Interesting stats. I notice cheaper cars start to dominate in later years.
One obvious conclusion is that they are cheaply made but I wonder how much is the possibly sensible decision of owners of low cost cars to skip expensive regular maintenance and wait for something to fail a legally required test before getting it fixed?
Now that I think about it, I think the last time these stats were shared there was some chatter about these faults being caught and fixed by service mechanics before the test in other brands. Can't quite remember the mechanism by which such fixes wouldn't be counted in these stats though. Possibly just Tesla fan copium, there's a lot of that about.
I dropped my car to dealership and asked them to do MOT for me as service. They will first check everything and likely call me for approval to fix it. Or if under warranty do the repairs under warranty without prompt. Thus clear visible issues will be handled even before car arrives in inspection. This covers things like tires, lights, but also suspension components or if OBH tells something is wrong.
In general the inspection is not even attempted if there is something to fix.
People who skip the regular maintenance either don't understand the outsized impact it will have on long term reliability and the eventual costs, or they do but they have more pressing matters to address with that money.
> In general the inspection is not even attempted if there is something to fix.
Where I live in Central/Western Europe the sheer number of cars which can't possibly drive in legal conditions (rolling chimney stack exhaust or stadium light headlights) astonishes me. They get the "all green" at the inspection regardless of what needs to be fixed.
Well because you can remove all of this for the inspection and then put it back on after, even if we ignore straight up bribery to pass the test, which still exists in places. It should be the job of the road enforcement teams to find these people, stop them and impound the car until it's brought back to a road worthy condition. And there are some European countries which are very good at this and if you drive with some wonky car that is clearly not compliant you will be stopped, and some where such enforcement is almost non existent.
> Well because you can remove all of this for the inspection and then put it back on after, even if we ignore straight up bribery to pass the test
I'm not talking (only) about after market modding, rolling coal, or xenon upgrades but about plain old unmaintained clunkers. This is deep in "bribery to pass the test" territory. and law enforcement isn't willing to do anything about it on the road even if spotting these cars is trivial. Look out for a smoke plume during the day, or for the rolling artificial sun at night.
And this is in the country which is the source of clunkers for everyone else, not the destination.
Many cars in the belt from Lithuania through Poland down to Romania are cars imported from Germany and USA with status "totaled". The reincarnation procedure includes deactivating and cutting off ad blue, DPF and other sorcery.
There should be no scheduled maintenance the first two or three years, other than maybe tires and oil change, but skipping those don't "cause defects".
Typical faults that cause failure are; uneven brake force, badly aligned headlights, uneven tire wear, play and wear in suspension components, and so on.
One obvious conclusion is that they are cheaply made but I wonder how much is the possibly sensible decision of owners of low cost cars to skip expensive regular maintenance and wait for something to fail a legally required test before getting it fixed?
Now that I think about it, I think the last time these stats were shared there was some chatter about these faults being caught and fixed by service mechanics before the test in other brands. Can't quite remember the mechanism by which such fixes wouldn't be counted in these stats though. Possibly just Tesla fan copium, there's a lot of that about.