Ah yes, the quality of the graph is pretty fuzzy and I didn't notice that. With a little zoom it is much clearer. Audi is looking pretty bad and what a wide swing for BMW and Benz. Glad our first G35 was so impressive that it put us back in the seat of another Infiniti--I like that short, tight line on the graph, along with the dominating position at number 5! I see complaints here about various problems with our Gs, most minor, but the Audi, BMW, Benz and other boards must be blazing with complaints?

 

I noticed that when I read my CR magazine...the audio system gets a bad rating in the RWD, but not AWD. Makes no sense.

 

One of the main factors why I did not even bother to test drive the BMW/Audi offerings was all the reliability stories I heard/read.. and also the costs of maintaining/repairing the vehicles.

My father in law has a 5 series and I don't know how much money he has sunk into repairs, mainly to the electronics, but it's a lot.

 

Even with the 5 year free maintainence trip, bimmers still cost a fortune. Audi is the same issue. Nice looking cars, but who wants to drop that much coin into keeping it on the road! Reliability is a BIG plus for the high Infiniti ranking.

 

It always cracks me up how much people bash on the German brands when it comes to this topic. My personal experience is that reliability with the German brands, at least BMW and Audi, is about the same (or in some cases significantly better) as with the Japanese luxury brands. Our Acuras (TL and MDX) were rattle boxes and had very poor interior materials that looked terrible after only the first year of ownership, and I've even had a few issues with our Lexuses (Lexi?) (GS430 and RX350) including electronics glitches. My wife's BMW (Z3 5MT) had an issue early on with the transmission but was otherwise rock solid, and my Audi (S4 6MT) was completely rock solid for all five years of ownership. My Infiniti (G37S 6MT) is already starting to have some rattles and it's less than a year old.

Furthermore, whereas our BMW and Audi had inclusive maintenance for the duration of the warranty (Audi has now dropped this), the Japanese brands charge exorbitant rates for scheduled maintenance, especially the 30K and 60K service visits (~$800-1K each). When folks are talking about "who wants to drop that much coin", my experience is that our German cars have been VERY inexpensive to maintain while under warranty (sign the $0 invoice and leave), whereas our Japanese luxury cars have been VERY expensive to maintain. Yes, I know that people argue that the maintenance cost is built into the higher price on the Germans that do inclusive maintenance, but I bought my wife's Z3 new for several $K under invoice and my S4 less than a year used with only 7K miles on it for $11K under MSRP. For what it's worth, I pre-paid for all warranty service visits on my G37S because they offered an outstanding price on it, so I'll get a similar experience with this car.

I know some folks have had (or know friends/family who have had) terrible ownership experience with the German brands, but the same can be said of the Japanese brands. Hell, look at all the recalls from Toyota and even Honda recently! And not for small things!

Just sharing my $0.02...

 

I think Consumer Reports is full of it...wouldnt believe a word they write.

 

well it's just a predicted reliability... they can only go by stats and not everyone will be complaining about issues with their cars.

how many threads are created about i hear this sound (modded or not)... or I beat the crap out of my car and want things warrantied...

look at the reliability on a CTS-V or Z06 Vette... If I decided to get one I'd probably not complain about one thing neither b/c I'll take extra care of it.

 

Fair enough, but that's all it is ; ancedotal.

I've owned German brands as well and they were in the shop a lot. Who's right?

That's why groups like Consumers Report try to put stuff like this together. It may not be 100% accurate or even unbaised, but it is definitely better than our ancedotes.

 

I have to agree with you here. I have owned a Lex and 2 Gs in the past 4 years and all these cars have been flawless. However I cannot derive any sense of brand reliability for both makes based on my experience alone. I turn to CR and what do you know, these brands have been placed in the top ten for years. On the other end, American makes were unreliable and sales tanked, Chrysler is a leading example and CR has those guys at the bottom of the pack and had them there since as long as I can remember.

I think the piece of information that is important is not the absolute position in the rankings but the trend. Those who bought earlier German models, say pre 2000 would say the German cars are reliable, those with current models have had their fair share of problems, the German autos are becoming less reliable than the Japanese and this is what CR is reflecting. On the other end, Ford was unreliable but they have been trending up based on CR studies, and they never needed a Gvt bailout.

Personally I believe CR is the best source for reliability since its based on a wider pool of information, and take no advertising money. What possible motive could they have for favoring the Japanese? After all Porsche ranks high in their studies so am sure they have nothing against the Germans.

 

Generally the most reliable German cars (as w/ most makes) are the high volume less complicated models. Our 7 series BMW was a reliability nightmare, just way too much cutting-edge technology that many things are bound to go wrong. The 3 & 5 series are pretty reliable as are the Audi A4s and the MB C series. The flagships of every German brand really bring down the overall reliability quite a bit since it seems they're almost always on the very bottom rung, and often significantly less reliable than their most reliable vehicle.

Compare this w/ most Japanese brands and I think you'll find much less disparity regarding reliablity from the flagship down to the volume leader.

I know I'll never buy a flagship German car again but wouldn't hesitate to buy one made in Japan.

 

Agreed. To each their own. Everyone has had or knows about good and bad experiences. It's a personal preference. I've owned enough of all of those mentioned and have just had better luck with the Japanese ones. I still enjoy the looks of the German ones, but have just taken a bath on the repairs to them. Maybe that's why I don't mind paying the regular maintenance rates at the Japanese brand dealers. I didn't intend to bash the European cars, I just expressed my preference for the Japanese ones.

I think Consumer Reports tries to do a decent job rating the vehicles, but you also need to take into account who the majority of their membership/readers are.

 

i appreciate the high rank but consumer reports in my opinion sucks..their reviews are somewhat jaded

 

Funny, CR is one of the reasons I first chose to look at the G. I think the reviews are definitely geared more towards everyday drivers, rather than enthusiasts. This tends to make them more useful IMO when you want to buy a car to drive for regular life.

 

I'm willing to bet the typical CR subscriber is older, a bit more conservative (in life & driving habits), so the number of survey participants would reflect this as well.

 

Given how complicated these G37 cars are, their high reliability is really quite an accomplishment by Infiniti. I have been driving my 2010 G37 for over 6 months, and not a single problem. Definitely a happy camper.