Quality

While shopping for a car recently, I spent some time looking at the ratings they were given on the Consumer Reports website. It lists the quality of a number of components and systems of a car. The ratings are poor, fair, good, very good, and excellent. It gives this information for several model years. I would think that every year every component would get better, or at least stay the same. But this isn't the case; the quality seems to fluctuate over time, which doesn't make too much sense to me. It would seem to me that the thing to do would be to work to perfect every part of the car before making any sweeping changes. Clearly, manufacturers don't do this. They are so concerned about getting the new model out that they sacrifice continued improvement for new features. For example, the new model year might have a cupholder that cools your drink, but they didn't take care of the bugs in the electrical system from the year before.

I would like to see one automotive company produce a car that stays the same from year to year except for trying to perfect the formula. Then, once that is taken care of, they could worry about making overall improvements. This would also result in a lower-cost car, since they wouldbn't have to change much in the manufacturing plants every year.

But, alas, logic is often sacrificed when there is money to be made.