Interesting article
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From: North Yorks
Originally Posted by Subaru2000' date='Jan 20 2009, 10:28 AM
I wondered how long we'd go before we got into the German bashing part of the thread.
This isn't 'German bashing', you do yourself no favours continually trying to find evidence of a bias against German cars where there is none.
What I said about cars and fashion could be said about plasma TVs, hot tubs and all sorts of other trappings of 'wealth' bought with chreap finance. But you have to agree, in many people's minds, when it comes to cars German is seen as being of high quality, even when it isn't (Mercedes ML 1995-2005, VAG coil pack debacle for example).
I'm not bashing the cars for being German, I'm commenting on the fact that VAG especially and BMW to an extent have tried to fracture the market and create new buyers for vehicles they didn't know they wanted. In doing so, both companies have spread their resources too thinly and now find themselves with far too much capacity and are in financial trouble.
And I'm bashing the brainless morons who percieve quality to be associated with certain German brands regardless of whether it's true. The type of people who buy BMWs and Porsches because of what they are, not what they do - vacuous, shallow image obsessed people go for Porsches and BMWs, but not all BMW and Porsche drivers are self-obsessed morons. So stop being so bloody defensive. Please.
The 'Plastic quality' thing makes me laugh though - a damped grab handle does not mean the oily bits won't fail prematurely (and only in the car industry is 'Plastic' ever associated with 'quality' anyway).
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From: Ulaanbaatar
Originally Posted by MarkB' date='Jan 20 2009, 03:00 PM
Oh please, change the record.
"And I'm bashing the brainless morons...", "But you have to agree...", "...vacuous, shallow image obsessed people..." - typical ingredients of a MarkB diatribe.
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From: Tring
Originally Posted by MarkB' date='Jan 20 2009, 07:00 AM
Oh please, change the record.
This isn't 'German bashing', you do yourself no favours continually trying to find evidence of a bias against German cars where there is none.
What I said about cars and fashion could be said about plasma TVs, hot tubs and all sorts of other trappings of 'wealth' bought with chreap finance. But you have to agree, in many people's minds, when it comes to cars German is seen as being of high quality, even when it isn't (Mercedes ML 1995-2005, VAG coil pack debacle for example).
I'm not bashing the cars for being German, I'm commenting on the fact that VAG especially and BMW to an extent have tried to fracture the market and create new buyers for vehicles they didn't know they wanted. In doing so, both companies have spread their resources too thinly and now find themselves with far too much capacity and are in financial trouble.
And I'm bashing the brainless morons who percieve quality to be associated with certain German brands regardless of whether it's true. The type of people who buy BMWs and Porsches because of what they are, not what they do - vacuous, shallow image obsessed people go for Porsches and BMWs, but not all BMW and Porsche drivers are self-obsessed morons. So stop being so bloody defensive. Please.
The 'Plastic quality' thing makes me laugh though - a damped grab handle does not mean the oily bits won't fail prematurely (and only in the car industry is 'Plastic' ever associated with 'quality' anyway).
This isn't 'German bashing', you do yourself no favours continually trying to find evidence of a bias against German cars where there is none.
What I said about cars and fashion could be said about plasma TVs, hot tubs and all sorts of other trappings of 'wealth' bought with chreap finance. But you have to agree, in many people's minds, when it comes to cars German is seen as being of high quality, even when it isn't (Mercedes ML 1995-2005, VAG coil pack debacle for example).
I'm not bashing the cars for being German, I'm commenting on the fact that VAG especially and BMW to an extent have tried to fracture the market and create new buyers for vehicles they didn't know they wanted. In doing so, both companies have spread their resources too thinly and now find themselves with far too much capacity and are in financial trouble.
And I'm bashing the brainless morons who percieve quality to be associated with certain German brands regardless of whether it's true. The type of people who buy BMWs and Porsches because of what they are, not what they do - vacuous, shallow image obsessed people go for Porsches and BMWs, but not all BMW and Porsche drivers are self-obsessed morons. So stop being so bloody defensive. Please.
The 'Plastic quality' thing makes me laugh though - a damped grab handle does not mean the oily bits won't fail prematurely (and only in the car industry is 'Plastic' ever associated with 'quality' anyway).
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Originally Posted by Polemicist' date='Jan 20 2009, 04:01 PM
Sure.
Avoid using the phrase "But you have to agree..."
Avoid using the phrase "But you have to agree..."
Deal?
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From: location, location
When you have the likes of the koreans, chinesse producing cars which are every bit as reliable/fully loaded carrying a 7year warranty etc but at a cheaper price no wonder some marques are struggling.
Okay they may not 'look' as good but they are not far behind (though i admit there is a bit of copying).
BMW etc uses chinesse plants to produce a hell of lot of the car, no doubt they will use there own QA systems there.
Okay they may not 'look' as good but they are not far behind (though i admit there is a bit of copying).
BMW etc uses chinesse plants to produce a hell of lot of the car, no doubt they will use there own QA systems there.
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From: Leeds
[quote name='MarkB' date='Jan 20 2009, 03:00 PM']Oh please, change the record.
This isn't 'German bashing', you do yourself no favours continually trying to find evidence of a bias against German cars where there is none.
What I said about cars and fashion could be said about plasma TVs, hot tubs and all sorts of other trappings of 'wealth' bought with chreap finance.
This isn't 'German bashing', you do yourself no favours continually trying to find evidence of a bias against German cars where there is none.
What I said about cars and fashion could be said about plasma TVs, hot tubs and all sorts of other trappings of 'wealth' bought with chreap finance.