In article ,
Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 17:05:40 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Crikey. And you don't think the crappy design of much of the product
mattered?

I'll give you a clue. The Japanese made their reputation by selling
pretty ordinary cars which were designed to last their service life
without breaking down.

We're clearly thinking of different 1970s Japanese cars. The ones I'm
thinking of rotted even worse than their contemporary European rivals -
and that really was saying something.

Often not a concern of those buying them new.
What did appeal to a new car buyer was getting one which worked correctly
out of the box, and continued to do so.

BL and BMC before them had appalling quality control. Makes no difference
if it was down to poor assembly or whatever, they sold cars with faults
and expected the dealer to rectify them.

Now I dunno about you, but I'd not be pleased to having my new car going
back to the dealer for rectification - and perhaps several times. The
first Jap vehicles avoided this. In much the same way as they'd done with
motorcycles.

By the time the vehicle gets to the very used car market where structural
rust might be an issue, such rectification will already have been done. So
you're left with more normal wear and tear replacements.

Oh - I've seen BL cars straight from the factory with rust showing. And
the motoring press of the time was full of such reports.

It was into the '80s when the Japanese motor industry really started to
become a force to be reckoned with. About a decade after BL's nadir.

Dunno quite when you'd define BL's nadir. It was set up from a number of
failed or failing companies, so hardly a good start. And throughout the
life of BL those same old companies fought one another tooth and nail.
Hardly a recipe for success.

But the easy way is to blame it all on the unions.

--
*I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.