Help me understand Consumer Reports [fixed the gaint img]

Gdetrailer wrote:
Relying on FAULTY third party data and or FAULTY third party "personal opinions" will affect your your choice, often to the point you end up with something that does not fully satisfy YOU.

(and lots of other ranting)

I suggest you read everything that I wrote, and not what you seem to be assuming I wrote, or just one little piece of what I wrote. Happy New Year!

thomasmnile wrote:
I've noticed in a lot of these vehicle reliability/customer satisfaction surveys over the last few years the complaints are not about mechanical issues as much as the infotainment systems and other gee whiz gadgets vehicles are equipped with now.

That, and the "ride quality". People buy a Jeep or a pickup and think it should ride like a Mercedes limo!
C'mon, folks, if it is a truck it is supposed to ride like a truck!
Mine does, and I expect it.

I've noticed in a lot of these vehicle reliability/customer satisfaction surveys over the last few years the complaints are not about mechanical issues as much as the infotainment systems and other gee whiz gadgets vehicles are equipped with now.

atreis wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

atreis wrote:
IMO, the more detailed pictures they provide are more useful - the one that shows the reliability/satisfaction scores for various aspects of the vehicle over time. That will let you know that a particular score, for instance, is a result of very low satisfaction with the Nav system (or whatever), but the rest of the car is basically fine.

The detailed ratings on vehicles will also let you see things such as the example from gmw photos - that a car is good for the first 4-5 years then suffers lots of problems. If you only plan to own it for 4 years, you might not care. If you're like me, and want to own it for at least 10 years, reliability as the car ages becomes more important.

Sometimes too many "detailed" pictures (especially when those pictures are intentionally crafted to skew the results) often muddy the water making your job of ferreting out "the best".

Get this straight folks, there is no "best".

EVERY vehicle has some faults where in design shortfalls that make it ugly or mechanical shortfalls which makes it unreliable.

The BEST thing to do is to PHYSICALLY go to a dealer AND DRIVE ONE YOURSELF.

Then YOU can figure out if you like what you see or not.

While you can't "test" reliablity you can get a feel for how well it is put together.. You can listen for noises, squeaks, clunks that may indicate bad assembly.

You can look and feel the interior, the materials and decide if the manufacturer cheaped out and use low quality materials.

None of the above can be assessed from a book.

You can ask other people for their "opinions" but you will get no further and often will make you choice harder. Why, simple, every person you talk to WILL have a DIFFERENT opinion on quality and fit and finish.

I deal with this a lot within my family.. I buy Fords and my BIL buys Chevys.. Doesn't mean his Chevys are junk or my Fords are junk.. It is just means we buy what we like.

There is no shortcuts here, if you want an unbiased opinion you need to to do your own homework (IE YOU TEST DRIVE)not rely on a book or others.

In reality, you have lots of good choices in vehicles, most of the manufacturers of trucks have stepped up to the plate and are delivering good trucks with plenty of HP and towing capacity.

You just simply need to go to each dealer and take a test drive, they don't charge for test drives.

IMO, it's better to get both data as well as your personal impression. Yes, there is no perfect vehicle, but just going on how it feels/drives when it's new is also a very imperfect approach. It doesn't tell you how that particular model is likely to fair 10 years down the road.

It's better to do BOTH. Get data about longevity over time (as long as you care about, at least) and personal impressions. Sometimes the most reliable car isn't the car for you. Sometimes the nicest car to drive when new, isn't the one that's going to still be nice to own/drive 10 years down the road. One usually has to balance these things and compromise. (e.g. Identify the models that have the reliability average you desire for the timeframe that you care about, then go test drive them and buy the one that suits you best, or costs the least, or whatever criteria is most important to you.)

Relying on FAULTY third party data and or FAULTY third party "personal opinions" will affect your your choice, often to the point you end up with something that does not fully satisfy YOU.

It is called MARKETING.

CR at one time when it was first published started out with good intentions but with any other magazine it eventually slid into the ditch of attempting to SWAY the readers "opinions" with over the top BIAS towards the product that was willing to COMPENSATE the magazine in one way or the other.

CR has also had a bad habit of HEAVILY using PRICE POINTS in their so called "evaluations". Typically the lower price points weighed more on their scale so many of their "recommendations" are for "VALUE".

Value as in CHEAP to buy, CHEAP to own, does not equate to BEST..

My example of this was CR rated GOLDSTAR VCRS as the BEST back in the heyday of low cost VCRs..

It wasn't for the best picture, nor the best sound, nor best reliability.. Nope none of those..

It was because it WAS THE CHEAPEST VCR ON THE MARKET WHICH HAD FOUR HEADS OR SOME OTHER GADGET.

Goldstars had a poorly designed transport, terrible heads and really bad video quality and to top it off 90% of them sold had bad reel sensors from the factory..

Even the factory supplied reel sensors were often bad..

Take CR with a grain of salt, it is more of an entertainment rag..

I became frustrated with CR for a lot of already stated reasons. They became too political, they bombarded my email with urges to sign this or that petition..or asking for donations. They also reviewed things that cost 10 times more than what I'd ever pay and ignored the less expensive ones many do purchase.

They are good at exposing fraud, decoding what's in our food and medicine. I wish they would do more of that.

I personally do not care about Tesla, or a $1000.00 blender, vacuum cleaner etc. The things I do care about they don't give the whole story in the magazine... I have to subscribe to "onlineCR" in order to get the full story. To me..that's marketing "stuff".

I was up for renewal awhile back and decided to call CR and discuss matters. I got a very young person who kept telling me "I understand". Finally I just said... "please be quiet and let me finish...can you do that??"... The young person was silent for a second and then started with the company line again.

Bottom line... I did renew for another year... but only to keep up with the food and medicine safety issues. I take everything else with a grain of salt.

Independent of advertisers doesn't mean unbiased. And the sample chosen - presumably CR readers - matters.

Yesterday I was reading reviews of a particular BLM boondocking option at a pond. One reviewer gave it one star because it was dusty. "No matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of all the dust. Never again!"

It's BLM. It's free. It's in AZ desert. Dust is part of the package.

A first time truck owner is going to compare it to their sedan for ride, comfort, gas mileage, etc. Reliability is useless without at least a five year timeframe.

I love watchin Ike gauntlet but I always wonder how much of it is relates to actually living with a truck . They use brand new trucks and do a 10 minute extreme simulation.

If you're buying a dishwasher, a set of non stick cookware, or a lawn mower, Consumer Reports is great. Relatively simple goods or machines that have a single purpose can be easily tested and compared. Cordless drills, dehumidifiers, dryers... how fast do the batteries charge, how much water is removed from the air, how noisy is it compared to others? How durable? Consumer Reports has the answers to these questions.

A vehicle, OTOH, is a much more complex machine, and different people expect different things, depending on how they intend to use it. Features that are indispensable to one person might be irrelevant to another.

Gdetrailer wrote:

atreis wrote:
IMO, the more detailed pictures they provide are more useful - the one that shows the reliability/satisfaction scores for various aspects of the vehicle over time. That will let you know that a particular score, for instance, is a result of very low satisfaction with the Nav system (or whatever), but the rest of the car is basically fine.

The detailed ratings on vehicles will also let you see things such as the example from gmw photos - that a car is good for the first 4-5 years then suffers lots of problems. If you only plan to own it for 4 years, you might not care. If you're like me, and want to own it for at least 10 years, reliability as the car ages becomes more important.

Sometimes too many "detailed" pictures (especially when those pictures are intentionally crafted to skew the results) often muddy the water making your job of ferreting out "the best".

Get this straight folks, there is no "best".

EVERY vehicle has some faults where in design shortfalls that make it ugly or mechanical shortfalls which makes it unreliable.

The BEST thing to do is to PHYSICALLY go to a dealer AND DRIVE ONE YOURSELF.

Then YOU can figure out if you like what you see or not.

While you can't "test" reliablity you can get a feel for how well it is put together.. You can listen for noises, squeaks, clunks that may indicate bad assembly.

You can look and feel the interior, the materials and decide if the manufacturer cheaped out and use low quality materials.

None of the above can be assessed from a book.

You can ask other people for their "opinions" but you will get no further and often will make you choice harder. Why, simple, every person you talk to WILL have a DIFFERENT opinion on quality and fit and finish.

I deal with this a lot within my family.. I buy Fords and my BIL buys Chevys.. Doesn't mean his Chevys are junk or my Fords are junk.. It is just means we buy what we like.

There is no shortcuts here, if you want an unbiased opinion you need to to do your own homework (IE YOU TEST DRIVE)not rely on a book or others.

In reality, you have lots of good choices in vehicles, most of the manufacturers of trucks have stepped up to the plate and are delivering good trucks with plenty of HP and towing capacity.

You just simply need to go to each dealer and take a test drive, they don't charge for test drives.

IMO, it's better to get both data as well as your personal impression. Yes, there is no perfect vehicle, but just going on how it feels/drives when it's new is also a very imperfect approach. It doesn't tell you how that particular model is likely to fair 10 years down the road.

It's better to do BOTH. Get data about longevity over time (as long as you care about, at least) and personal impressions. Sometimes the most reliable car isn't the car for you. Sometimes the nicest car to drive when new, isn't the one that's going to still be nice to own/drive 10 years down the road. One usually has to balance these things and compromise. (e.g. Identify the models that have the reliability average you desire for the timeframe that you care about, then go test drive them and buy the one that suits you best, or costs the least, or whatever criteria is most important to you.)

NJRVer wrote:
I would take CR with a grain of salt for sure.
But, any other so called "testing" magazine or internet site is completely worthless. You can't give an accurate assessment of a vehicle when they only let you drive it under their controlled conditions for an hour or two.

CR goes out like you and me and buys the vehicle to test it. They drive them around day in and day out like you and me.

Everybody else gets a loaner from the manufacturer that has benn gone over with a fine tooth comb before it changes hands to the next magazine reporter. Talk about getting a biased review. If they keep trashing a brand, that brand won't lend them a vehicle to "test" anymore.

this not the car test (where they buy a car) but the 'survey' where they poll owners ,it really hurts their reputation.
JD powers is worlds above .