Are Carmakers making Americans the Guinea Pigs?

[flyingfridge]

I was just going through my video collection the other day, and was watching an old episode of Fifth Gear, where Tom Ford reviewed the Nissan Murano. Towards the end, he came up with an interesting little tidbit on information. The Murano had been on sale in America for over two years before they brought it to Europe, and indeed, Australia has just got it too. Now for the European version, over 300 changes had been made to the car and it is, according to Tom, James May and Jeremy Clarkson, excellent.

So my question is this. Has Nissan figured out that it doesn't matter how under developed a car from Japan or Europe is, it will always be better put together and better quality than your average American produced car. So have they made a car, done the usual testing guff, then put it on sale in America where the folks over there will think it's an excellent looking excellent quality machine and snap them up, while Nissan quietly logs and fixes all the problems until it's up to a standard where it can be sold in Europe and Australia and be called excellent?

I think Nissan may be on to something...

 

[Vette Boss]

Nissan steadily improves their cars every year, for instance, the first year of the 3rd-gen Altima (2002) had a bunch of problems, several were fixed for 2003, more for 2004, and some new styling updates a year later. Nissan has a bunch of TSBs too, known problems with the car the dealer will repair for free, without recall.

What Nissan must be doing is taking all the TSBs and applying them to Aussie/Euro cars before they're even released.

 

[fbc]

It would depend on what the changes are - some would have to do with European regulations, other would be the usual changes that are made during a vehicle's life cycle, others like suspension tuning would be suit european tastes and yet others would as you suggest have been done to match the different customer perceptions and expectations quality-wise in Europe and Australia.

 

[flyingfridge]

Vette Boss << My point precisely.

 

[Dr. Woo]

Automakers are continually striving to improve imperfections in first-year models. To apply these fixes to cars sold in different markets is not only a good idea, it just wouldn't make sense to do otherwise.

What you are talking about is sheer coincidence. Look at how long VW/Audi waits to release new models in the States. Are they using Europe as a guinea pig for America? No.

 

[flyingfridge]

Don't be so serious Dr. Woo. Have a laugh at the prospect and how ironic it would be if it were true...

You never know, it might be...

 

[BlaRo]

We're too dumb to know, anyway.

 

[ArosaMike]

I think it's quite common that car companies improve the cars through there product life. If you compare a very early car to an end of line one, there are tonnes of differences in the interior alone. I guess there's constant pressure to make things cheaper, more robust and better throughout a cars lifecycle

 

[gtrietsc]

Dr. Woo is right. There are plenty of cars that come here after they are released elsewhere..

Look at the Focus - it debuted to high acclaim in Europe. It definately changed the segment.

But that didn't stop it from having several recalls in it's first couple of years here in the US...

 

[AutoMX]

as far as i know the murano is assembled in the US for the US market so it would be natural to release it here before elsewhere. imagine recalling every car from the ukraine to spain and getting them all serviced and shipped who knows where, and then shipped back just because blah blah broke and needs repair.

 

[Z Draci]

The Murano was initially a car designed and marketed specifically for the US market. It is even made in the US! Selling the car in Japan and Europe was a second priority.

Usually, Japanese and European drivers demand a little more from cars than Americans. They make changes to make it more competitive in those markets--stiffen the suspension, increase engine power, closer ratio gearbox, etc.

Most often, the American and the European versions of Japanese cars are different. This is where Americans get the terms Euro-spec this and JDM that. European and Japanese spec cars are usually better because it is more aggressively tuned.

 

[flyingfridge]

Yes you are correct, the Murano was designed for America, and I believe the real reason for the delay was initially to wait for the demand to slow down so they could start producing overseas ones in RHD and Euro spec, and the business case also had to be put forward, subjected to public inquiry, lost, found and eventually buried in some soft peat and recycled as firelighters before it could be accepted (Gotta love the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and general corporationy stuff).

The thought is still an interesting one.