Re: Minivan Comaprison

I gave up on Consumer Reports car reviews way back in the 1970's when I owned a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron 2 door and my dad owned a 1979 Plymouth Volare, both with a 318 engine and both will all the options.

Consumer Reports did a report on the Volare and hated it mostly because of the ride, noise and handling. At the end of the article, they made some comments that the Lebaron should be similar.

While both cars were built on the same platform, the 2 cars were literally like night and day. My car was quiet, smooth and ran beautifully for over 200k miles before I sold it. My dad's car was a freaking rattle trap and while, like mine, it ran for almost 150k miles, it was NOTHING like driving my car. Not even close.

That was the end of CR for me because they obviously did not have a clue.

I believe the guy that wrote "The Car Book" has a chapter in there about Consumer Reports and why they hate American cars.

CR should stick to toasters. psycho

I'm curious, why do they hate American cars?

Matt

Well, sorry, but by the 6th year, their data for all models tails off and gets very spotty; going back even further would end up with all saying "insufficient data", I'd suspect. But not reporting 10 year data doesn't make them biased. Incomplete, perhaps, to you, but not "biased."

Yeah, try that at your mega Chevy mall.

They probably don't read CR either if they're that destitute.

And that benefits them how? They certainly don't worry about attracting advertisers, or inflating sales numbers to boost ad revenue.

The only news releases CR sends out are those about products it's found to be so unsafe, they feel people should be warned. If they really just cared about sales, they'd only publish that in the magazine and force people to buy it.

Uh, when two cars are built on the same platform, on the average they will be similar. You're citing anecdotes.

I see. What hundreds of thousands of owners report is not valid; what you report is. Bizarroland.

I believe you're an idiot.

Their data tails off because they don't ask for the data last I knew. Are they asking for data beyond 5 years now on their annual surveys?

Not having complete data absolutely does add bias to a data set.

And the CR data is inherently biased for a number of other reasons. One, is that the survey is only sent to people who subscribe to CR. This is a biased set of the U.S. population. And then not everyone who receives the survey sends it back, so now you are getting a self-selected set of a biased set of an overally population.

Matt

I suppose *hate* is a strong word, but their testing is biased toward the imports. Also, the imports take CR very seriously and design their cars to do well on the test reports as far as ergonomics are concerned.

psycho

No I'm not.

I'm citing facts.

For CR to make a blanket statement like that without actually driving both cars, which they do quite often BTW, is just plain wrong and inaccurate.

Who is talking about 1000's of owners? I'm talking about a 5 page review.

FWIW you seem pretty bizzare to me.

Seems you're the resident idiot around here.

So why is that according to The Car Book?

Matt

Yes, it sends the message that whoever can manufacturer a car that holds together the best during the first 5 years, wins. Thus, go ahead and put a lot of short lived components into the car because it doesen't matter if it lasts much beyond 5 years.

And consider that if you assume that the CR subscribers place a heavy emphasis on letting CR make their buying decisions for them, since CR favors imports, the subscriber base is going to have a larger percentage of imports then the general population, and so of course CR will get more recommendations for imports. Kind of a cult of personality.

And human nature being what it is, the people that send it back are going to tend to be the ones with axes to grind because of some fault. Thus if you have 2 cars, one with 5 minor things that go wrong on it, and another with 3 major things that go wrong on it that cost 5 times more than the first car, the survey respondents are both going to paint their problems up as major freaking deals, even though in truth only the second respondent really had major freaking problems.

Ted

There's such a thing as public libraries. They probably don't SUBSCRIBE to CR if their that destitute, but certainly their library does. And libraries tend to subscribe and buy the books and periodicals that their regular patrons want them to have.

If nobody buys CR then how does the magazine get money to publish?

They have to keep the subscriber base interested and continuing to renew the subscriptions, and they have to attract people to buy the magazine off the magazine rack.

Ted

The Car Book (Gillis) had a chapter in it where he explained in some detail, why the American cars do not do as well on CR's reports. You have to understand this was many years ago when the first edition came out.

What it boiled down to was that Consumer's testing procedures were biased against American cars and they weighted certain factors in their subjective testing that would favor foreign cars and go against American cars. Things like cigarette lighter placement and where the vanity light switches were located were as important as how easy it was to access the oil filter (this is a made up example but that's the kind of stuff). Also the Japanese would take CR very seriously when designing cars and they would actually take into consideration how CR would rate their cars during the design process. Not a bad idea in my opinion. It took almost losing the car market to the Japanese back in the 80's for the American manufacturers to wake up.

This was a long time ago (80's) and things may have changed since then but the list of CR bumbling goes on and on.

About the only thing I do find useful as far as auto's are concerned is the user ratings and trouble areas that they publish.

No, they have the data they want. Not having the data you want doesn't mean bias. By that reasoning, not asking if your car can fly means the data isn't complete and would be biased.

None of which damage the intended use of the survey.

So are those who chose to answer JDP's survey.

Not everyone who gets contacted by J D Power responds either.

So when C/D does a road test and ranks Hondas and BMWs first, as it often does, is it biased too? Face it, you don't LIKE what CR finds in its testing, or what its readers report. OK, that's your perogative, but it's stupid to call it "bias."

Ever read what they say about Land Rover, for example? Or Mercedes? Or the BMW 7-series?

Your personal experience with 2 cars is anecdotal.

It was a prediction, based in fact about platform sharing.

Of which car?

Have you read CR?

CR doesn't get "recommendations" from its readers. They survey their readers for problems they've had in specific areas.

And you can prove this happens differently with owners of imports vs owners of domestics?

A large part is through donations (they're a non-profit; donations are tax deductible) and grants. And yes, subscriptions. But are you saying people subscribe to CR because of the sensationalism? You've got them mixed up with The National Enquirer.

Which they do by rating products. And if they lose their reputation for honesty and being unbiased, there go their subscribers.

OK, time out. CR does use ergonomics as one factor in their ranking. One out of many. Ride, handling, safety -- all are weighted more heavily. Are people saying ergonomics shouldn't be important? Or that American auto makers can't design good ergonomics?

I bet you think Fox News is "fair and balanced."

They'd have a lot more customers if they started fairly reporting on American cars.