Help me understand Consumer Reports [fixed the gaint img]

Consumer Reports is less about how well a product performs in its intended purpose and more about how well a product conforms to a particular social/political agenda.

consumer reports survey



very unscientific sample sizes off , no controls
There is the reason they famously down graded a car built for GM in california by Toyoda,
identical vehicles different names- guess which one was a recommended best buy and which one was not recommended?

CR is only good on the bottom of a bird cage.

That report sounds like a new girl tv reporter who's first job was to find out which used (10 years) brand/model car was the most worked on in larger repair shops around town. Ford Taurus won by a big 20 percent margin over all other brands/models.

Old guy reporter did another survey 30 days later of area auto dealers about how many model cars had the biggest sales. Ford Taurus won by a 20 percent margin over all others.

I wouldn't use a CR report to buy the best manure spreader.

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.

This.

Don't just look at the overall numbers. Look at the detailed reports for the vehicle, that lists problem areas by year. What you consider a minor problem might be a big deal for someone else and be listed as a major problem.

Also, it becomes clear that across every brand, the first model year of a major overhaul is NOT a good choice. Either go for the last year of the old version, or wait a year.

CR does not accept advertising and IMHO is basically unbiased. There reliability surveys go back 10 years. Keep in mind that what they report are RELIABILITY ratings, not general performance. They are not concerned with towing capabilities or cargo capacity. IMHO they are also overly concerned with electronics systems and creature comforts. But those are very important to some people.

Another good resource for reviews and model history is Edmunds. Just go to the main site and put the model you are interested into the search box, and you will get a history of all the different design generations, with changes from one to the next. That is very useful.

Consumer Reports gave my 2000 Chevy Astro van an "Average" reliability rating. 18 years and 150,000 miles later it is still running strong and has always started and ran with no problems....except when the pack rats built a nest on the distributor and ate the spark plug wires. I had to replace the wires and that was 8 years ago. Even with two wires ate up it still ran at 80 MPH but would sputter a bit getting there.

My 08 HD Silverado (130,000 miles) had a fuel issue (hot weather and heavy load would cause the injectors to demand more fuel than the system could provide) and needed one glow plug around 100,000 miles. A FASS lift pump and 15 minutes replacing the glow plug fixed those last year. Overall it was less reliable than the Astro.

As others have said I would not put much stock in Consumer Reports...or maybe I am just lucky with my vehicle purchases.

I do read their "how we rate" section when I am in a DR's office and see one of the magazines with articles on things I may want to buy, but I do not subscribe.

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.

One of my problems with any of these so called reliability surveys is they don't have a good long term picture. Which is fair enough, because it would be ten years before you got a big sampling of data.

If you would have surveyed me at the five year point on my Nissan truck, I would have reported 100% reliability. However between five years and now 11 years, I've repaired/replaced quite a few things, so the survey would look very different.

Paul Clancy wrote:
From what I understand the Cr ratings are more about the stereo head unit than anything. If the rating is low the owners likely hate the stereo nav setup or find it buggy ( many are ) but really not a fair measure of an HD truck.

Paul, you do bring up a valid point, pretty much every vehicle now days is saturated in "high tech" devices like Nav, Sync, Onstar and so on..

Some of those devices are extremely buggy and often causes complaints.

I know myself, I JUNKED the "Sync" in my 2013 truck, what utter garbage and I had no choice because it was LUMPED into an option package that contained something that to me is useful (To get adjustable pedals I HAD to buy the option that included Sync).

Replaced that buggy Sync with an aftermarket stereo which doesn't randomly forget stations, turn its self on or off, freezes, turns volume down until you turn the truck off and restart it??? And so on.

Seen lots of complaints about Sync but yet it continues to go unfixed and they sell them buy the gross..

Like I said, don't buy something because a magazine says it is best, you don't know what data they have thrown out to arrive at their conclusion.

From what I understand the Cr ratings are more about the stereo head unit than anything. If the rating is low the owners likely hate the stereo nav setup or find it buggy ( many are ) but really not a fair measure of an HD truck.

Your FIRST mistake is READING "Consumer Reports".

It IS a HIGHLY BIASED "Infomercial" for the brands that grease the publishers' palms more.

I remember way back in the early 1990s when CR often "rated" GOLDSTAR VCRS as the "best"..

From a reliability and pix quality they were the absolute worst, worked at a repair shop back then and Goldstars were the HIGHEST failure return rate under warranty..

People read it in CR that they were good or better and people bought them and I FIXED them..

You must understand that ANY "data" can and will be skewed, so take what CR says with a grain of salt..

Buy what YOU LIKE, not what some magazine tells you to buy..

Just understand that pretty much anything can break or fail, even the top listed make on CR magazine..