Longevity

[RFdesigner]

Whilst googling for other stuff I came across the following

http://www.fleetbusiness.com/pdf/DD7.pdf

published in 2010

Which deals with survivability rather than reliability of Canadian cars.. for those of use who look to buy something to last, it's of interest, and much more relavant than surveys of cars only 3 years old which is all we seem to get over here.

They conveniently break up the different brands by age.. which means we can compare 124 era mercs with 210 era, 211 era etc.

What I find fascinating is that the oh so bad W210 era cars show a survivability of 82.4%. Whilst the oft table topping Hondas of the same era only 82.2% survive.

Unsurprisingly We find huge numbers of 20-25 year old mercs still going, far more than other makes (ignoring porsche.. read the text to see why the porsche numbers are suspect)

Just thought someone might like this

Derek

 

[Nemo20]

Very interesting thanks.

 

[Corned]

What I find fascinating is that the oh so bad W210 era cars show a survivability of 82.4%. Whilst the oft table topping Hondas of the same era only 82.2% survive.

Wow - as much difference as that? 0.2%?

 

[Xtractorfan]

Maybe something to do with the volume of sales. In 2011 Honda sold 35,000 cars in canada MB sold less than 10,000....

 

[RFdesigner]

Maybe something to do with the volume of sales. In 2011 Honda sold 35,000 cars in canada MB sold less than 10,000....

Once you have a sample size of over a thousand or so then it's fairly accurate... this is how the pollsters work and whilst they can be a little out they are generally accuate to a percent or two.

I was just suprised that the supposed good Hondas were no better than the apparently rubbish 210 era mercs. All boils down to what you compare things to.. if you compared recent hondas to W124s then we'd probably all agree they're rubbish, although fuel economy might be better

Derek

 

[d215yq]

Is one of the reasons mercs and toyotas last so long to do with the use of cam chain instead of cam belt.

The number of cars I've heard the cambelt is a good £5-600 job is staggering (a lot are now bumper/worse off jobs). So then when it hits around that value the cambelt is never replaced and then eventually when that goes there is definitely no point in repairing the car.

Is there an advantage of cambelt over chain? I'm sure it saves a hundred quid or so off the original manufacture but are there other reasons. Also by making it a cam chain that doesn't have to be replaced the access to the cam area could be even more restricted...