Zuverlässig — reliable, from sich verlassen auf, to rely upon. The same word is used of a machine and of a person, and it is among the strongest compliments in German for either.
Es läuft — it runs. Said of a machine, a process or a business, and it means everything is as it should be.
Da kann nichts passieren — nothing can happen there. The German assurance, and it is stated absolutely.
Wartung. German equipment comes with a maintenance schedule, and service contracts covering it are normal for machinery, lifts, heating systems and vehicles. Reliability is not treated as a property of the object. It is treated as something maintained.
Das Typenschild. German products carry a rating plate: manufacturer, model, serial number, technical values, standards met. The object identifies itself, permanently, so that it can be traced back long after the paperwork is gone.
Stiftung Warentest. A foundation established by the federal government in 1964 that tests consumer products and publishes comparative results with numerical grades. It takes no advertising. A poor grade is commercially serious, and a good one appears on packaging for years.
Die Rückrufaktion. German recalls are published by the Federal Motor Transport Authority and by the market surveillance system for consumer products, with the defect named. The failure becomes a public record attached to the manufacturer.
Dauerprüfung. German manufacturers run endurance testing — doors opened and closed hundreds of thousands of times, engines run for thousands of hours, switches cycled to failure. The failure point is found deliberately, in a laboratory, before a customer finds it.
Produkthaftung. German product liability law makes a manufacturer liable for damage caused by a defective product regardless of fault. The obligation runs to the product itself, not to the care taken in making it.
Gewährleistung. German law gives a buyer a statutory two-year warranty against defects present at delivery, independent of any manufacturer guarantee, and for the first twelve months the defect is presumed to have existed at handover. The seller must prove otherwise.
Der TÜV. The German technical inspection associations trace back to the steam boiler inspection societies of the nineteenth century, formed after boiler explosions. Today they test vehicles, lifts, pressure vessels, playgrounds and medical devices. An independent body decides whether a thing may continue to be used.
Geprüfte Sicherheit — tested safety. A German mark applied to products that have been examined by an approved testing body against a defined set of requirements.
It is voluntary. Manufacturers pay to be tested, pay to carry the mark, and submit to periodic re-inspection of the production.
German consumers look for it. A voluntary mark only works where enough buyers check for it to make the cost worth paying.