Minok

Having owned several brands of cars in my life and seen many folks driving the same brands, I would caution against drawing any general meaning from such surveys, even the ADAC data mentioned in another post, because its too easy to draw a cause-effect conclusion that may not be valid.

Much about a cars reliability seems to have to do with the owner/maintainer and how they drive the car and maintain it. This seems more important (in my view) than the make or model. Aside from the statistically required lemon in every make's product lines, you can have a particular model that one driver will be able to drive and use for years without issue and a different owner will manage to generate all sorts of breakage and failures on.

It may well be that the type of drivers/owners on 997's tend to treat their cars differently than the general driver/owner of a BMW 3 series, or a VW Jetta, or Honda Accord.

pissedpuppy

My first (of 4) Porsches was a 1980 911SC. When I parted ways with it, it had 187K miles on it, ran VERY strong and didn't leak 1 drop of oil.

oh, for the time I owned it, the most expensive repair was replacing spark plug wires.

it was also the only car I ever drove that earned a flash from a girl passenger on the hwy

vexed

+1. No one mentioned they loved the 997.1 they tested, and the Boxster also. When the BMW E39 was their highest rated car the BMW philes were gushing, now not so much.

In my 18 months, other than the HPFP failing my 997.2 has been flawless.

Sane Asylum

It's the most beautiful car on the planet........And, it's reliable and incredibly fast. At the end of the day, who cares what a critic says.

Our society, in many cases, has turned to nimrods with a computer to make determinations about things like this.....My kids have opinions that come from blogs and are completly unfounded and in some cases just not true......

cbzzoom

Yeah, this is always a good point to remember.

For example, Porsche has the highest pass rate in the German TUV (thorough vehicle inspection that we don't really have in the US). But this is almost surely not because the cars are so much better, but because the owners take care of them.

Also there are sometimes touted questionable stats about Porches having the greatest longevity of any vehicle (70% of vehicles made are still around or something like that). This is also almost surely just because owners love them so much and keep them alive. I don't think anyone seriously believes that a Porsche has better longevity than a Honda, but when an old Porsche gets sick you fix it, and when an old Honda gets sick you throw it out.

997, esq

Also, Porsches are probably driven fewer miles than most cars -- a fact that I doubt the surveys account for. That said, my Porsche has been quite reliable (knock on wood) through 31K miles / 5 yrs

cbzzoom

In general I think CR is very good, for example it's great the way they don't take manufacturer money.

However, as Karesh loves to point out, there is a problem with sample size. For example CR shows the Boxster as much more reliable than the 911. We know that that can't possibly be true - we share so many parts that the real liability must be about the same. But with the small sample sizes there's enough randomness to make them seem different.

I don't really think CR is to blame on this - it's more the problem of the journalists who take the CR press release and copy-paste it.

And really any "predicted reliability" is bogus unless the car has been the same for the last 10 years.

JJB236

My 91 Mercedes 300E has been reliable since I drove it out of the Hollywood Mercedes. It has 205k miles, and went through a valve job. Car will be 20 years old this year, but the paint still looks good. Merc does outlast other German cars. 300E model is known to last more than 500k.

docjohnM

Cayennes are not porsches, so we can't blame them. Touregs are crap too.

The RMS leak and IMS are both black eyes for Porsche. But which company doesn't have something like that? (ok, honda, toyota, lexus doesn't) But, The current lineup is far removed from those engineering debacles....

My 911 has 16K miles so far and besides tons of Rattles and a soon to be dead battery, all has been well. I really can't complain much. For laughs, head over to an Evora forum and read their woes........

cbzzoom

IMO the difference is the way the manufacturer handled their problems. RX8's and recent BMW's have had their share of problems - but the manufacturer admitted it and took steps to help their buyers. Porsche stonewalled and screwed over lots of buyers, and that is the real sin they can't be forgiven for.


Another point on general reliability - I'm sure Porsches are much less reliable per mile than most cars - but that's because they are driven much harder. Of course a car that you drive really hard is going to have more issues. Even people who don't track often treat the roads like a track. That's why we bought these cars, to have fun with them. And with fun comes wear.

Zipgun

Bmw? HPFP every hear of it? A problem they denied for over 4 years and still have not totally taken care of. Mazda's Horse power controversy? Rest assured each and every auto maker has the their fair share of bad marks.

Reliability wise? Porsche's aren't better or worse than most other "sports cars". As sports cars by nature consume more than an average corolla. But among performance type cars they are pretty damn reliable.

Lastly any make or model car you buy can turn out to be a problematic lemon. But regarding Porsche's? Even on this very site. With every person that has a problem there are 10 that don't have any problems whatsoever. That speaks for itself imo..

Minok

There was a spate of issues around Toyota/Lexus recently. Honda had its recalls too.

Though my main problem with those cars isn't the cars (though they don't offer design options that would work for me so I'll never own one it seems)... its the drivers, who seem to be rather consistent in thier inability to park between the white lines in a parking space correctly or not drive in either of two modes: 95 year old blind person, or 23 year old suicidal boy racer.