Will cars built during the pandemic cause problems on the road?

I recently became the owner of a 2021 BMW i3S built in June 2021 as the lockdowns and pandemic madness began to ease. The effects of the lockdown on manufacturing were profound: restrictions were placed on who could work and when, supply chains were severely restricted, and labor turnover was enormous. So how will these Covid-19 production cars fare in the long run?

It was four years ago when the pandemic really started kicking the U.S.’s ass and everything basically went quiet. People were told not to come to work, although some – among them – had no choice Some they were factory workers who had to assemble cars. The problem was that sometimes the parts needed to complete the car were not available. Factories in different countries had to follow the regulations of their countries, so if, for example, you needed an engine from Mexico and Mexico had to close that plant for safety reasons, you were pretty screwed.

Dealing with various pandemic restrictions around the world resulted in massive production cuts, so much so that some automakers were producing cars without certain features because they simply didn’t have the parts. Around the same time, the chip shortage caused enormous problems as automakers built incomplete cars only to keep them in warehouses until parts were available to complete them.

In the case of the BMW i3, the company was unable to offer a Harman Kardon stereo system during the pandemic because parts were simply not available. Luckily my car somehow has this option, but it also has some build quality issues that my 2014 doesn’t have:

Can these build quality issues be attributed to Covid? This is a question that many people ask themselves (see below), although I don’t really have an answer; My car’s quality issues may also be due to seven-year-old hardware wearing out, or regular engineering cost reductions leading to poorer fit. In any case, it seems almost certain that at least this will happen Some Cars manufactured for Covid-19 will have problems that non-COVID cars do not; automakers were clamoring to produce as many vehicles as possible as demand surged after a long period of stagnation.

As people “find themselves” and change careers to manage inexperienced replacements who must deal with difficult production tasks, hard-to-find parts, and demand far outpacing supply, it could be think that some corners will need to be cut. However, the data on this is not yet clear. We’ve seen huge recall/warranty costs at Ford recently, but is this related to Covid-19? I don’t know.

I contacted Consumer Reports, where senior communications specialist James McQueen told me that there is no clear data showing that “pandemic cars” are thing. “The short answer is no,” he emailed me. “Our data does not reflect any noticeable change in car reliability/problem rates in 2020 or 2021. From what we can tell, it remains fairly consistent.”

Hmm.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 2022, J.D. Power published the results of its initial quality study, which showed something different:

Initial vehicle quality has deteriorated significantly following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the J.D. Power 2022 US Initial Quality Study.^MS (IQS), published today. Disruptions caused by the pandemic – supply chain problems, record high vehicle prices and staff relocation – have contributed to vehicle problems reaching record levels in the 36-year history of this benchmarking study. Compared to 2021 results, the industry recorded an 11% increase in problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), which is 18 PP100 less than last year, resulting in an industry average of 180 PP100. A lower score reflects a higher quality vehicle.

Bloody hell! A record result in the 36-year history of the study! More from J.D. Power:

Initial vehicle quality has deteriorated significantly following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the JD Power 2022 US Initial Quality Study.^MS (IQS), published today. Disruptions caused by the pandemic – supply chain problems, record high vehicle prices and staff relocation – have contributed to vehicle problems reaching record levels in the 36-year history of this benchmarking study. Compared to 2021 results, the industry recorded an 11% increase in problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), which is 18 PP100 less than last year, resulting in an industry average of 180 PP100. A lower score reflects a higher quality vehicle.

Many of the issues (six of the top 10) were related to infotainment technology, which is not surprising since J.D. Power’s research results are often downplayed by it. What about drivetrain reliability? Important things that actually affect driving? How much have they changed during the pandemic?

Some of these things we simply won’t know until we “wait and see,” but logical thinking leads me to the conclusion: Covid cars are a compromise. They he had to be to get off the assembly line. To ensure that these compromises don’t impact longevity in any way would mean putting a lot of faith in the automaker’s (and all of its suppliers’) quality control scheme during a pandemic that has brought uncertainty to everyone. I’m not sure this passed my laugh test.