It’s pretty well established by now that buying a first model-year car is not the best idea, especially if that car isn’t based on another well-established vehicle with a proven powertrain and mechanical/electrical architecture. “By the final year of production, all the bugs will have been worked out, so I should get a final model-year car, right?” Well, not so fast.
Let’s first establish this: The “never buy the first model-year” advice is good; I could probably give you a million examples of design flaws that were changed sometime in the middle of the production run. Here are a few just off the top of my head:
- Around 2005, General Motors fixed its 2.2-liter EcoTec four-cylinder engine’s timing chain lubrication problem after numerous early (first three model years) timing chain failures
- In 2013, Nissan replaced its quickly-degrading Leaf battery packs (first two model-years) to a new “Lizard” pack that lasts longer
- In 2013, Jeep fixed the issues its 2012 and 2013 Jeep Wranglers (first model years with new engine) were having with cylinder head valve guides
- In 2015, BMW changed its timing chain/guide design of its N20 2.0-liter engines after numerous engine failures (first three model years).
- In 2014, Subaru made engine changes after 2013 (first model-year) Scion FRS and Subaru BRZs valve spring failures
Here’s a quote from Consumer Reports about first model-year cars:
“…as our data has consistently shown, reliability-minded consumers would be best served by forgoing brand new vehicles in their first model year.”
It makes sense; as much research and development that automakers do before sending to customers, there are going to be some real-world conditions that the automaker will not have accounted for, and if this leads to significant failures and especially recalls, the automaker will likely fix the issue during the vehicle’s production run. Warranty repairs are expensive for automakers, after all.
But while those changes are happening something else will also be taking place: TCR
Technical Cost Reduction
TCR is technically an internal term used at DaimlerChrysler/Chrysler Group, LLC/FCA/Stellantis/whatever the hell people are calling the company I once worked for. It stands for “technical cost reduction,” and, well, I’ll allow FCA to define it in its “Supplier Help Resources” document:
FCA cost reduction program is a partnership with the supplier to reduce the cost of components and systems through innovative ideas that include material, function, form, process, and part management. If a supplier submits their idea into GPSIS, and it meets the FCA business case criteria without Decontenting, reducing Quality or Performance, FCA has 2 teams to support supplier idea development.
The short of it is that the goal is to reduce the cost of building the car not by reducing features, and not by reducing the car’s perceived quality — the point is to reduce cost in a way that’s imperceptible. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, sometimes the cost reductions are noticeable. Oftentimes they involve removing features that manufacturers’ data shows most folks don’t actually use, or they involve reducing the gauge of certain materials, or they involve change materials that companies don’t think customers will miss.
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Generally, an ideal TCR, when pointed out to a customer, would result in a reply: “Oh, I don’t really care about that. The car feels the same.” But to diehards, sometimes it’s hard to look at a TCR and not be a bit disappointed just knowing that you’re getting less for your money.
Take my 2021 BMW i3. I’ve been driving a 2014 for over a year, so stepping into my 2021, some cost-saves things become obvious to me. First, the glovebox lock is no longer made of metal; it now appears to be made entirely of plastic.
2014:
2021:
In addition, 2014 BMW i3s came with netting on the back of the front seats; this was a handy place to store documents. BMW removed that starting in 2015.
2014:
2021:
Then there’s the Giga World interior changes. From 2014 to 2017, it looked like this:
You can see a slight change in leather color and fabric; those aren’t the cost-saves obvious to me — it’s the armrests. Notice how they were leather before, and now they’re white leatherette:
These are obviously small changes, and the average customer isn’t going to care that much about a seat net, armrests, or a glovebox lock, so in that way, BMW’s TCR engineers did a good job.
Still, as I’m sure many diehard enthusiasts have experienced when going from an early build car to a later one — not having a feature that you had before, or giving up on quality even a tiny bit when you’ve gotten used to the early vehicle, is a tough pill to swallow.
With that said, I have noticed that earlier-built cars tend to have better fit and finish than later ones, though that’s more anecdotal (though it’s worth mentioning that tooling does wear out over time). With that said, despite TCR, if I had to choose between a first model-year vehicle and a final, I’d choose a final. Not only have some of the big design flaws been fixed so the automaker can avoid more costly warranty claims, but in order to remain competitive, oftentimes there are new features added in over the years, or some once-optional features becomes standard. My 2021 BMW i3S, for example, has fancy Adaptive Headlights that weren’t available on early cars, it has Apple Carplay that wasn’t available on early cars, it has a new iDrive system that early cars didn’t have, and it’s a Sport Model, which wasn’t an option before 2018.
So there’s definitely more to gain and more to avoid when you choose a final model-year vehicle over a first. TCRs, if done correctly, are things you should be able to deal with.
I bought a very early FR-S in May or June of 2012. Thing was recalled constantly. Everything from the tail lights to a replacement engine at ~40k miles after a catastrophic failure in traffic.
All in all, I’d absolutely buy it again.
A buddy of mine is notorious for buying first model year vehicles. He has plenty of experience dealing with warranty departments. Ironically, he bought a second year Bronco sport and that was the one that got hit with all the recalls and TSBs. And now he traded that in for a Wrangler 4xe.. so yeah, we’ll see how that goes.
I picked up a last model year 2022 Colorado ZR2, diesel extended cab as those options were going away for the 3rd gen. So far it’s been solid other than one NOx sensor replaced under warranty at 16k miles.
Good call on the last year ZR2. I think those are going to be in demand with that engine, I bet your resale will stay very high on that.
Although Ford excels at TCR (removing intelligent access from rear doors of the Fusion and Edge as they’re coming to the end of their lifecycles, for example), we experienced no growing pains with our 2015 Mustang, even though the 2.3L 4 banger was new.
Our 2017 Fusion Sport, on the other hand, just loved draining its battery on a daily basis. Took months for Ford to determine the problem was the audio control module. It was fine after that significant clusterfuck, though.
This is just in reference to the Mustang. The late model years are the best years of the S550 Mustang GT. They have the best version of the 5.0 Coyote and multiple other additions that make it the best of the S550 generation. I bought my base 2022 Mustang GT in April 2023. This was just before the S650 Mustang was about to be on showroom floors. I got a really good deal on it. Now this car was sitting on the lot for 6 months. No one wants just a base manual Mustang GT. I am an exception to the rule. Dealer took 5500 off MSRP and it was 0% APR for 60 months. My buddy got a 2023 GT with active exhaust and 301A package for a very similar deal. So when buying at the end of the model run you can actually get a good deal. Most manufactures will give very good financial incentives and dealers will also do anything to move that old model year. With the Mustang, Ford may have done some cost saving. It may be hard for me to find with a just a base model with no gimmicks. But they also added a lot of features to late model years.
Is it still a TCR if it doesn’t reduce the cost of the part, but may reduce warranty repairs?
I can see that with the lock as a straight savings on the component.
On the seatback pockets, I can absolutely imagine people jamming water bottles in the seatback nets and stretching them out of shape. Just ditch the pockets and you get rid of customer complaints and warranty repairs. It’s not like it’s a free change, they’d still have to design and tool a new seatback and go through whatever hassles there are in changing bills of material and spare parts inventory.
I can see the same thing for the armrest materials. Leather may be quick to stain when used on a touch surface.
The leather holds up better than the white leatherette (which stains due to its color). And the seatback netting would not be eligible for warranty repairs — to me, it’s likely one of those “nobody used it anyway since it’s kind of an afterthought feature, so let’s cut it.”
Yes, but is the synthetic material easier to clean ?
If these seatbacks are only used in this low volume model, I can’t imagine much savings after paying off the tooling. Could have been a supplier issue where the net was no longer available and deleting it was cheaper than re-sourcing it.
My parents purchased a 2001 Town & Country used in the early 2000’s. They liked it so much they purchased a new 2005 version with Stow ‘n Go. The 2005 van was nothing but problems for them. They sold their 2001 to friends who took it over 250k before the tranny failed. I remember a bunch of little features being missing in the 05 as well as poorer fit and finish.
I think Ford likes to thin out the metal in their cars as they age. I’ve noticed later F150’s and Escapes with more body rust on them than older models.
From your stats, you shouldn’t by the first 3 model years of a new car/truck. It would seem to take a few years additional development to get the bugs worked out.
It depends when the OEM finds the problem. If it’s when the first year owners have their cars fail there’s a delay while you get the warranty data, then design a fix (I’ve spent six months on the design phase for a fix, and it’s not fun having daily progress meetings), tooling for new parts, then validate the fix (this can take months or years depending on if it needs climatic validation and doesn’t pass first time), then introduce the fix.
2-3 years is a fair reaction time. If they actually fix it after a year it’s either a very simple problem or they knew about it before production.
I bought a ’10 Focus, as I knew the first gen was ending production in a year and I didn’t want a screen.
But talk about cheapening out like this – one of the things I really remember is that the front seatbelt mounting point at the driver’s side has no cover or anything on it; just a big ‘ole bolt. Intriguingly, the passenger side one is nicely covered by this integrated set of plastic.
Noticing this, I brought it into the dealer from whom I bought it (I minutely checked the car over in my first few days of ownership) to get it fixed under warranty. They spent awhile trying to figure it out, searching the part to eventually figure out that’s how it came from the factory.
I get it, as the driver may never actually notice as they won’t see it from their usual vantage points, but it was a little surprising. Dealer later told me I was the only one who’d flagged this.
The worst victim of cost reduction I ever ran across was the interior of the facelifted XJ Cherokee, when the added airbags for 1995(? by memory – I could be off a year either way). My family owned a 1991 Laredo which was a lovely truck in every way. We test drove a ’95, and the difference in interior quality was night and day. I remember specifically asking what was wrong with the back seat – it felt like I was riding on an eighth of an inch of foam stretched over some overtaxed springs, bouncy and cheap. I had literally just stepped out of the back seat of our 91; the difference was stark.
I would love to pick up a reasonably un-thrashed XJ as a ‘new classic’, but based on the above experience I wouldn’t ever touch a post-1994 one, and the pre-91 non-HO engines aren’t anything you’d want, either, so I have a pretty narrow year model range I’d be willing to get, and they’re getting awfully thin on the ground, alas.
In ’91, my father was riding around in a Grand Wagoneer which he loved. He eventually replaced it with a ’93 Cherokee, and then (IIRC) a ’96 – he was always vaguely disappointed with the last one!
Interesting. Maybe this is why I’ve never understood the love for the XJ. My only experience with them was in a later model year.
Interesting, I’ve owned an ’89 and a ’96 (or maybe it was a ’95, last model year for “old” interior but with a boring chrysler corporate airbag wheel) and a ’00. I agree the early ones have a better built interior (and better looking imo), and probably better seats. I did find that the later one was noticeably quieter on the highway though-enough so that I might still lean that way if I were to ever buy another one-though the ’96 did have all terrains and a manual transmission which may have played a part in being noisier. I also like the facelifted XJ exterior styling better but that’s purely personal taste.
Just after I wrote this comment, look what showed up in Franklin Motor Cars inventory! What a creampuff…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BS_438WymQ&t=1s&ab_channel=FrankmanMotorCompany
Totally stock Laredo, in perfect shape, with less than 80,000 miles on it. Where was this thing hidden for the last 30 years?
Call me crazy, but I don’t see anything wrong with exposed bolt heads and wouldn’t mind seeing an automaker embrace it throughout the cabin.
And to be fair, I did a few years later replace the pretty-but-problematic jacketed lug nuts with plain, uncovered regular ones, so I guess I did mellow a bit…
I’ve dealt with that on both sides of the coin. The Lincoln I bought used was a first year 2017 which had a lot of teething problems, most of which have been repaired by the previous owners, although the rearview camera is still foggy after being replaced multiple times.
I worked on a program where they cost saved all the locator dowels on the PTU except one. This allowed you to tilt the PTU up and down by several millimeters before bolting it in. The OEM came to us with a PTU gear noise issue. We found you could turn the noise on and off by tilting the PTU up and down. All the noisy vehicles were from the same shift where the line worker would install the PTUs by hand instead of using the jig. The OEM still tried to blame the supplier of course.
One side effect of having these scheduled cost save targets throughout a vehicle program is suppliers will sometimes design stuff into the part at the beginning of the program that they can easily remove later to hit these targets.
This take holds up. The 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile had an engine that had cooling issues that were addressed with improvements in 1905. Then again, 1906 introduced a version with a straight-up dashboard. I mean, who wants to buy a Curved Dash Oldsmobile without a Curved Dash? Get it together, Ransom.
Now THIS is the kind of stuff I come here for.
And I work here!
The time to decide if you buy a last year model is when the next model is announced and you can see if you like it or not and are willing to wait a couple of years. Sometimes the prior version retains things that the new model omits that are important to you.
And those “last year” cars tend to get pretty heavy discounts/incentives as the first year “next gen” cars are on their way in, so with some careful timing, you can get a solid deal on what is likely the best version of the car you want- assuming you don’t get wooed by all the new-ness and improved-ness of the incoming next-gen one.
Good point, we’ve been shopping for a Mazda CX5 for my wife and it’s got to be at the end of its product life cycle, been wondering if the dealer will start discounting the outgoing generation.
My GT86 is a first year car, so had the valve spring recall, and subsequent catastrophic cam cover failure from botched assembly that dumped all the oil out down the right hand side of the car. It’s years later now, but I’m still waiting for something else to go horribly wrong.
My other car was only made for two years. It’s a late first year/ early last year, so I guess I’m boned either way.
I wanted a 350Z so bad I ordered it 6 months before they went on sale. As far as I know I had the first one on the road in Florida. The early cars had track rods that were too long so it was impossible to align the front end properly. The Nissan solution was new track rods. Oh no. Wait. That would have been helpful. The Nissan solution was free tires while it was under warranty. I got about 8000 miles out of a set. It was sold before the warranty expired…
Yikes!
WTF? Buying people tires can’t have been cheaper than replacing one part, can it?
“With that said, I have noticed that earlier-built cars tend to have better fit and finish than later ones, though that’s more anecdotal.”
Can often be due to die wear and worn out production tooling letting everthing get to the maximum the engineering tolerances allow.
At work, we call cost cutting DtC, Design to Cost.
I wanna see David do a TCR on the “RAM 1500 Classic” to see what’s been changed since they introduced it in 2009, to justify the prices they want in 2024.
Having owned a 2009 1500 (when they were still known as Dodges) and having seen prices on 2024 models, absolutely. Or another long-lived model like the D40 Frontier (’05-’21). I’m curious what got changed at the point it received the testbed VQ38DD and the 9G-Tronic.
Let’s start with the myriad recalls the DS Ram’s received over its long, long life, especially ones impacting newer model years, as a good place to start looking.
The best model year to buy is always year 2/3 post MCA (mid cycle action). You get features held back from the original or not ready, more significant improvements (the entire center console of my Alfa for faarrr better post 2020 update).
I’d take a VAVE over the rush to market Every. Single. Time.
We bought a 2014 Ford Expedition a couple of years ago, which is notable as being the very last model year of the very last model that came with the much-derided 3-valve 5.4 modular V8. That of course gave me pause, so before we pulled the trigger on the purchase I did a bunch of research to try and separate the reality from the hype when it comes to the (un)reliability of that powertrain. It turns out that most of the well known failure points of those engines (spark plugs, timing chain guides, lifters, among others) were solved in a redesign that took place around 2009 or so; and the rest of them got figured out by 2011. So the late 5.4’s are pretty well all sorted out. The rest of the bad rap that engine has been saddled with has to do with so many of them being used to power poorly cared for and abused fleet vehicles. They are sensitive to oil change interval, so if you don’t change the oil until it turns to tar, you’re going to have a bad time. But we weren’t buying a beaten old work truck, ours was a pampered luxury SUV. So I bought with confidence, and haven’t been disappointed.
Ford’s usually decent about steadily working out the problems on its engines, so by the end, they’re in good shape. I think the early Essex 3.8 V6s had head gasket problems, and though that got solved, that was always their reputation, long after the problem was solved.
2012 and up Focus and Fiesta Transmissions have never been sorted and I doubt they ever will.
I read recently that yet ANOTHER class action suit was filed!
Yup, singleport models, especially 89-95s. The 96-98 have a much lower failure rate, and the 99-04 splitports have a rarely failing gasket.
I knew a person with an 01 V6/auto mustang. Used it to deliver some engineering parts in alaska. Last i knew, he was at 750,000 miles on the original driveline and routine maintenance.
I’ve waffled on buying something 5.4 powered for years because of two opposing metrics.
The litany of failures everyone claims, vs the tens of dozens of commercial vehicles I regularly see in fleets that all have anywhere from 350 to 600k on the 5.4. It can’t be THAT bad if fleets are regularly getting 300+K out of the mill.
Wish this worked with people because then my last girlfriend would be cheaper than my first, but probably more trustworthy. That hasn’t been my experience.
I think the first year thing occupies a much larger place in peoples’ minds than is actually justified. As is typical with these sorts of things, we hear about the bad cases (in retrospect) and never hear a peep about the product launches that go off without a hitch.
Depends on how much of a departure there is. I bought a 2010 genesis coupe and drove it for 8 years/ 256k. It was on it’s 3rd engine (low-miles pull from a 2013+) and it’s second trans. It also had the paint repaired on 3 separate occasions under warranty. I also had the driveshaft guibos fail so bad that the vibration at highway speed would trigger the seatbelt locking function.
That being said, for the entirety of my ownership, I never changed a single wheel bearing or electrical component. All of the non-driveline bits worked exactly as designed. It also survived 8 Canadian winters and being beaten on mercilessly by early 20s me.
Come on Cadillac, just keep the Blackwing good long enough for me to find a job…
The exception is GM for last year cars. Usually it’s the one they get right just before they kill it. Fiero, obviously, but also 2019 Volt (last year) added some desirable features.
Or the entire Pontiac division, even.
100% this. The 1996 Buick Century and Olds Ciera were 14 years old and scored virtually perfect on consumer satisfaction scores. There are still quite a few running around today, the only A-bodies left.
I remember back then even Consumer Reports was like “eh, it’s not an amazing car but they have flawless reliability, go for it” about the last of the A-bodies
The 2019 Volt even had the “faster” charging option available, no BECM issues too. The 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV was the only year available with no recalls and it only lasted two years, the 2022 still had the battery issue, then they killed it.
GM tends to offer the absolute best iteration of a model, the last year before they kill it off.
I owned a 1999 WJ Grand Cherokee, 1st year, that overall treated me well. It had the carryover 4.0L though. The transmission did blow up at 125,000 miles (they all did) and I had a few electrical gremlins. I think the key is never buy a new body AND drivetrain in combination.
The later model year Laredo’s were definitely de-contented over mine.
With fewer cars having a 4-year turnover timeframe to redesign (think of Civic/Corolla pace of redesign), I can see the “TCR” being more obvious on those longer running vehicles (my own industry uses VA/VE as Value Analysis and Value Engineering as the term)
I can only imagine the VA/VE being glaring on long running vehicles such as the 4Runner, GTR, Frontier.
The only reason to buy a first year is if you think it’s going to be a collectible model. But that only works if you can see the future AND hold onto the car for 25+ years.
I think the ideal would be avoid the first year of a model with introduction of new technology. Using BMW as an example, is not that first years F series are bad cars, but that are combinations that were bad, like anything with N63 engine.
It was new in a lot of aspects, and was (is) a maintenance nightmare for F01(750i or ActiveHybrid 7)/F10 (550i) owners. Not that N55 was good, but a lot less worse.
If, in general, a new car relies on existing technology, which will probably be just a facelift and not a new plataform, I don’t see much problem in the first year of a model.