re: Has Kia really come far in reliability over the years? *Telluride related*

quote:

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Hyundai and Kia are the same thing.

As far as reliability, they are much better than MINI, Fiat, Dodge or Ford. They are about on par with Nissan, VW, Mazda, or Chevrolet. They are way behind Toyota or Honda.

Your results with vary. I’ve had family members with an atrociously bad Genesis. Some friends also had great look with a Kia Optima.

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Your post is indicative of two things.

First, you are mainly dealing with anecdotal data points and long term perception. Consumer Reports provides the best data-driven information on reliability and dependability you can get outside the industry and they show a different picture than you paint with Kia and Hyundai. They score rather differently despite ownership. Long term perception is ingrained in people that loosely follow the industry but two companies pop out at me as being perception based. Honda (and Acura) have gone down significantly in recent years in terms of reliability and Mazda had jumped up significantly. Data shows Mazda has moved well ahead of Honda. However, perception lags significantly behind reality.

The other point you make is very salient, model (also model year) is extremely important when looking at reliability. While Toyota/Lexus has many models at the very top of reliability they also have models that are middling, normally due to one or more pattern issues. The problem here is given a 1st year of production the only thing one has to consider is the recent overall reliability of the brand.

One thing to note that helps keep Toyota/Lexus at the very top of the pyramid is their reluctance to embrace new technology. All that nifty tech in Ram trucks drags them down for example.

All that said if I had to bet I would guess the Telluride will be middle of the pack in reliability in its first year and will likely have at least one pattern issue that is either an inconvenience or stupefyingly maddening for the owners that have it.