>so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps
Not a Tesla owner or fan but I have a question that's really bugging me now: Which customers really care about panel gaps?
Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"?
When has the panel gap became "the benchmark" indicative of car quality beyond the body shell?
Like, if the panel gaps are the only thing you can find wrong in a car, then it must be a really really good car, right?
Is there any proven evidence that the panel gaps corelate to quality and reliability of the rest of the car, or is it just a myth of the car enthusiasts community that got spread around and went too far? I get it, some Tesla are unreliable and built poorly, but it's not because they have big panel gaps. The reverse is also true for many cars, so this isn't a rule.
Sure, if you want to measure and compare panel gaps, then by all means go ahead and measure panel gaps, but please don't pretend they mean anything more than that, and that it's somehow an indicative for the car's overall quality and reliability, because so far there hasn't been any proof of this correlation.
Aren't those cars (McLaren/Ferrari) also horribly uncomfortable and lacking in a lot of other amenities (like sound systems or tech)? It feels like those cars are a completely different category of good, and trying to measure them on the same scale is misguided.
To me, panel gaps are a proxy for how much faith you have in your consistency and quality control.
>To me, panel gaps are a proxy for how much faith you have in your consistency and quality control.
I beg to differ. Modern German cars might have panel gaps tighter than a nun's fanny, but their reliability, especially after warranty is over, is so awful than in no way can I say that they represent quality. Those quality cars went away in the late '80s early '90s when the engineers got replaced by the bean counters and cars became white goods with many critical parts outsourced to the lowest bidding contractor, that must look 'cool' in the showroom, but fail the second the warranty runs out, or many times even before that.
To me, the panel gaps are a superficial metric of quality and prove nothing of substance that goes beyond body shell.
Why don't we measure quality by how reliable a car is over time and how long it lasts? Surely that would prove good consistency and quality control on the manufacturer's side, no?
Tight panel gaps only shows how much efort the manufacturer has put in the body, but says nothing about the quality and reliability of the electronics and mechanics, which is what really matters in a car for most people.
Does that prove a direct correlation between reliability and panel gaps, or could it be merely a coincidence?
According to the article:
> "the Audi E-Tron and Volkswagen ID.4 were singled out as being unreliable"
So if Audi and VW are also unreliable then the panel gaps prove as a poor signal for reliability, which was my original point.
Edit after your reply below: Sure, Tesla has poor reliability, but not because it has poor panel gaps. Those two can be completely disconnected. Just because they coincide sometimes, doesn't make this a rule of thumb like some car snobs try to convince you of.
You can easily have cars with great panel gaps that are incredibly unreliable, and vice versa. Panel gaps mean nothing more than panel gaps.
I'm just pointing out that we can have both reliability and tight panel gaps. We have the technology. They are separate things.
As are different models within a single manufacturer. I love my Ford, would highly recommend it, but would never buy or recommend a Pinto or a Bronco II.
The point people typically make is that Tesla has uncommonly poor panel gaps, which point to poor quality and tolerance control in their manufacturing. This is a complex skill that automakers have been refining for 100 years. It is indicative of something, just as the quality of paint job indicates the care and quality with which a hot rod was built.
Sure, I definitely agree reliability is important, and that just because something can be build exactly to spec doesn't mean that spec is going to be reliable.
For me at least, i don't actually think of something like panel gaps as a reliability indicator, but rather it is one of many indicators of whether more quality of life stuff is going to go wrong (ie door rattling, buttons becoming loose or fiddly, etc). These things don't stop me from getting from A to B, but at that price point they're still important considerations.
Aren't those sport cars, basically? Luxury sport cars that don't sell comfort at all - they sell power, speed and "I am cool cause I am powerful and fast" look.
Just the sheer height of modern pickups and SUV is a safety nightmare (for others). I recently walked past a ferrari and I was shocked by how low it is to the ground and how inoffensive it looks nowadays compared to the tanks everyone has.
If a lambo was barreling towards me I could probably just hop over. Not that they would want to go particularly fast anyway in the city, if they care about the underside of the car.
Thing is, no one else has them. It's a real achievement for Tesla that the doors don't align with the body when every other car, no matter how cheap, manages to not do that.
What's sold in Europe at least.
So you'll forgive me that I don't trust the rest of the car either.
Source: I've driven a friend's brand new Tesla. The rear right door didn't align with the body.
Also I couldn't figure out how to manipulate the a/c, the turn signal stalk was too smart for me and kept turning the signals off at the wrong time * etc. Too bad about that engine.
* I have a feeling their designers only ever drove on wide american streets that have only 90 degree intersections. For the life of me i couldn't get the turn signal to stay when the main road was going right and i was trying to get on a secondary road that was like 30 degrees to the left. Probably because i was basically going straight ahead from the point of view of the car at the start.
> Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"?
Average Joes and soccer moms in a typical suburban area cannot even afford Teslas and are extremely happy with their Odysseys, Seinnas and Pacificas. Even an Audi A5 is cheaper than a Model 3 in most cases and Audi's ride quality and cabin noise is extremely better than any Tesla I have ridden in. Audi interiors (though not as good as its other German competitors) beat Tesla by a mile.
As per this thread "average discerning German car buyer". I don't know why the fuck everyone else should give a shitb about the opinions of the "average discerning German car buyer". Is he some kind of Nordic ideal car buyer everyone else should aspire towards?!
Not once in my life has anyone talked about car panel gaps except on web forums when demonstrating Teslas or rubbish. I had one poster explain to me what is and what is not a luxury car. Alright man, good for you!
People may not use the term "panel gap" but "hey that Tesla looks like it has big gaps between the fender and door". Who the fuck cares what forums think when normal everyday people notice it too and may not know the word?
If the panel gap is not "neat", which is not the same as "small", then it looks bad.
I don't know if I could find a source, but it would probably be something like Forbes in the '80's: Lee Iacocca (of Chrysler) said that they learned from Japanese collaboration that if they made their gaps wider, then they appeared neater because they appeared parallel. And it was cheaper to make a wider gap, and it was easier for QA to pass the cars. Otherwise the cars would have to be whacked with mallets until the narrow gaps looked right, and that slows the line, and that indirectly adds cost.
[This doesn't mean that the Japanese collaborators were making huge panel gaps on their own cars, it simply indicates that Iacocca('s people) got a certain idea from them]
You'll care about panel gaps when there's snow in your trunk or blowing around in your cabin. You also might care that your car looks like it was in an accident and repaired by an amateur.
In a way though you're right - no one cared about panel gaps until Tesla came along because until then even the cheapest of the cheap manufacturers were able to get that right.
I use to read about the panels gaps on the Tesla and thought so what? Then as more Tesla's started to show up on the road and I saw what they were talking about I finally get it.
The cars looks like they were in an accident and had their body panels poorly repaired/reassembled.
I think that most car buying is motivated by far far more than delivered value. There's so much status and image wrapped up in cars that thigh there are some who care little about the car, nearly everyone chooses something that fits their perception of themselves.
The reason that there are so many super-expensive pickup trucks on the road is not because people are hauling around things that require a pickup, for example. And when combined with the face that pickup beds are becoming increasingly useless...
Umm, except the cars the average joe buys depreciate in value, while the supercars the rich buy usually apreciate in value, kind of like art, so wouldn't it make more sense that panel gaps are more important for that market?
Does having tighter panel gaps help with the resale value for the average joes?
Supercars absolutely depreciate in value minus select limited releases (which holds true for non-supercars as well). Look at standard Lamborghini Gallardos, Ferrari F430s/458s, and Aston Martins of any model and you will see that some of these cars are worth less than half what their original buyers paid for them.
This isn’t true. Your average super car does not appreciate in value when you consider factors like maintenance and the fact that you have to buy a bunch of other garbage to even be put on the delivery list for a desirable car’s production. For example, actually buying a top spec 911 isn’t feasible if you don’t have a good relationship with your dealer.
Notwithstanding the fact that the market for super cars is nothing like the market for Teslas or 5ers.
Not a Tesla owner or fan but I have a question that's really bugging me now: Which customers really care about panel gaps?
Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"?
When has the panel gap became "the benchmark" indicative of car quality beyond the body shell?
Like, if the panel gaps are the only thing you can find wrong in a car, then it must be a really really good car, right?
Is there any proven evidence that the panel gaps corelate to quality and reliability of the rest of the car, or is it just a myth of the car enthusiasts community that got spread around and went too far? I get it, some Tesla are unreliable and built poorly, but it's not because they have big panel gaps. The reverse is also true for many cars, so this isn't a rule.
Sure, if you want to measure and compare panel gaps, then by all means go ahead and measure panel gaps, but please don't pretend they mean anything more than that, and that it's somehow an indicative for the car's overall quality and reliability, because so far there hasn't been any proof of this correlation.