http://www.lemonlaw.com/lemonlist.html

Ratio makes some sense because the S is lower production car, but we're talking about thousands of motivated S owners making formal complaints to the NHTSA. Of course, they don't disclose the complaint details, but I can't help wondering how serious the problems were folks were complaining about.

 

Most of those complaints consist of old farts (not a flame on old farts though ) and their, "Why does my car never start? I always have to use the red emergency button."

j/k

 

Hmmmm. They probably wonder about the strange grinding noise when they have to use the emergency button more than once!! Seriously though, does anyone know if the info is documented somewhere in the public domain?

 

I'm confused--what does the ratio number mean?

 

From how they describe it, it sounds like high complaints and low sales would lead to a high index. With only 8-10k S2000s imported each year, even though all of them sell, the total sales volume would still be low compared to many other cars on the list. Low sales alone wouldn't do it though, so there must be a ton complaints. I can't imagine that the lower volume would be enough to offset the customer satisfaction of something like a Ford Explorer that has a quality rating of like negative. The fact that the Range Rover is on the list too might indicate that lower sales volume is a leading contributor but there are plenty of other commonplace vehicles to offset that notion.

 

I think the older models of the S2000 contributed to a lot of the complaints, e.g. clutch buzz, engine failures, rear window problems, rattling, etc.

 

s2ki has archived a lot of that data but even if you took all of the complaints posted, I don't think you could shake a stick at what these numbers seem to be implying.

 

I think part of it can be attributed to the high expectation many buyers have from Honda's overall reputation for reliability. The S2000, being a handbuilt low production run car, likely has had more issues than the typical Accord or Civic. being that its also a performacne car, the expectation were even that much higher. When people have high expectations, the complaints tend to increase.
Of course on reverse example of this is Saturn and theri high JD Powers ratings. Buyers of Saturns typically came from other American make cars, thus when they experienced Saturn's better-than-the-rest-of-the-american-cars quality, they were blown away. A typical Honda owner would likely complain about Saturns more.

 

That makes sense. It would be nice to get a feel for the severity of the complaints. Maybe I could find a support group to discuss the love-hate relationship. I feel like Nicholas Cage in Gone in 60 seconds staring the Shelby Cobra down hoping this time its not going to let me down, but at the same time anxious to let it loose and put a smile on my face before a long day of work.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DivineDesign
[B]http://www.lemonlaw.com/lemonlist.html

Ratio makes some sense because the S is lower production car, but we're talking about thousands of motivated S owners making formal complaints to the NHTSA.