fontana wrote:f90x wrote:The advantage that the Americans have of course is the large 'class action' lawsuits that they Can bring to the manufacturers and actually get recompensed,
Yes but only in the case of manufacturing defects that cause injury or death.
For the majority of reliability issues causing breakdowns, they are no better off than us.
Not so. Or at least not in the car world. Mercedes have problems with early incarnations of their 7 speed gearbox and it gets sorted in the states due to a class action lawsuit and no deaths occurred. Many problems with both the v6 petrol and even more with the diesel but some are dealt with. Over here we have to pay for all it. There are other examples. I have been looking to purchase a recent(ish) used German automobile to replace my ancient used German automobile and have found a miryad of problems that are addressed by the manufacturers in the USA but alas ignored in good old Blighty.