German car engineering: more myth than reality?

MTBD

I've been browsing car websites, forums, etc a lot over Christmas and have thus read lots of interesting stuff and even more nonsense. There seems to be a divided opinion on German cars among car fans. The casual car fan seems to think German stuff is amazing while the real enthusiasts seem pretty wary/skeptical of them. That would echo our own experience having had some appalling luck with VW/BMW, while Merc have always been good.

But aside from the reliability they do have a reputation for engineering excellence. I was looking through wikipedia's list of automotive superlatives and the sparseness of German ingenuity relative to the size of their industry is the one thing that struck me.

VW/Audi have almost never brought anything innovative. The only automotive firsts Audi have to their name is LED headlamps and laser headlights. VW have a DSG gearbox to their name...

Surprisingly BMW have not actually a lot more but again I don't think triple turbos, 6 speed autos, drive by wire or electric parking brakes are exactly groundbreaking.

Mercedes moved on the Wankel and turbo diesel engine a lot as well as having the first superchargers. Still, most of their innovations in the last 10 years are just luxury items or high tech style/comfort.

Compared to Alfa/Fiat/Lancia they are actually not innovative at all. And considering how small the Italians are now compared to the Germans this says even more.

Lancia: first superchargered and turbocharged car, first v6, first monocoque, first electronically adjustable aero device, first five speed manual, first spring/shock absorber, first ARB, first hydraulic shock absorbers, first 12v system, first adjustable steering column.

Alfa: first vvt engines, first common trail diesel, first twin supercharger car, first 6 speed manual, first locking differential, first fully independent suspension

Fiat: first aluminium heads, first direct injection diesel and first variable geo diesel turbo.

Almost everything I listed there from the Italians is still commonplace in modern cars or else really helped move the game on. Yet Italian cars are somehow considered inferior to the Germans. I don't get this reverence for unreliable BMWs and Audi's all the while innovative companies from Italy get slammed for unreliability despite being more reliable in my experience and considerably cheaper and easier to fix when they do go wrong.

The Japanese aren't all that innovative either but they have completely revolutionised car reliability and build quality.

The Swedes brought car safety to new levels.

Has brand engineering really gone this far? Aside from Mercedes, the Germans have brought the car world almost nothing new from what I can see yet are revered by many as the world leader. They do however excel at making outlandish claims about mpg, bhp, 0-60, etc

Am I wrong?

Charles Babbage

Production efficiency and innovation are different things. British Leyland introduced some ideas, but their cars were poorly built. Japanese cars were well built.

Lellostag

I would say you're not far off for sure, suppose the Germans merely have improved (at least that's no doubt their plan) on what others invented, not unlike the Japanese post-WW2.

Corpus Twisty

I'd imagine your average diy/professional mechanic wouldn't disagree OP. I know whenever I have to work on a german car, I roll my eyes, knowing that generally, here comes a pita.

bmstuff

MTBD wrote: »

I've been browsing car websites, forums, etc a lot over Christmas and have thus read lots of interesting stuff and even more nonsense. There seems to be a divided opinion on German cars among car fans. The casual car fan seems to think German stuff is amazing while the real enthusiasts seem pretty wary/skeptical of them. That would echo our own experience having had some appalling luck with VW/BMW, while Merc have always been good.

But aside from the reliability they do have a reputation for engineering excellence. I was looking through wikipedia's list of automotive superlatives and the sparseness of German ingenuity relative to the size of their industry is the one thing that struck me.

VW/Audi have almost never brought anything innovative. The only automotive firsts Audi have to their name is LED headlamps and laser headlights. VW have a DSG gearbox to their name...

Surprisingly BMW have not actually a lot more but again I don't think triple turbos, 6 speed autos, drive by wire or electric parking brakes are exactly groundbreaking.

Mercedes moved on the Wankel and turbo diesel engine a lot as well as having the first superchargers. Still, most of their innovations in the last 10 years are just luxury items or high tech style/comfort.

Compared to Alfa/Fiat/Lancia they are actually not innovative at all. And considering how small the Italians are now compared to the Germans this says even more.

Lancia: first superchargered and turbocharged car, first v6, first monocoque, first electronically adjustable aero device, first five speed manual, first spring/shock absorber, first ARB, first hydraulic shock absorbers, first 12v system, first adjustable steering column.

Alfa: first vvt engines, first common trail diesel, first twin supercharger car, first 6 speed manual, first locking differential, first fully independent suspension

Fiat: first aluminium heads, first direct injection diesel and first variable geo diesel turbo.

Almost everything I listed there from the Italians is still commonplace in modern cars or else really helped move the game on. Yet Italian cars are somehow considered inferior to the Germans. I don't get this reverence for unreliable BMWs and Audi's all the while innovative companies from Italy get slammed for unreliability despite being more reliable in my experience and considerably cheaper and easier to fix when they do go wrong.

The Japanese aren't all that innovative either but they have completely revolutionised car reliability and build quality.

The Swedes brought car safety to new levels.

Has brand engineering really gone this far? Aside from Mercedes, the Germans have brought the car world almost nothing new from what I can see yet are revered by many as the world leader. They do however excel at making outlandish claims about mpg, bhp, 0-60, etc

Am I wrong?

It is a bit more complex than that.

Many car manufacturers design, patent and build things that you do not even notice, but are clearly innovation.

Now yes from a drive train / suspension / security point of view, there is not a lot that is going to come up as revolutionary like some came up 60 years ago.

BMW, Toyota, Audi are 3 big players in that area. They have a huge numbers of patents and a good bit made it to the factory already.

Also you mention 6 speed auto, most of those manufacturers do not make gearboxes, they ask people like GM, ZF etc to do it for them. Well they choose a gearbox from their catalog. The same gearbox model is easily shared by 20-30 different car models/brands.
And today anyway, nothing unusual to have a 8 speeds automatic gearbox.

Each car produced in Germany at least, has over 100 parts suppliers. Many of those suppliers have patents on their own.

Today cars can park themselves, take the new G series from BMW. Press a button and your car drive itself in or out of the garage safely. Ideal for those tiny Irish home garages

Many innovations are out there in those new cars, but we take many of granted.

Many technologies were optional years ago, such as ABS, Airbag, Bluetooth etc. Today those are standard equipment.

From a design/quality point of view, Japanese cars are a lot cheaper to make than German cars, and the retail price reflects.

The Japanese engineering is simplicity at all levels. It works. Pretty or not up to you. Not especially nice to look at. It is cheap. It is plastic a lot. It serves its purpose.

I mean, as a front passenger on a brand new Civic for example, you can not adjust the height of the seat? Sorry but who does that? I barely fit in the thing already but then the seat can not be adjusted?
Right. Sorry I will pass.

The German engineering on mid to high end models is a lot more elaborated. More refined (Expect Opel really - Hence their much cheaper price compared to Audi/BMW, at least they are honest about their cars build quality).
Several entry level German cars are really the same as Japanese cars. Cheap. Take the 1 series. Take the A class and so on.

Now the main difference I find between Audi and BMW, is that Audi over engineer things. They make things they did not need to do. They over complicate things.

Maintaining and fixing a car gets easier and cheaper the more you know the car. Ask me to fix a Toyota tomorrow, I will spend more on parts that I spend on my BMW. I don't know Toyota parts.

Also from an innovation point of view, you clearly forgot Citroen and Renault. Those 2 companies invented a lot of things that are common things today in cars.

Marcusm

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Production efficiency and innovation are different things. British Leyland introduced some ideas, but their cars were poorly built. Japanese cars were well built.

I would agree with this; first mover advantage (innovation) is only critical where you have the resources (skills, efficiency, capital) to exploit it. Technology can more easily be perfected by those left standing after their innovations leaves them bankrupt!

power pants

german car makers just claimed to be so in their adverts and most people who watch these adverts believe it to be true

Chris_Heilong

All the timing chain issues with BMW a while back is just one example, I would totally say it is a myth OP, but then Toyota over the last few years have had many issues too, mostly because the manufacturing is done all around the world now and cheaper materials being used, the Japanese cars were better when they we built in Japan IMO.

Ded_Zebra

I think it is 100% myth that Germans are the best at engineering. The reason people believe that they are is because the germans themselves believe it too! When Japanese cars first became available in Europe the German car manufacturer's said that it would not significantly hurt their sales as people would appreciate the real quality of the german brands and would be happy to pay 30%+ more for them. How wrong they were! People flocked to the Japanese cars and not only that the quality of the Japanese cars was fantastic too. This resulted in the German government having to bailout the german automotive industry to keep it alive.

I believe that it wasn't just the automotive industry that suffered from this attitude in Germany, I believe the same happened with white goods (fridges etc) too.


There's a reason I own a Lancia and an Alfa Romeo It's a pity they are so under appreciated by most motoring enthusiasts.

Titzon Toast

It's a myth OP, ask any mechanic.
Japanese made cars have always and will always be better built.

Leonard Hofstadter

I think it would be fair to say that the Germans used to be the best at engineering, and there very much was a time when they were the most reliable (although it was always a toss up between them and the Japs of course). Remember the Mercs before the mid 90s? Absolutely indestructible.

BMWs used to be very reliable as well, the E34 was a very reliable car in its day. Back in the good old days the mainstray of the BMW engine range were their silky smooth naturally aspirated straight sixes, the M50 was a bulletproof engine and even the four cylinders weren't too bad either.

I think what happened is they got a bit too carried away with market research and realised that a lot of people sadly will buy any old tat once it has the 'right' badge, this is why we now have front wheel drive BMWs, the infamous timing chain problem and so on. The whole reason the premium German cars became so aspirational in the first place is because of their (well deserved) reputation for engineering excellence, also the mainstream manufacturers made awful manure by comparison to what the premium makes made, not just in terms of the cars themselves, but back in the olden days some of the mainstream brands were very unreliable, the likes of Lada and so on. And who can forget how bad the likes of Skoda, Hyundai and Kia were back then?

What's happened over the past 10-15 years is that the mainstream brands have improved beyond all recognition, you could happily drive 200 miles in say a Mazda 3 and get out as comfortable as you set off, in the olden days a smaller car was absolute torture to take that far and you really needed an expensive German car as they were far more comfortable and quiet. I don't think there is a such a thing as an unreliable mainstream car any more, they all seem pretty reliable to me (although I would say that Jap cars are certainly not what they used to be but are still very reliable by and large), even manufacturers which were unreliable in the past (such as Renault) no longer are. At the same time, the German manufacturers have rested on their laurels and know they can get away with any old rubbish, so that's what they do. There are still some fantastic German cars, the E92 M3 is an astonishing car and I'd really love to get a drive of the M135i or M235i (with a manual gearbox, of course), I'm also really excited by the return of straight six Mercedes too, but I think the gap between the premium makes and the mainstream stuff has never been narrower, especially when you look at the lower end of the premium range where in reality you're just paying for a 'better' badge.

Del2005

MTBD wrote: »

That would echo our own experience having had some appalling luck with VW/BMW, while Merc have always been good.

You must have missed the Merc Chrysler merger which resulted in Mercedes making complete dogs for about 10 years. It was supposed to bring German engineering excellence to a US manufacturer but brought US build quality to Merc instead.

The problem with the Italian cars was that they rusted faster than any other makes No point in being innovative if quality doesn't follow and IIRC didn't the head of Alfa say he'd rather make innovative cars than reliable ones, unfortunately the majority of people don't care how innovative a car is they want a car that goes every time they turn the key. Which is what the Japanese and Koreans have proven by selling boring reliable cars that people are buying in huge quantities compared to the innovative manufacturers.

AMKC

bmstuff wrote: »

It is a bit more complex than that.

Many car manufacturers design, patent and build things that you do not even notice, but are clearly innovation.

Now yes from a drive train / suspension / security point of view, there is not a lot that is going to come up as revolutionary like some came up 60 years ago.

BMW, Toyota, Audi are 3 big players in that area. They have a huge numbers of patents and a good bit made it to the factory already.

Also you mention 6 speed auto, most of those manufacturers do not make gearboxes, they ask people like GM, ZF etc to do it for them. Well they choose a gearbox from their catalog. The same gearbox model is easily shared by 20-30 different car models/brands.
And today anyway, nothing unusual to have a 8 speeds automatic gearbox.

Each car produced in Germany at least, has over 100 parts suppliers. Many of those suppliers have patents on their own.

Today cars can park themselves, take the new G series from BMW. Press a button and your car drive itself in or out of the garage safely. Ideal for those tiny Irish home garages

Many innovations are out there in those new cars, but we take many of granted.

Many technologies were optional years ago, such as ABS, Airbag, Bluetooth etc. Today those are standard equipment.

From a design/quality point of view, Japanese cars are a lot cheaper to make than German cars, and the retail price reflects.

The Japanese engineering is simplicity at all levels. It works. Pretty or not up to you. Not especially nice to look at. It is cheap. It is plastic a lot. It serves its purpose.

I mean, as a front passenger on a brand new Civic for example, you can not adjust the height of the seat? Sorry but who does that? I barely fit in the thing already but then the seat can not be adjusted?
Right. Sorry I will pass.

The German engineering on mid to high end models is a lot more elaborated. More refined (Expect Opel really - Hence their much cheaper price compared to Audi/BMW, at least they are honest about their cars build quality).
Several entry level German cars are really the same as Japanese cars. Cheap. Take the 1 series. Take the A class and so on.

Now the main difference I find between Audi and BMW, is that Audi over engineer things. They make things they did not need to do. They over complicate things.

Maintaining and fixing a car gets easier and cheaper the more you know the car. Ask me to fix a Toyota tomorrow, I will spend more on parts that I spend on my BMW. I don't know Toyota parts.

Also from an innovation point of view, you clearly forgot Citroen and Renault. Those 2 companies invented a lot of things that are common things today in cars.

Well said. I was going to say don,t forget the French car companies. I remember seeing a MK 1 Renault Laguna brochure in the showroom about 20 years ago and it had a list of a lot of inventions that Renault had brought to car design. I should have crapped one but there was only one there so I left it. It was proper brochure do not the skinny thing you got for some cars these days.

galwaytt

OP you're not far off the mark, but to be fair Audi did bring front wheel drive to the masses (not forgetting Lancia of course).

I love my TT, my 911. But my MX-5 (when i get it back together LOL), is a better car. The TT trumps the 911 in the quality dept hands down. Our high-mileages Saab is currently ill, so I've had the loan of an 06 Yaris 3-cylinder, and a 95 Cinq Sporting over Christmas. Of all the cars on the list, the Yaris & Cinq are the least likely to go wrong. Yet perversely are the cheapest to buy (new, that is...). The Cinq is a 95 and lives outside...and is rust-free....... the TT was bought with electronic problems (now cured) and the 911 is the motoring equivalent of a mobile grenade........with the pin missing.

As our Saab may be DOA this week, I've spent some time over the holidays window shopping and for no reason other than suitability and appeal, I've visited most dealers locally once........but have found myself in the Peugeot/Citroen/Renault garages either 2 or 3 times. I couldn't find any german car that would both appeal and offer the reliability & value. I'd like an A6, but the sheer premium they want for them is crazy.

Driving non-turbo'd, non DPF'd, non-diesel (!!), non electrickery cars for the last 2 weeks has shown me at any rate how far the car industry has strayed from providing a working product to providing 'lifestyle' choices (sic). This is the nonsense pension companies have peddled for years......

Dartz

German cars are a peculiar beast. They're designed to be reliable up to and until the warranty gives out, and nothing more. Its like Porsche's maxim - the best racecar is the one that falls apart right after the finish line.

Well, the finish line in VAG, BMW or Mercedes tends to be a few weeks after the warranty finally ends.

They are brilliantly engineered. But not in your favour.

MTBD

AMKC wrote: »

Well said. I was going to say don,t forget the French car companies. I remember seeing a MK 1 Renault Laguna brochure in the showroom about 20 years ago and it had a list of a lot of inventions that Renault had brought to car design. I should have crapped one but there was only one there so I left it. It was proper brochure do not the skinny thing you got for some cars these days.

I figured I had gone on enough without bringing up the other brands. French cars did cross my mind though, particularly Citroen.

Good to see that most people here seem to see through them. I don't think the general public has copped on to it yet.

As for merc reliability, I suppose we only owned a 1998 c class which was one of their most reliable cars. It was built like a tank. Then we had a 2005 f/l C class which was when they started to sort out a lot of the problems on certain cars. Merc certainly seem to do substantially better than other German brands in reliability surveys now. Even if those surveys are questionable at best in their methods.

They have had their fair share of crap in the early 2000s but I do consider Merc a cut above BMW and Audi in every area. Mercedes also make some seriously impressive commercial and agri vehicles which gives me a soft spot for them.

robtri

well this is the J.D. Power 2015 UK Vehicle Dependability Study...

dr.fuzzenstein

Ded_Zebra wrote: »

I think it is 100% myth that Germans are the best at engineering. The reason people believe that they are is because the germans themselves believe it too! When Japanese cars first became available in Europe the German car manufacturer's said that it would not significantly hurt their sales as people would appreciate the real quality of the german brands and would be happy to pay 30%+ more for them. How wrong they were! People flocked to the Japanese cars and not only that the quality of the Japanese cars was fantastic too. This resulted in the German government having to bailout the german automotive industry to keep it alive.

I believe that it wasn't just the automotive industry that suffered from this attitude in Germany, I believe the same happened with white goods (fridges etc) too.


There's a reason I own a Lancia and an Alfa Romeo It's a pity they are so under appreciated by most motoring enthusiasts.

It happened with cars, motorbikes, white goods (as you said), cameras, TV's, HiFi equipment, computers and the last one I'm aware of, CNC milling machines and probably a few more things. This happened from the 70's right to the 90's. Always the exact same way. The Japanese would make the same product better, for less money with more features, better warranty and (in a lot of cases) of better quality and reliability.
The German attitude has ALWAYS been that people will pay a premium for "Made in Germany". It took them 30 years to find out that this is not the case if the other product is cheaper AND better.
I remember an engineering test to prove how superior German engineering was over that shoddy Japanese crap. They took apart some ballbearings and measured how spherical the balls were. Turns out Japanese balls are more exactly round that German ones (ooh, Matron!).:D
The Germans never saw it coming, they just couldn't get their heads round the fact that they were outdone. As a German I can say this was in no small part down to hubris.