The more things change..."Unfair to compare"?

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by SgtBourne

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!

People want a falcon that rivals a BMW 5 series, yet want it to cost as much as a Hyndai Getz

Not really.

They just want to know that when they pay 5 series prices, they get decent quality control and a bit of thought put into little features like even the cheapest and nastiest Asian cars have.

Letting manufacturers know that the general consensus amongst buyers is, apparently, "whatever they give us we'll be happy with, warts and all", is never going to give them the push to improve.
A company is, in the normal scheme of things, pushed to improve quality control and included features when buyers start purchasing the opposition product and thier profits start to drop. It sends them a message that "good enough" isn't going to cut the mustard any more. I've worked in industries where this has happened repeatedly. It appears though that the Australian car industry is a protected species (in more way than one), and is going to continue to be protected and subsidised, from which they will never learn the lesson that must be learned.

But seeing how car magazines from up to 30 years ago still raised that same question, I doubt anything is going to change soon. A start would be to say "No more import duties or tariffs, no more protection or subsidies, you're on your own...if your product equals or betters the competition for the price you charge, you'll survive...if not, you'll damn soon learn to improve things".