{"id":538570,"date":"2026-07-08T03:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/538570\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T03:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:40:19","slug":"are-new-cars-lacking-in-quality-and-becoming-more-difficult-to-repair-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/538570\/","title":{"rendered":"Are new cars lacking in quality and becoming more difficult to repair? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are modern cars<\/a> really much worse, in quality terms, than their predecessors? <\/p>\n

Before we turn to the experiences of those who work with cars, let\u2019s look at some basic data. In the US market, the JD Power company has, for decades, been independently rating the \u201cinitial quality\u201d of new cars on sale, and ranking them brand by brand. <\/p>\n

Now, US model line-ups don\u2019t automatically tally with their European equivalents, but they\u2019re similar enough for the results to warrant our attention. <\/p>\n

JD Power\u2019s Initial Quality Survey rating is scored by problems per 100 vehicles, or PP100. These problems, recorded during the first 90 days of ownership, include simple complaints from owners about issues using voice recognition or annoyances with Bluetooth connectivity, but also include mechanical issues. <\/p>\n

So let\u2019s look back to 2010, where we find that the best-scoring brand that year was Porsche, which registered 83 problems per 100 cars, which, at less than one issue per car, looks pretty good. The average across the industry that year was 109 problems per 100 cars. <\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at 2025<\/a>, and the best-scoring brand, Lexus \u2013 a name synonymous with high quality and reliability \u2013 scored 166 problems per 100 cars. <\/p>\n

In 2025, the industry average was 192 problems per 100 cars. It\u2019s worth noting that the JD Power survey counts all reported issues, from infotainment frustrations to mechanical defects, rather than measuring long-term durability. <\/p>\n

There was a bit of an improvement in the 2026 numbers, but that still saw the best-performing brand, Porsche, log 138 problems per 100 cars, and the industry average stands at 175 problems per 100 cars. <\/p>\n

Which brings us to a yard in rural Offaly. It houses the workshop of Morgan Maher Motors, and Morgan Maher himself has decided to swerve the quality question and opt for a 25-year-old Nissan Patrol instead. <\/p>\n

\"MorganMorgan Maher of Morgan Maher Motors in Offaly with one of his restored Nissan Patrols <\/p>\n

Maher loves Patrols, having fallen for the model when he saw them, as a child, when they were used by the Irish Defence Forces as escort cars for cash-in-transit vans. <\/p>\n

Now, he spends his working hours restoring Patrols \u2013 mostly the Y61 model, built from 1997 until 2024 in some countries, but on sale in Ireland until the July 2008 motor tax changes wiped out its pricing structure. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have a Patrol out there with a 4.2 engine, which has a throttle cable and no exhaust gas recirculation, nothing really. But that engine is so reliable<\/a>. I think the difference is that back then, someone was set a task to design something, say a bracket for holding the alternator, and their only task was to do that as good as it could be done. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow? It\u2019s like \u2018okay, we need an alternator bracket \u2013 what\u2019s the cheapest one we can buy? What\u2019s the smallest? What\u2019s the lightest?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, driving one of Maher\u2019s restored Patrols makes it easy to understand why enthusiasts remain so attached to older engineering. For an almost 30-year-old car, the Patrol I sampled was certainly slow \u2013 the old 2.8 diesel is low on power by modern standards \u2013 but also unstressed, smooth, and seemingly milled from a solid block, rather than assembled from components. <\/p>\n

Maher\u2019s not the only one concerned about the long-term reliability of modern machinery<\/a>. <\/p>\n

David Corbally, who runs ServiceStop, an independent garage in north county Dublin, says: \u201cI would hate to be in a situation where I\u2019m selling cars, rather than repairing them, because they\u2019re so unpredictable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Corbally of Service Stop in Oldtown, Co Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the problem is with consumer law. And more onus needs to be put on the carmakers.\u201d He argues they should bear greater responsibility for long-term durability. <\/p>\n

Corbally thinks that the reward system, as he puts it, should be changed so that carmakers are rewarded for making cars that last and are easier to repair when they age. <\/p>\n

He believes financial pressures <\/a>have increasingly influenced engineering decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have accountants making engineering decisions,\u201d says Corbally. \u201cIt\u2019s dressed up as being environmentally friendly, but it\u2019s not. And then Covid had a huge impact on the supply chain, which was then impacted again by the war in Ukraine. So then you had carmakers scrambling to find new suppliers and, inevitably, you\u2019re going to get quality shortfalls in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there are the delays. Corbally says he has been quoted 10 weeks for delivery <\/a>of an important component from a carmaker, a component \u2013 a battery, as it happens \u2013 that requires the upfront payment of \u20ac8,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re lucky; that customer was able to pay us up front <\/a>and he can manage that. What if it was a family who only have the payment for the car and not much else, though?\u201d asks Corbally. \u201cSo this has been paid for, but if the supplier goes bust in the morning, I\u2019m down \u20ac8,000 and still have no battery. If I go bust, my customer is down \u20ac8,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is without getting into the realms of software. Nissan recently suspended some software support for older Leaf models, to the chagrin of some owners. There are also concerns being raised about who exactly owns the software in a car when it\u2019s being continuously updated. <\/p>\n

The carmakers would argue that today\u2019s cars are much safer, environmentally cleaner, far more resistant to corrosion, and therefore more durable than ever before. They regularly point to engines and motors covering hundreds of thousands of kilometres. <\/p>\n

Maher and Corbally, however, contend that increasingly complex software<\/a>, expensive electronics and technically advanced repair requirements have replaced traditional mechanical faults with a host of new problems. <\/p>\n

So we\u2019re facing an uncertain future, with EV battery longevity still a developing science, ongoing debate over component quality as car makers fend off intense cost pressures to compete globally, especially against rapidly expanding Chinese competitors, and the potential for more expensive repairs, which take longer and longer to complete. <\/p>\n

Modern cars may be safer and cleverer than ever. Whether they\u2019ll prove better over 20 years on our roads is another matter. There might be a defensive case to be made for older cars yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are modern cars really much worse, in quality terms, than their predecessors? Before we turn to the experiences…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,8856,61,60,14835,30479],"class_list":["post-538570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-motors","tag-nissan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}