[flaminHotSpeedo]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by Jeep riding on their reputation?

Based on everything I've seen and heard, Jeep's reputation is for unreliable vehicles that are increasingly difficult to repair. This seems pretty on-brand for that reputation.

[freeqaz]

Recent reputation, yes. But their old reputation was very positive. They made cars that would survive in any condition (which is why they were popular for military uses).

These days, you're in one of two camps: Either you still believe (because you're ignorant or value the Jeep brand more than you value a reliable vehicle) or you've read the recent reviews and steer clear.

Jeep has been duking it out for the bottom of Consumer Reports ratings for a while now, yet they still seem to sell cars. As they continue to betray their loyal customer base though, I imagine this will change. I wish American car companies were better!

[treesknees]

I think you’re conflating a few things. Jeeps, as manufactured during World War II, were produced by Ford and Willys. The Jeeps of today, manufactured by Stellantis, carry on the name (and arguably the general shape) but are completely different vehicles.

They “seem” to sell cars? Well, yes. The Wrangler and the Grand Cherokee are consistently near the top of list of most popular SUVs, year after year.

[nostrademons]

The point of buying the brand is to conflate reputations.

[Incipient]

It's slightly different here. They did seem to have bought a lot of the manufacturing - or at least they're still manufactured in the US? Maybe ex Chrysler factories?

China buying the MG brand was entirely just for reputation - no connection at all.

[thegrim33]

The older I get the less I care to believe in memes that float around, if everyone online memes about how horrible some product or brand supposedly is. In fact, the more prevalent the memeing is, the more I assume it's either manufactured or has just reached critical level of viral meme where now everyone repeats something simply because everyone else says it.

What percentage of people shitting on some brand actually have owned that brand for many years? And also owned other brands for many years, to be able to compare reliability and have any sort of informed opinion on the topic?

Things like Consumer Reports are just small surveys of the opinion of random members of the population, what they think about the brand, there's no connection to any objective reality about how reliable they vehicles actually are.

In the past I've tried to find a single study that actually compares objective reliability of brands. It does not exist. If you Google for it, everything you will find will eventually, at the bottom of it all, link back to the same Consumer Reports study.

I've owned a 2018 Wrangler for 6 years now, I've put 75k miles on it, many thousands of miles in the most remote places in the country, where if it had issues it'd be a 30 mile hike to safety. It's never once let me down in any way. Never once had a major problem. That's all I care about.

[water-data-dude]

Don't forget the third camp who just really like OLD jeeps!

Somewhere in the ballpark of a week ago there was a car show near where I walk my dog (some charity event). Overall not that interesting - there were a lot of flashy low riders with the crazy hydraulics and stuff - but there was also this really cool jeep truck-thing from sometime in the 1950's, a Jeep Forward Control[0]. They had pics of it when they first got it, absolute rusty mess! But goddamn, I'm not even a car guy and I was impressed. Labor of love.

Then my cousin has a more modern Jeep and lemme tell you: not great. I wonder what happened to that company? Garden variety enshittification, or is there an interesting story there?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep_Forward_Control

[nostrademons]

Depends how old you are. Up through the 80s, Jeep still had a reputation as a rock-solid, durable brand. (The reality probably changed sometime in the 1970s, but it takes time for word to get out.) A lot of people's mental model is set somewhere in their 20s/30s, and they never really update it. So a lot of baby boomers still think of Jeep as a reliable car.

[flaminHotSpeedo]

That's what I was getting at, though I wasn't sure if my perceptions matched the general consensus (which it seems they do).

If a manufacturer has been broadly considered as unreliable for the past 20-40 years (JK's came out in 2007, and I still heard some people talking about jeeps as being reliable in the TJ era, though I'd personally disagree), I think it's fair to say they have a reputation of being unreliable.

[grogenaut]

Among my dads friends (lawyers) in the 80s none of them would buy a jeep because they consistently died between 60k and 80k miles. one of them had one but he expected to only put 30k on it on his property. We had to pull it with a tractor on multiple hunts because the 4wd system wouldn't work.