TrueDelta

Earlier this week Chrysler talked about taking real steps to improve its quality. Today it’s GM. Mark Reuss, GM’s head of engineering, had this to say to the Detroit Free Press:

“Reliability has been the Achilles’ heel of GM for my entire career,” he said, promising he would focus the company’s engineers around the world on fixing the problem. “It gets down to an individual engineer’s ability to find a problem and leadership’s ability to fix it,” he said, adding that too many GM engineers have been reluctant to point out problems because they were afraid they’d get the blame rather than praise for catching the mistake before customers suffered.

It’s refrreshing to hear Reuss speaking so candidly. But such talk isn’t entirely new. Will the talk translate into action and results this time around? Unlike Chrysler, Reuss didn’t mention any concrete steps being taken to get there other than not firing people who bring up quality problems.

The reaction of some over at GMInsideNews: Reuss should be fired for mentioning GM’s quality problems.

Too many of GM’s recent launches have been rough. I see this in responses to TrueDelta’s Car Reliability Survey. For example, there seem to be some Lambda crossovers that are simply not fixable. On the other hand, the Malibu has been solid from the start.

TrueDelta’s results promptly update four times a year. So when GM does launch a solid product (or not), that information will often appear here first:

Car Reliability Survey results

According to today’s Detroit News, Chrysler is claiming that they will be a (though not “the”) quality leader by the end of 2012. They (and many other auto makers) have made similar claims before. Sometimes they achieve these goals. More often they don’t. Chrysler’s chances?

Chrysler is increasing its odds of success by making what appear to be substantial changes to its organization and culture. A new senior VP of quality has been hired away from Nissan (they’re a quality leader?). The quality organizatioin has been enlarged from 200 to 1,700 people. These people have been organized into cross-functional teams focused on the quick execution of needed changes. Perhaps the biggest change of all: Chrysler now claims that they will tackle problems rather than pretending they don’t exist or ignoring them and hoping they’ll go away. (Which has been proven to result in customers going away.)

Unknown: whether these people really have the pull to get their requested changes executed. Large organizations are chock full of special teams charged with getting something done, but without the pull to actually get it done. Is this one of those?

Chryler claims that engineering changes have already had a substantial impact on existing products. Supposedly, while 75 percent of defects were design-related last year, with the remaining 25 percent occurring during assembly, the ratio is now 50-50. If we assume that the number of assembly defects has not changed (which raises the question–why not, since its easier to quickly eliminate these?), this implies that the total number of defects has already been cut in half.

Too good to be true? Are these just rough, shoot-from-the-hip numbers? Perhaps, but if the head of quality is dishing out such numbers…not the most promising sign.

TrueDelta promptly updates its Car Reliability Survey results four times a year, not just once after a lengthy delay. So if Chrysler’s quality does improve, it will show up here first:

Car Reliability Survey results

I’ve long thought rust was a thing of the past. Rust prevention technology has gotten so good that I haven’t had a car with a rust problem since a decade-old 1985 Ford Escort. And even with the Escort rust wasn’t externally visible. I hardly ever see a car with visible rust around the Detroit suburbs, and those I do see are over a decade old.

Then a few months back I noticed that my 2003 Mazda Protege5 was rusting around the rear wheel openings and along the inside of the driver’s door, where the inner and outer panel are welded together.

Conducting the TrueDelta Car Reliability Survey, I’ve been receiving multiple reports of such rust with both the Protege and the Mazda3. As far as I can tell, neither model has sufficient rust protection for areas where the roads are salted. In some cases, rust has started within the warranty period.

People still remember how Hondas used to rust back in the 1970s and 1980s.

Now I’m wondering if Mazda’s rep is going to take a similar hit. Rust is worse than other problems–you can’t fix it merely by swapping out parts. It’s essentially cancer for cars. I’ve treated those areas I can get to, and repainted them. But this will probably be an annual procedure going forward. A shame, because these particular models are otherwise very durable.

The rust warranty lasts for five years–so it ended a year ago today for me. Called the dealer I bought the car from, and they essentially said I’m SOL. Especially since I haven’t been taking the car there for $30+ oil changes.

Which is about what I expected. Another thing I’ve learned by conducting this survey: with nearly all manufacturers, when the warranty is over, it’s over, even if an obvious engineering or manufacturing error is causing a widespread premature problem. You do get some chance of out-of-warranty assistance if you go to the dealer for all of your service–but I haven’t quite learned this lesson yet.

Would I have bought this car if I’d known it’d be rusting out within six years? As much as I like it, probably not.