Tbh I dont think ya need a survey, everyone knows Land Rovers are a little "unreliable" when compared to similar makes, thats just a fact......as long as its built outside germany or Japan it will ALWAYS be the same........The point is, those who buy one WANT one, not just for a car, but as part of their "Life"..........we all enjoy fixing them really.

 

But how much is "a little"?

Engineering and component manufacturing each have at least as much impact as final assembly. It's certainly possible to assemble quality cars in countries other than Germany and Japan.

 

94 Discovery owners now signed up. A good start, but more are needed to include the Disco II in the survey.

Car reliability research

 

chevys are looking better then toyota at this point. Jaguar beat lexus on quality as well.

 

Jaguar only looks good if you exclude the XF, which has had among the higest problem rates of any 2009 model.

Unintended acceleration in Toyotas is very rare, though the media coverage doesn't note this. It is sometimes, fatal, which is noted. But if the same were happening in a Jaguar or Land Rover model we'd probably never hear of it, because the total number of cases would be very, very small given the number of cars on the road.

 

Between expense of periodic and preventive service/maintenance and the dearth of dealership service providers, your statement is absolutely correct.

I see so many trucks with no stamps in the books after delivery.

 

One clue would be the types of repairs. If they're mechanical, then this would make sense. If they're electrical, though, probably not. You can't really perform maintenance on the electrical system.

With more owners involved in the survey, we could provide this sort of information.

Car reliability research

 

Recently enhanced the related repair history survey so that it can (optionally) be used as a personal car maintenance record.

As always, more participants would be helpful. Updated Car Reliability Survey results in May.

Car reliability research

 

First of all, Reliability is the demonstrated ability of a system to perform it's intended mission within stated parameters for a defined period of time.

The only calculation foir Reliability is MTBF, which is Mean Time Between Failures.

You have a stated reliability objective that the design is intended to meet.

To accurately report RELIABILITY you must collect the data for ALL Failures and All Operating Hours for all vehicles produced or you are not doing RELIABILITY.

Collecting and cataloging anecdotal information (stories) about how many repair trips for a small percentage of the population in no way equates to a meaningful study of the Reliability of anything.

How do I know this? I was a Reliability Engineer on the Cruise Missile Program for 10 years. One of the tasks I regularly participated in was the collection of Test Data for each and every missile produced on the program, the associated Failure Reporting, Analysis and Root Cause Corrective Action taken and publishing that data periodically.

And the statement that electrical component failures cannot be included is totally in error. They count just like any other primary failure.

Primary factors are the Design Robustness and the Quality Control of all the component suppliers as well as the Quality of Workmanship by the original assemblers and all the maintenace personnel involved in any operations performed to the vehicle.

If a problem is the result of a crash or abusive use for instance, it is not included in Reliability Analysis.

Don't kid yourself about this subject. Surveying a few hundred owners is meaningless.

 

I have to select from the terms available in the English language to describe what I'm measuring. "Reliability" comes much closer than quality, durability, etc. If a car requires multiple repairs, people generally understand this to mean it is not reliable.

Give the average person a stat of MTBF, and they wouldn't have a clue what it means. That said, I'd love to provide MTBF stats for those who want them in the future, but this will require larger sample sizes. The current stat was selected for its low variance and so relatively small required sample size.

I have no idea what you mean about not including electrical component failures. I certainly include electrical problems, they're among the most common.

For what you were doing, a very high level of precision was needed, since the focus was likely on making incremental improvements to the reliability of the cruise missles.

Given your extensive training, certainly you're aware that the size of the population is not relevant for determining the minimum sample size. To do what I'm currently trying to do, even a sample size of a few dozen vehicles provides much more useful information than can currently be found elsewhere.