You're spot on with the points you raised. If only the Europeans can dial up their reliability factor and find some way to reduce their parts pricing, they could actually be very enticing. Parts pricing can be reduced if manufactured in low cost countries but I doubt their strong unions would allow that.

People rarely deny that average European cars simply drive better than the average Japanese car. They have a better feel and are easily more connected to the road they are on. They just need to build in reliability and lower parts costs. Again, like you said, it is in the priorities of these European companies. Perhaps for this market in Malaysia, they need to do a lot more rather than just depend on their performance, ride, handling, safety. What most average Malaysians want is reliability and low cost of ownership then only comes performance, ride, handling et al. And, they want reliability without the hassle of going to source for these parts on their own. Many of my Peugeot owning friends need to buy parts from Singapore simply because of the lower taxes there which makes part pricing a little more acceptable. The Europeans already have build quality, driving dynamics and brand strength. They just need to up their game. Malaysians gave Peugeot and VW their chance and well, they blew it. Anything with a Prince engine or anything that says DSG are kept far away, further than a 10-foot pole. This can also be seen in their poor residuals and reluctance by used car dealers to take in these cars.

B and C segment cars are usually bought by those who may not have a second car and having a car that is off the road for weeks causes the owner unnecessary downtime. This downtime is perhaps ok with those who have a second car or have a company car but for many, that car is their source of income - getting to and fro work. It is worse if the owner is in a sales related business where the car must perform reliably at all times. Imagine the appointments missed, the cases lost etc. People want to buy European cars but the Europeans need to give people what they want and add in their own flair for design, performance and handling etc.

Malaysians generally want a reliable appliance to drive around but if that appliance also comes with great brand, history and good handling plus safety, why not? This perhaps explains why the Japanese brands always top our sales charts. They're simply just more reliable. Mercedes Benz is perhaps the only European brand that can build something that is reliable but can they do cars for the masses? I doubt they have that skill set. Perhaps they may have but then again, they would probably prefer to milk the rich of the country...more profitable. It is the mid range brands that seriously need to up their reliability and service experience if they want to have a strong shot at this market.

No, no, no...

Definitely the driver... Although I had no balls to be driving a stock Kancil at 140KMH but I have sat in one that did that speed before. It was scary shit but the driver dont think so.

IT HAS TO BE THE DRIVER.

Coming from someone who drives both.

European cars tend to have stiffer chassis and better judged damping and spring rates which gives better ride and handling. They also have more sound proofing and damping materials, so NVH are usually better. The engines usually turbocharged , which gives ample torque for overtaking. Their weakness is of course reliability and their R&D is more focus on performance and less focus on "what could go wrong and how do we make sure that it doesn't happen".
For example, they could have implemented some form of active cooling for the DSG gearbox to improve reliability but they didn't. A simple design say heatsink and fan that cost say usd150 to implement might have reduced the failure rate by half.

The only Japanese that drives like a European car is Mazda. Mazda drives more European like but the NVH is below Japanese. I think if Mazda had a turbo option, improve their NVH, we might have a Japanese that exceed European in all aspects.

What is nvh? Sounds like Mazda very good

Noise, Vibration, Harshness.

DSG rarely have issues related to heat, this issue hits the Ford Powershift DCTs. The DSG was designed in mind to have the efficiency of a manual with the advantage of quicker gear shifts compared to the normal torque converter automatics. In my opinion, what plagued the DSG was because of the focus on high speed efficiency and acceleration, which in the german home market, their autobahns' slow lane is at least 140km/h.

Their market don't really need to deal much with traffic jams, so they left that out in the equation of the initial DQ200 unit (i presume) and designed it to be maintenance free without the need to change transmission fluids. Generally fine in home market, but when introduced to outside market starting in China, all hell breaks loose after just a handful of years of ownership. The frequent 1 2 3 gear shifts in a heavy traffic situation wares out the mechatronic module and coupled with the fact that consumers don't really understand that the dry clutch DSG actually houses a pair of clutch which wears of like what a manual gearbox does, a lot of complains were raised from the cost of maintenance.

Hopefully, the DSG's starting from the new Jetta and upcoming passat can last longer as they incorporated improvements to reliability and also shifting behaviour to be less harsh on slow crawl situations. I can't confirm it, but it could be the newly improved 7 speed wet clutch unit.

All your stated points shall be fulfilled in the upcoming CX9. There are already a number of video reviews for this model.

This post has been edited by wkc5657: Nov 4 2016, 11:06 AM

Exactly, not to mention Malaysians also lump US cars into the so called 'Conti car' label. I really see no point in that, coz they are all still pretty different.
I remember the first time I knew about this terminology when a colleague of mine asked me what do I think about buying "Conti cars'. Then I asked her back, what car is that?? Then she explained (with a rather confused face coz she knew I like cars but how come I did not know Conti cars?) that it's European and US car brands. So then I said, which brand, coz they are different cars, even among German cars they are quite different so I say cannot generalize like that, coz for example I might consider buying Mercedes but certainly not VW even though both are German cars. IMHO this conti car term is just pointless.

Maybe shd just stick to our grandparents definition on this. Angmo car vs jipun car( milo tin) Don't think those days China/ Korea produced any car yet!

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

But oi Lexus models and higher end Toyota models(i.e: Harrier, Prado, Cygnus) are not milo tin alright haha.

Infinity vs Lexus which 1 better?

Both are equally a level above the Nissan and Toyota brand so hard to say which is better lol. But in Malaysia, I don't think there is any authorised dealer or service centre for Infinity though(none in EM) so for ease of mind on parts and servicing, Lexus is the brand to go for if I'm to choose in between the two.

Exactly.

Though there are OEM parts that are significantly cheaper than original parts (which are expensive in Europe too!), but for some reason only Singaporean stockists seem to bring them in. No clue why. I used to get OEM parts for the Renault from Singapore. Original parts the savings weren't really worth bothering, might as well buy from the SC.

Reliability needs to improve, sure, though these modern cars need to be driven differently too. You can't drive them like these old cars. They are more sensible, but with proper care they should do well.

Btw., the latest results of the German TÜV results were released. German brands (especially Merc) seem to be as reliable as Japanese brands, but IMHO maybe it's just owners taking more care of their ride.

Balls of steel. Balls of steel. There are cars, where 140 feels like nothing at all, where you don't need to do much, and cars where you are on the edge because it requires a ton of input. IMHO it usually has a lot to do with the power steering too. If it is too strong at high speeds, you're in big trouble.

Singaporeans have it like this (if I'm mistaken, do advise accordingly ya): They buy cars expensive, way more expensive than us but have low to no tax for spare parts and that's why their parts are always cheaper. Ours is a trade off in the other way...

Infinity is under TC! Nissan family! So you are in Sabah or Sarawak ? No wonder all the models that you mentioned were 4wd!

You had forgotten Acura...there 3 makes are Asian (Japanese) equivalent to Continentals (European). American is another giant by itself.

I'm well aware that Infinity = Nissan and Lexus = Toyota for Europe which is why i stated "Nissan and Toyota" in the 1st place. Having said that this is not the case for Malaysia, since Nissan's authorized dealer which is TC officially doesn't carry Infinity models.

Also we have stand alone Lexus as authorized dealer for Lexus models.

My points are both Lexus and Infinity models are jipun made and are by all means no where close to 'milo tin' and in terms of offering spec, luxury and feature wise, both are a level above of what local Nissan and Toyota models can offer.

Why Lexus and infinity is Nissan and Toyota but they want make different company name? Is it to confuse people ? Don't they want expand their range of cars under same name and increase their status?

Must be something wrong with their cars they don't dare put same brand right?

well.... those who go for luxury cars when looking at toyota and Nissan... they will always assume is for the mid to high executives... generally their highest range of cars doesnt even come close to the luxuriousness of Merc or BMW... however by using a more premium name... they can easily create a new luxury identity for them... and also target different market range so that the luxury buyers wont get confused...

I guess individual perception varies, to me Lexus LS series are the equivalent for merc/bmw both in terms of comfort and performance.

The same goes to Infinity Q50/60 series, they are just superb!

The feel when sit inside same?