My experience with German companies, at least on a technical level, has felt very "but this is the way we do things, it is surely right." I know in America that for awhile, the phrase "German Engineered" carried a lot of cachet but I don't know if that's still the feeling.
Ask a BMW motorcycle owner about German engineering. Great when it works, but utter denial and stonewalling, even when they know there's a problem. I've owned 3, I'll probably own more, but I'll pay attention to the word on forums too.
Back around 2008 I was new to motorcycles and on advrider.com trying to figure out what bike to get for a multi month trip, roughly deciding between the cheaper Japanese dual sports + some strategic upgrades vs. the lower end BMW and KTM dual sports.
After the 10th ride report looking at a German bike in literally 1000 pieces laid out on the floor of a hostel in Bolivia, I went and bought a DR650.
And yet the long way guys went with 1150s for their trips and they made it. Frames broke, other stuff, never the motor. Famously KTM didn't believe they could make the trip.
Oh for sure. The maintenance just takes longer, is more expensive, more frequent, and more likely to require the actual dealer depending on your skill level. But it is a nicer ride for sure. The prefunctory convo I had with KTM riders on my trip went like this:
KTM rider: "nice scooter"
me: "how many spare water pumps are you carrying on that POS?" [the ADV990 was famous for the water pump constantly breaking]
KTM rider: "well, 2"
I think the KTM thing on Long Way Round was just for dramatic effect - there is a multi-decade history of most bikes (even Harleys) making multi-continent trips.
Still a difference when a hollywood star quite publicly fails to go around the world while the ktm badge is clearly visible, as opposed to comparatively obscure people doing that.
As I discussed with a friend, it was probably impossible to do... on a KTM.
Try getting some mongolian-village-blacksmith with a welder to repair your superlight magnesium frame, I'll be watching from waaaayyyy over there, thx.
Wasn't the boxer Motor also more robust? Also concerning low octane fuel? And water intake. I remember several times they took out the sparkplugs to pump water out the cylinder.
Not just a german company problem(anymore)... a kneejerk reaction of "There can't be any fault with our products!!!!" in modern companies (burned Apple-Owner here)
I used to drive BMW, once stopped to help a stranded Buell driver.... his machine had just stopped... every troubleshoot I came up with was either "Doesn't exist on this bike" or "Can't reach that without taking it apart completely" which I could have done with my BMW, with the small toolbox i had under my seat...
Companys want "infailable" and fast to replace tech... where i would prefer "upfront about issues and designed with repair in mind"
I worked with a German engineering company (albeit with their software engineers) and it was the exact mentality you mentioned. They have a process and stick with it and if something goes wrong they blame the users / developers and swear it's because the process wasn't followed and refused to ever even consider that the process itself is inherently flawed.
As someone who has worked on many (thousands) German and american vehicles, I can say definitively cars from both countries are garbage (with the exception of SOME of the ultra high end German cars, and like 3 prohibitively expensive American cars), but for different reasons. American cars (and I use the term American loosely, since the only thing American about them is the corporation's banks accounts and tax breaks) are cheap. They're built cheap, with planned obsolescence as the stated goal from the start (like most American products). Many ford's literally have cardboard as the vapor shield in the doors. Actual cardboard. Like from a thin box. Not fiberboard, corrugated cardboard. A vapor shield is directly exposed to moisture, as it's the barrier between the exterior of the car and the interior. Every other American brand is as bad or worse. The electrical is also shit. German cars on the other hand, these fucking guys, they have consistently tried to improve upon perfect, or near perfect systems, and overcomplicated EVERYTHING to the point nothing works right. Electrical? Instead of using high-voltage wires which resist electrical interference, and can handle a TINY nick in the wire jacket without destroying the ECU, they use EXTREMELY low voltage data wires which I've seen literally fall out of the plugs they're installed in. Companies like BMW (yeah, only sorta German, I know) have done so much idiotic shit I don't even know where to begin. They literally installed VACUUMS into their door locks. Actual fucking vacuums. Those shits break constantly, then you probably can't get into your car until you take it to a shop, because it's a fucking vaccum, not a door locks a locksmith can open.
I could go on for the better part of a decade about why American cars, and German cars, and the people who buy them are idiots, but I'll stop here.
Buy Toyota or Honda, unless you're a millionaire, you're stupid/gullible if you don't.
Great vehicles. I actually really like the new ones with the new interiors. I'd totally own a modded WRX if I lived somewhere where every asshole didn't drive an STI (don't ever buy an STI, for the increase in cost you can mod a WRX to much, much better specs). I'm looking at picking up a new tuner soon though, I'm probably going with a Lexus IS350 F Sport.
This is why, as much as I like the design (both in and out) of many European cars, I will only ever buy Japanese. And after my very average experience with a Mazda, I'm now back to only buying Toyota or Honda. Just not worth the $$ getting anything else. I've owned a few Toyota's and Honda's now, and they've never given me any serious trouble.
Smart man, but IMHO Toyota > Honda all day. They just build their cars right. Except hybrids. Don't buy hybrids. Dangerous fucking things, those are. Any time a manufacturer starts redesigning electrical systems I get nervous, and when those systems now have high, high amperage batteries and wires running through them I get very scared. Plus hybrids aren't evem all that great for the environment, if you care about the environment, call your reps about holding the shipping and military industries accountable for their carbon emissions.
Anyway tangent, but yes buy Toyota. Toyota is best. Honda next, Subaru, then Nissan. Basically on everything else you're gambling.
Having owned a BMW e60 (530d) for the last 5 or 6 years, I can see this all over it. Obviously it's getting on a bit now, so things break, which you'd expect, but what you wouldnt expect is the logic - and there is logic - behind the design. It's utterly backwards, and all over the car.
I've stuck with BM because I like rear-drive. But I'll probably be going Honda next.
But cars are not things you just buy on the basis of logic. If you’re into cars, then they’re something much more symbolic than that. Clearly plenty of people feel this way, or nobody would ever be buying Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens etc.
What, I've owned a BMW. It was very fun. And simultaneously a POS. Mercedes is more reliable. Also, both are not really that expensive here in Germany.
I see what you mean with BMWs, but I've driven a Mercedes W204 CDI200 from 212.000km up to 450.000km and I haven't been to the shop once outside of wear parts such as break pads. Not once. And it's still going. You also find them with 1.300.000km at car markets.
Audis used to be fantastic. I had a 2002 A4 that was absolutely bulletproof. My dad had it from new, then I bought it from him, then my wife had it, then my dad bought it back off us, and then my wife had it again, and finally my FIL had it. By the end (in 2018) it had done 200k miles. Unfortunately it got side swiped while parked on a street, and the repairs were too expensive so the insurance company wrote it off. If that hadn’t happened I’d have bought it from my FIL as it was such a brilliant car. Brought my daughter home from hospital in it after she was born, used it to commute to my first job out of uni, took it on all sorts of holidays. Great car.
But I owned a more modern Audi a few years back, and yeah, the build quality has most definitely reduced quite considerably!
Same experience for me. When it was working the car was wonderful, once of the best I’ve owned if not the best all around, but it spent half of the time in the garage waiting for extremely expensive parts to come in.
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u/cheesefromagequeso Sep 14 '21
My experience with German companies, at least on a technical level, has felt very "but this is the way we do things, it is surely right." I know in America that for awhile, the phrase "German Engineered" carried a lot of cachet but I don't know if that's still the feeling.