The electronics in motor vehicles are very much like electronics, but mechanical parts are not.

I was reviewing my service records for my '02 Econoline and in the first week, the starter was replaced, so I'll attribute that to the "bell curve" for electronics failures. It never stranded me, but would take a few clicks of the ignition to start...not good in the first week.

But, Explorer transmissions, I now know, have a problem with steel pistons riding in soft metal bores. They will not fail in the first 90 days, but after 500,000 shifts, they will wear out the bores, and this will cause other catastrophic transmission problems. This is a mechanical design problem, not a QC problem. I had a '96 GMC Savana that, in 66k miles, had 7 valve bodies and 3 different transmissions in it (under warranty, thank God). The problem? A steel piston that traveled in a soft aluminum valve body, wore the bore out, and took the rest of the transmission out when it leaked. You could drive either of these transmissions a million miles on the freeway and they'd probably live through it, but in a normal driving cycle, soft bores wear out in less than 100k miles...I'd think the engineers would sleeve the darn bores or something...but that might cost $2 more per vehicle.

Likewise, I have an early Romeo PI 4.6 in my van, and the bad design of the engine cooling passages in the rear of the cylinder heads would cause the valve stems to carbon up, and tick....probably eventually leading to burned valves. This is a design problem. I got a new pair of heads for $100, thanks to my Premium Care warranty, at 42k miles.

And even some electronic problems are longer-term things. Although the actual failure rate is fairly small, I'll use the Ford cruise control switches as an example. These do not fail in the first 90 days, but over years, when brake fluid eventually seeps into them. I think a plastic membrane eventually wears out due to heat and age. This is a medium-term materials failure, maybe like certain cars having dashboards that crack in the sun after 5 years when they really shouldn't. I think another stupid design problem with the cruise switch is to leave the thing hot at all times--can't imagine why that was done....

I am certain that Honda and Toyota have had similar problems with medium and long-term failures, but I believe that the domestic makers have more of these problems, likely due mostly to bean-counters. I think the problematic Explorer wheel bearings are cheap Chinese or Korean imported bearings, instead of high quality bearings that should be used...