You have to worry about the quality of construction if they were so jury rig that they had to drag the cars across the floor. Obviously Tri-Met accorded Colorado Railcar much more credit(both fiscal and technical)than a startup deserves.

Similarly the cars that Boeing Vertol built for SF and Boston had many "issues" that led to a short service life. The cars were never properly debugged as they were the first and last of the design. But I think Boeing really tried to construct a good vehicle whereas it appears that Colorado Railcar's performance borders on the criminal. It is not easy to coordinate and control when you have components coming from all over the world. I remember that the Boeing cars suffered from serious rust problems which started from being exposed to salt water when they were shipped from Tokyu Car Co. in Japan to the States.

One of the great advantages that a company like Siemens has is that they have built so many cars they have got the kinks out. Remember they bought out Duewag, which had many years of experience. Same thing could be said for the PCC design, which has proven pretty good over the years.