Help me understand Consumer Reports [fixed the gaint img]

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.

In the early 80's, I liked to read about the testing methodology CR used to evaluate products, but their political views bothered me - I'm not sure if their slant is greater now than in the past or if it is just my sensitivity to financially supporting an opposing view. I noticed a shift in bias start in the late 80's with a push for larger government, more citizen oversight and more forced safety pushed on consumers. After they dumbed down the content and layout of the magazine for their target audience, I no longer had a reason to continue reading it.

In full disclosure i got it as a free copy with no address delivered to my house by mistake. the address was not there so i could not send it to the right person. I never looked at this till now.

How about J.D.Power .

My tundra which has the 85 score had the usual stuff done
water pumps , brakes and service done. the only non schedule service was a airbag light that cost me 1200 for a unit. i am told its very very rare in tundra forums. it occurred at 125k and 9th year of service.

Honestly if someone is new to RV and gets a consumer report as a guide they will endup with no truck

I am meddling around with machine learning algorithms now and do data analysis of big data. again very new but decided that is where the future is so i am always looking into to data .large data to see patterns. I wonder if they can offer me their raw data to run a few stimulation to find any patters or clusters .

OK, so they don't do movie reviews. I really don't remember, it has been a long time since I picked one up.
That doesn't change the point being made. IMO, CR reviews are more unreliable than they say Jeeps are.
In fact, that just points the finger at movie reviewers in general. They, too, have only entertainment value, and no "real-world" usefulness.

mowermech wrote:
I
If they like a movie, it isn't worth buying a ticket to see it.
If they do not like a movie, I will probably enjoy it.

WOW! MY digital and print versions of Consumer Reports for as long as I can remember didn't have movie reviews. Maybe I just missed it for decades.

mowermech wrote:
IMO, Consumer Reports isn't even good entertainment. Over the years, I subscribed several times, hoping for a different experience (yeah, I know, "One definition of insanity...) but was disappointed every time.
Some things I have found to be "Always" items:
Foreign vehicles are wonderful (even if they are built in the United States).
Jeeps are terrible.
Any truck that rides like a truck is useless.
If they like an appliance, I probably won't.
If they don't like an appliance, chances are I will get excellent service from it.
If they like a movie, it isn't worth buying a ticket to see it.
If they do not like a movie, I will probably enjoy it.
Lesson learned (finally): Do not subscribe to Consumer Reports!
Of course, your results may vary.

I believe they rated the Chevy Impala as their car of the year last year or year before.

Yes, they did trash US cars years ago. That's because US cars deserved to be trashed. They were junk.

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.

Tom_M wrote:

hone eagle wrote:
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.

Allpar.com is a site focused on Chrysler products. Consumer Reports has rated Chrysler products poorly in the past. I smell a bit of bias in the above report.

nope you can find the same opinion about the methodology everywhere - just have to look ,I just posted the first one that came up.

hone eagle wrote:
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.

Allpar.com is a site focused on Chrysler products. Consumer Reports has rated Chrysler products poorly in the past. I smell a bit of bias in the above report.

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