Hi JM,

I doubt (or maybe REALLY hope) that the car manufacturers aren't actually
trying to make things fail right after the warranty expires (I'm pretty sure
they used to do that, many years ago - some actually didn't want their
cars to last so you would almost have to buy a new one in a few years).

What I suspect some car manufacturers do is cost-reduce until the
failure-rate approaches the warranty period, but to save money not to
purposely cause failures. Case in point, the belt pully on the my Dodge
power steering pump was plastic - it probably saved Dodge ~$1.50 at most.
This broke at ~75,000 - 80,000 miles and it cost me more than $150 to have
replaced! ...all to save Chrysler a few cents.

Other manufacturers who value their reliability reputation (Toyota and
Honda to mention a couple) design their parts (or have their suppliers do
it) to last as long as possible within reasonable cost restraints. I'm sure
that even Honda and Toyota don't have a cost-is-no-object philosophy.

As far as keeping the dealers busy, when my Dodge transmission failed the
first time, Dodge was willing to pay 1/2 of the $2,000 cost to have the
dealer rebuild the transmission, HOWEVER the local dealers were so busy, I
couldn't find any who could even look at it for a week (I guess others'
transmissions were failing also). I ended up taking it to a reputable
transmission shop and paid the entire $1400 myself, because I couldn't be
without the car for a week and a half. At least the non-Crysler rebuilt one
lasted 50% longer (57,000 miles) than the original.

"JM" > wrote in message
om...
> > Smarsquid: If you were talking about a Chrysler product, your fears
would
> > be highly understandable. I left Honda to buy a new 1995 Dodge
Intrepid. I
> > had no problems until just after the 36,000 mile warranty expired.
Between
> > 36k and 40k miles I had the transmission die ($2,000), the A/C condenser
> > leak ($600) and an oxygen sensor fail ($300). Many things continued to
fail
> > until I finally donated the car when the transmission failed the second
time
> > at ~90,000 miles. (and NO, I didn't abuse the car, I pampered it - it
still
> > LOOKED great when I gave it away).
> >
> >> You might want to check out JD Power and Associates website for
> their latest
> > 3 year reliability ranking. Honda is WAY below industry average for
number
> > of problems in a 3-year period, and Dodge is WAY worse than industry
average
> > (and its parent, Mercedes Benz is considerably worse than even Dodge).
> > >
> > Another thing to consider is customer service - I'd be willing to bet
that
> > Honda would be much more likely to help out if a major failure occurred
a
> > little after the warranty expired than Chrysler. Chrysler was
absolutely no
> > help in any of my problems with the Intrepid.
> > >
> > I'm a reliability engineer (no, not for Honda) and let me give you a
short
> > lesson. There is a thing called "infant mortality" (my boss hates that
> > term - he used to do safety engineering on toys). This means that on
almost
> > every new product, it is much more likely to fail in it's first few
months
> > than it is to fail later in life until parts start to wear out (these
are
> > called wear-out failures). This means that most of the failures should
> > occur during the warranty period. Between infant mortality and wearout
is
> > typically a long period of very low failure-rate. When graphed, it
looks
> > like a cut-away of a bathtub, hence its name "bathtub curve".
> > >
> > Companies like Honda try to make their parts (and therefore their cars)
as
> > reliable as economically feasible - their future sales depend on that.
From
> > my sample size of 1 experience (not statistically significant) with
Dodge,
> > it APPEARS that their only concern was getting the car past it's
warranty
> > period and didn't have much concern about how long it lasted after that.
> > The JD Power report APPEARS to reflect that sentiment also.
>
>
> You just summed up my life experience, and have professional
> experience to back it. If a car is a piece of junk, it will fail
> regardless of pampering. If it is well-designed, it will generally
> give very long service unless abused. Everything you said is worth
> re-reading by the uninitiated.
>
> I think, though, that you failed to emphasize one point: it takes
> TREMENDOUS engineering skill to design a product to fail on schedule
> -- the schedule being just past the warranty period. The service
> department of most dealerships brings in as much, or more money than
> the sales department. How quickly would a Chrysler or GM dealer go
> out of business if half their revenue dried up because the cars
> actually last? The economics of their business model weren't set up
> for it.
>
> JM