Are you serious? just can not believe my eyes.

I'm not surprised that VW is on the edge again.

I'm glad to see GM improving initial short-term quality of their vehicles. That being said, I'd like to see results from a longterm reliability survey for vehicles. I'm sure the results will be starkly different than short-term results.

The one thing this "survey" doesn't take into account is the median age of the owner, which translates into how the vehicle is driven AND how often it will be driven.

Another point is that a Lexus will nitpick anything that isn't perfect, as they know a Lexus should be perfect. I can't say for certainty that a Buick owner (mummy) will even realize when something isn't quite right.

The above can also be applied to Lincoln / Mercury, and still even Cadillac to a degree.

See - now this is a study that the Domestic crowd can hang their hats on rather than the initial quality surveys which are retarded. I'm an import fan, but the quality improvements in domestics can only be a good thing. I'm glad seeing this report. Fewer problems across all cars is a good thing, maybe not for the people that live for getting in pissing matches, but for us as a whole, it's a good thing.

Don't worry guys, A.J. has his own study coming out proving that long term reliability numbers are indeed, completely different. How long are you going to run your testing, AJ? A lot of the 2004 Buick designs have essentially been around for some time, and their older brethren are doing fine, so why shouldn't the same-or-better 2004s continue to do well down the road?

NO WAY!!!

To Alexvrb:

Please re-read as you have obviously misread it.

"I'm glad to see GM improving initial short-term quality of their vehicles. That being said, I'd like to see results from a longterm reliability survey for vehicles. I'm sure the results will be starkly different than short-term results."

No where I have specifically stated GM reliability will be worse than lets say Lexus in long-term reliability... For all you know I could've meant the opposite. Don't be so quick to rush to defend GM. I dated a girl who had a 94 LeSabre; it had no mechanical problems to speak of as of '02 but the rear power windows did fail a few years back.

I was actually referring to the fact that this survey studied the reliability of cars under the regular 3 year comprehensive warranty period. I'm sure you'll see some brands develop problems soon after this warranty period is up, say in 4-8 years. From an engineering perspective, initially reliability tends to rely on superior assembly while long-term reliability tends to depend on quality of engineering of the actual components.

Alexvrb,

A.J. is generally has the right idea. This is a short term reliability report. Many of the American manufacturers don't drop the ball too much for short term reliability.

Short term and long term reliability have always been 2 different beasts. JD does a lot of studies based on short term reliability, and most of their awards praise initial quality. That's all good and fine if that's what your looking for. If you want to find out which cars turn into lemons after 5ish years and their 60,000mi/100,000km mark, this is not a terrible definitive study.

But A.J. was on the right path, long term reliability is a whole different ball game entirely. That list would look very different if you looked at long term reliability.

This is big news? Buick, Cadillac, Mercury, and Lincoln have had top-ten spots—and the Japanese have only had a couple of top-five spots— for a few years now.

"I'm sure the results will be starkly different than short-term results."

Since the short-term results show improvements in domestics, especially GM, what other conclusion should I have drawn? The short term shows good results for them. Therefore a stark difference means something other than good results. You were quite obviously saying that their long-term quality would be much different.

Regardless of what you now say you meant, Scotty defended your initial stance, and actually he does a decent job of it. Long-term is a different ballgame. However, my point was that you do not know exactly how well these 04 models will perform in the future. However, if you extrapolated their performance from their previous models (eg 2000 model year buicks that are similar), I think you'd be surprised. Again, I'm not saying that long-term results will mirror these short-term figures. What I am saying is that you're assuming that they will not.

These are almost the exact same results in this survey as last year. Why is anyone surprised?

Do Japanese cars get better with age somehow? If they're already having more problems at 3 years do they spontaneously create flux capacitors to remove their previous problems?

old farts and idiots buy Buicks, i usaed to sell them and ill tell you it was mostly retired old farts and gheto ass "canadians" that would buy these boats, a test drive with one of these peopl eat the wheele confirms that they have no business driving behind me in the streets.

old farts and idiots buy Buicks, i used to sell them and ill tell you it was mostly retired old farts and gheto ass "canadians" that would buy these boats, a test drive with one of these people at the wheele confirms that they have no business driving behind me in the streets.

I am a "ghetto ass canadian", i drive a Buick (my second already) and it's getting even better. Oh, did I forget to say that I am neither an old fart nor an idiot? I am quite young, I love my Buick and I would not want to drive behind you... it would be a pain in the arse to drive behind a snob.