Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

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Martin Benade
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#16 Post by Martin Benade »

You guys aren’t holding on to your Subarus long enough for the head gaskets to fail. Is that fair?
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#17 Post by C J Murray »

Martin Benade wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:28 pm You guys aren’t holding on to your Subarus long enough for the head gaskets to fail. Is that fair?
I haven't heard that. I do know that a lot of WRX and STI cars are broken when the tuners double or triple the horsepower by cranking in a lot of boost.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#18 Post by Jan Kolm »

Martin Benade wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:28 pm You guys aren’t holding on to your Subarus long enough for the head gaskets to fail. Is that fair?
My wife's '96 Outback EJ22E still has its originals. They just got replaced on my son's 170k mile 2015 Forester. Not a cheap fix.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#19 Post by Brian R Adams »

FWIW in 2021 J.D Power ranked Subaru 19th out of 33 brands for dependability. Lexus, Porsche, Kia, Toyota, and Buick (in order) were the top 5. Suburau ranked ahead of such brands as Audi, Nissan, Ford, Infiniti, Honda, and VW.

https://www.jdpower.com/business/press- ... -study-vds
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Last edited by Brian R Adams on Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Steve Proctor
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#20 Post by Steve Proctor »

Two things regarding brand loyalty from my perspective. The new Porsche dealerships are absolutely top notch, modern and elegant facilities. I have been to the facility in Carson, CA and my wife and I visited PCNA in Atlanta on a recent vacation. Those facilities are equally nice if not better, absolutely magnificent in every way. It was delicious to bask in those surroundings, but...buying and maintaining a new Porsche at the dealership must contribute to those facilities and support what Panorama or Excellence regularly report as record profits.

1) I have a 2015 Boxster S that I bought some years ago as a certified car. Last month, our local dealership sent an email with a "SPECIAL" coupon out announcing that the usual $299 per oil change was reduced to $269. *gulp* I have never had an oil change done on any Porsche that I did not do in my garage. Ever. I save my receipts and for the certified car, document the fact that I use OEM Porsche brand oil filter inserts and the nearly eight quarts of Mobil 1 in the specified 0W-40. The filter is $20 at Pellican and the oil comes in at just less than $5 / quart when bought in 5 gallon containers at Walmart (7.5 quarts x $5 = $37.50), so I can do a change in my garage for just over $60 adding in the cost of two beers. I have to jack up the car and put it on jackstands, but can still do the job, beginning to end, in about an hour. Could I pay the $269 or $299? Yes, but not without feeling ripped off, plus I come up two beers short. They are not paying retail for the filters or the oil, so the markup is astronomical.

2) When it came time to replace my wife's Lexus RX 350, we tried to buy a 2022 Cayenne, comparing it to a comparable Lexus. For openers, the base price was $25K+ more, it got worse mileage and required premium gas. At the prevailing price of premium, it would have been a $100 fill up for runs to the grocery store. Further, when we sat down to "build our own Cayenne" and began selecting options, we found that some of the priced upgrades on the Porsche were nearly double those of the Lexus.

She is thrilled with her new Lexus and with the options she got (metallic paint, premium 20" wheels, triple beam LED headlights, heads up display, full leather, full length moonroof, premium audio / navigation, Apple Airplay, heated seats and steering wheel, ventilated seats, adaptive cruise, 360* surround cameras, lane control, parking assist, backup cam, etc.,) it was nearly $40K less and has Toyota / Lexus reliability (see Brian Adams post above) and resale value.

Make no mistake, I once got a Cayenne as a loaner and it was a wonderful car, I love the germanic-ness of the vehicle in every respect and would love to have one, but I have my Porsche cars for fun / performance driving and $100K for a grocery getter with a healthy part of that cost supporting the infrastructure and record profits have priced the cars beyond my comfort zone / brand loyalty. Certified cars, yes, new cars, nope.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#21 Post by Pete Indelicato »

Martin Benade wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:28 pm You guys aren’t holding on to your Subarus long enough for the head gaskets to fail. Is that fair?
Never have had that problem with three outbacks and one impresa--200K miles on each one
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#22 Post by Brian R Adams »

I posted J.D. Power's dependability rankings (2021). Here are brand loyalty rankings:

Premium brands, top 6:

Lexus
Porsche
M-B
BMW
Audi
Acura

Mass Market, top 6:

Subaru
Toyota
Honda
RAM
Ford
Kia

So, Subarus may not be particularly dependable, but they certainly are well loved by their owners.
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Martin Benade
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#23 Post by Martin Benade »

My friend at the Subaru dealer certainly does LOTS of head gaskets, but I guess he doesn’t mention the ones he doesn’t have to do.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#24 Post by Brian R Adams »

Martin Benade wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:21 pm My friend at the Subaru dealer certainly does LOTS of head gaskets, but I guess he doesn’t mention the ones he doesn’t have to do.
It deserves a second glance. Suppose every Subaru dealer fixed every blown head gasket promptly, in 2 business days, and provided a good loaner vehicle - all covered by warranty or recall. Even those owners might well say they'd buy another Subaru.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#25 Post by Sebastian Gaeta »

Brian R Adams wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:32 pm
Martin Benade wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:21 pm My friend at the Subaru dealer certainly does LOTS of head gaskets, but I guess he doesn’t mention the ones he doesn’t have to do.
It deserves a second glance. Suppose every Subaru dealer fixed every blown head gasket promptly, in 2 business days, and provided a good loaner vehicle - all covered by warranty or recall. Even those owners might well say they'd buy another Subaru.
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I will chime in here. I've held my tongue because I don't want to sound like Al Z but.............we service lots of Subarus even though we are really a Euro shop. My take is that Subarus are extremely dependable and most services on them are simple "nut and bolt" suspension and brakes and, of course, scheduled maintenance. We do a lot of head gaskets on them which is a pattern failure but they are certainly not undependable or unreliable.

I would not confuse a pattern failure on a particular vehicle with not being dependable. My Modern Porsches are quite dependable but do have pattern failure issues with IMS, IMS bearings, cylinder bore scoring etc.

Subarus are the new cult car for the old time Volvo owners. That is how we have come to service many Subarus; my shop started out life as a Volvo-only repair shop decades ago but when the Ford-owned Volvos came out, the old time Volvo groupies stayed away in droves and migrated over to Subaru.

It is my unscientific opinion that pattern failures do not keep people from purchasing a second vehicle of the same make. I see it constantly with my customers and many of them are Subaru and Porsche buyers.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#26 Post by Brian R Adams »

Very interesting, Seb. And I hadn't considered the Volvo to Subaru migration, but it's head-slap obvious now, even to me.

I'm curious, what's the typical turnaround for a Subaru head gasket repair?
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#27 Post by Sebastian Gaeta »

Brian R Adams wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 8:33 pm Very interesting, Seb. And I hadn't considered the Volvo to Subaru migration, but it's head-slap obvious now, even to me.

I'm curious, what's the typical turnaround for a Subaru head gasket repair?
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The labor for the head gasket alone is 12.5 hrs (typically) on a Subaru. Oftentimes customers will piggyback other services like timing belts or water pumps for example but the job will take a good tech 10-12 hrs to complete so the turnaround is usually 2 days.

Also, very few are done at the dealership under warranty since the issue presents itself long after coverage has expired.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#28 Post by Dave Erickson »

Our previous 4-cyl Subaru Outback had a head gasket go at 120k, but the dealer gave us $6k trade-in as-is and we bought our current 6-cyl Subaru and let the dealer deal with the head gasket and resell the car. We love the 6-cyl Outback.

Regarding the Porsche Cayenne, I was a field worker at the last Monterey Porsche Parade Autocross, and the Cayennes were formidable competitors, amazing to watch in the hands of skilled drivers. So while I can understand letting Momma pick a Lexus over a Cayenne, think about the fun you could have had driving a Cayenne when she wasn’t around!

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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#29 Post by C J Murray »

Sebastian nailed it in post #25. Vehicles are complex. Some vehicles are coddled and some are neglected. If you expect a machine comprised of thousands of parts to never fail over hundreds of thousands of miles you are being unrealistic. As for J.D. Power and Consumer Reports, who cares what they say? Think about some of the vehicles that they have trashed. What is the difference between 1 problem reported and 5 problems reported vs the ownership of a boring bland appliance that punishes you every time that you drive it?

SUVs(TRUCKS) are a different story, for me at least. My wife has had some very fun cars but likes the utility of SUVs and the high seating position. She doesn't drive in a way that requires exceptional dynamic ability. She has been driving a 2014 Ford Escape since she traded in her BMW 328XI 2 door 6 speed on it. The Ford has never had any mechanical failure and the normal service costs are very low. Dealers are everywhere. Even at brisk speeds it works quite well, for a truck. We have a new Chevy SUV on order with a 3rd row seat to carry kids and grandkids. They drive well, for a truck, and dealers are everywhere. A Porsche truck may be better on a race track but we don't drive our truck on the race track. Porsche does sell some cars that are a better choice for track use than their trucks. We did look at Audis before ordering the Chevy but their 3rd row models are designed for midgets. I got off track but just buy what works for you and forget the consumer experts.
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Re: Brand Loyalty Is Declining - Luxury Automakers

#30 Post by Brian R Adams »

C J Murray wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:16 am As for J.D. Power and Consumer Reports, who cares what they say?
Not you, anyway! But lumping them together is somewhat disingenuous. J.D. Power reports "Just the facts, ma'am", not opinion.
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