their long-range plans for Jaguar, particularly from a parts supply standpoint here in the U.S. Within 12 hours of sending my e-mail, I heard from the Vice President of Parts and Service for Jaguar USA. He answered every one of my questions in detail, thanked me for being a new Jaguar customer, gave me his direct office phone number and that of his assistant, and invited me to tour Jaguar USA headquarters in New Jersey with him if I'm ever up that way....

Very, very impressive. I've never received anything even close to the personal treatment I've received from Jaguar since day one. And keep in mind that I bought a used S-Type, not a new one!

Thus far I'm extremely encouraged that Jaguar will experience long-term continuous improvement under Tata's ownership. Their efforts since purchasing the majority stake in Jaguar during 2007 are obviously beginning to pay off....

[SW03ES]

Jaguar quality was improving when Ford owned them too...

[nc211]

Jaguar quality was improving when Ford owned them too...

Well, when you're at the bottom, there is only way to go!

I think all cars are improving these days, even possibly Land Rover. I'm glad to see Jag and Buick making such strong strides towards improvement. But I have to admit, honestly, I'm a bit curious of the criteria used in this report. I mean, you've got to admit, it is a pretty fascinating statement to say that Jaguar is more reliable than a Honda or Toyota. Is this report based on "initial" quality? Not knocking Jag, as they're really sexy machines. But I don't think I've ever met a person who owned one for a few years that didn't say "they're great, but very expensive to keep up".

[RX in NC]

The recent Powers report where Jaguar and Buick finished first was supposedly based on three years of ownership going back to the 2005 model year. If that is true, then Ford's ownership of Jaguar until mid-2007 deserves much of the credit for Jaguar topping the charts....

These reports are great marketing material for the companies who top the list each year. But I've always questioned just how applicable they truly are in the real world. For the larger brands (including Toyota and Honda), survey samples may be too small to provide much degree of accuracy either way. I believe that you're always better off taking the necessary time to do your own thorough research using many different sources before you decide what vehicle you're going to go out and chase. If I hadn't done my research to the maximum degree that I did, I would not have purchased our S-Type even with the terrible economy working to my advantage along with Jaguar's steep depreciation factor....

And as I explained before, I'll mitigate Jaguar's higher maintenance costs by doing as much of the work as I possibly can myself. The parts don't typically murder your wallet nearly as much as the labor rates do. There are several good independent service options other than the dealership here in the Triangle. If it turns out in the long run that the risk for owning this S-Type is greater than I projected during my initial risk analysis, I'll simply take my time and sell the car for as much as I can get for it. We don't have to depend on it for transportation purposes. I practically stole it so I don't have nearly as much to lose had I purchased it new....