Working on German vs Japanese Cars

[EricTheCarGuy]

I have the pleasure of knowing Charles Sanville aka The HumbleMechanic. We were driving back from a job one day in Atlanta traffic and had a discussion about the differences between working on Japanese cars vs German cars. Here’s that conversation.

Topic

[zero]

Germans, 90% more engineering and 20% more parts for 5% better performance.

C’mon VW… Triple square? was Torx just not good enough for you? And we won’t just put it somewhere most people will never see, we’ll use it to put the brakes together.

Most Asian imports are fairly logical and more modular in their design. Less power train choices makes designing them to fit easier and parts more readily available. Look at Honda a few years ago, they only had 4 different engines. 4! Nissan tries to be the Euro manufacturer out of the bunch by jamming everything in as tight as they can.

[Mike]

There’s a kind of national flavor that trickles down into a nation’s education system and engineering philosophy. German cars are different from Japanese, just as British cars are different from Italian. And I’m convinced the French are cribbing stuff from the Martians.

It isn’t just the engineering, but the design as well. The interior layout and aesthetics in different foreign vehicles are all different from each other, with each nationality having a distinctive flair.

Thank God for diversity. The world would be much less interesting if everything resembled a Honda Civic.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”Evil-i” post=166866]There’s a kind of national flavor that trickles down into a nation’s education system and engineering philosophy. German cars are different from Japanese, just as British cars are different from Italian. And I’m convinced the French are cribbing stuff from the Martians.

It isn’t just the engineering, but the design as well. The interior layout and aesthetics in different foreign vehicles are all different from each other, with each nationality having a distinctive flair.

Thank God for diversity. The world would be much less interesting if everything resembled a Honda Civic.[/quote]

That’s an excellent observation. Thanks for your input.

[Greg]

You can thank Taiichi Ohno for the simplicity of Japanese cars.
There is way too much to type about but if you are interested in why Japanese cars are built the way they are google the Toyota production system. It will give you great insight into lean manufacturing and why Japanese cars are so simple to work on.

This might even be a good topic for discussion. Adopting lean manufacturing methodology for fixing cars.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”gmule” post=166911]You can thank Taiichi Ohno for the simplicity of Japanese cars.
There is way too much to type about but if you are interested in why Japanese cars are built the way they are google the Toyota production system. It will give you great insight into lean manufacturing and why Japanese cars are so simple to work on.

This might even be a good topic for discussion. Adopting lean manufacturing methodology for fixing cars.[/quote]

That does sound like a good discussion. Thanks for the input.

[Michael Crumlett]

I kinda dug how you mentioned that you don’t need any specialty tools to work on Japanese cars. It helped me keep my happy thoughts when I had to go buy a 50mm, offset, external hex socket to do a timing belt on my neighbor’s Odyssey. Gonna use that again.

[Lars Buchholz]

Hi all,

Im a bit late to this discussion.
But hey, im a new member here! 🙂

Comming from Germany means that i should defend VW and Audi tech.
But i cant! 😛

While i was working on my own cars (Toyotas) and compare that to friends cars (VW, OPEL) i recognized the tendency to protect their own dealership by requiring a workshop to own a bunch of special tools.
I once wanted to do a favor for a girl and replaced the brake pads on her Golf. I had to improvise a tool to wind the brake pistons back in :angry:
What i also missed on some engines (older 1.6l VW) was a marker on the sprockets for the timing belt to align them :ohmy:

Working on Toyotas was much more foolproof.

But things become muddy now since my current Toyota is made in Czech republic and is a coopreation with Citroen and Peugeot.
The engine is from a Daihatsu and made in poland for a bunch of models.
Modern Diesel engines in european Toyotas are from BMW.

So finding cars that are easy to fix becomes more and more a lottery…..

[James P Grosso]

Hows that compared to working on cars from England 🙂

[Author]

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