Testing, testing

Road testers like me have expended plenty of column inches over the past couple of decades writing about something we call perceived quality.

- MATT SAUNDERS

It may seem a slightly mysterious concept. Some readers think we imagine it entirely; others that we simply place too great importance on it. So what follows is a short effort to explain a phenomenon that has had a large influence on the development of the car industry in the 21st century.

It’s not to be confused with manufacturing quality. When car industry types refer to quality in the broadest sense, this is what they tend to mean - ostensibly the capacity of a production line, be it automated or not, to produce accurately and correctly made cars without defect in repeatable fashion.

Perceived quality isn’t about whether body panels align correctly, whether door seals stop the wind properly, what paint finish is like and whether a car built on a Friday afternoon is the same as one from a Tuesday morning. As much as those things may indeed be more meaningful indicators of a car’s quality, they're indicators that you typically need at least a little bit of an eye or ear to spot. Perceived quality, by contrast, is the kind that exists entirely so you will spot it.