No manufacturer achieves a perfect car, no matter how big their development budget is. I remember my new '93 Mercedes E coupe had an intermittent fault within days of collection. Mine apparently was the first in the UK with twin airbags and new door security system. It transpires that two wires that passed thru a metal tube were too tight and chaffing on the end of the tube and shorting. It took ages to fix whilst I waited, the reason being Mercedes Service not only contacted the UK centre, the technician repairing my car was talking to the Production team in Germany about the fault, so it could be corrected on the production line........I'm sure others have similar tales to tell.
There are some fault/shortcomings which one can forgive and others that are pretty piss takingly poor and should never have been allowed to happen, its not like they have just started out manufacturing cars, after 110 years they should get the basics right. The difference for me is the way in which manufacturers handle the problems, a very small dealer network with finite resources will struggle with major recalls without question.
