Quote:
Originally Posted by ToyotaObsession
They don't have respect, because for years they churned out cheap, broken crap.
It has nothing to do with winning races.
But they have turned it around, and while they aren't as reliable as Toyota and Honda they are climbing. More importantly the way people perceive them has changed to being very reliable.
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I have a theory on reliable manufacturers. Hyundai/Kia being Korean and Honda/Toyota/Nissan being Japanese have to eat their own dog food. Anyone visiting Korea/Japan would know that the masses abuse the hell out of the cars purely based on traffic being like LA or NYC everywhere. stop/go, all day long. Thus the success in catering to the native countries' needs makes the cars as reliable up to the abuse that their respective country will dole out on the car.
Not sure Mitsubishi really falls into that theory though...
You look at the wide open german countries and even VW Jettas were made to be excellent high-speed highway cruisers...
Anyway up until about 10-15 years ago, Hyundai licensed prior generation designs from Mercedes and I think Honda/Toyota and sold them under the Hyundai brand in Korea. I think there was a lot of R&D borrowing to establish itself to finally get to where they are now, but it wasn't w/out a lot of learning along the way.