Expressing an opinion does not make someone a troll. Calling someone a liar because he does not agree with you is not a fair tactic. Point out one lie I have told. You ignore facts at your own peril. Chanting the "Toyotas are great" mantra doesn't make it a fact.
Define "rare lemon." Why is it wrong for me point out that not all surveys are as flattering to Toyota as the Consumer Reports survey [used to be]? I don't trust the CR's survey any more today than I did last year, or ten years ago. It is not a well constructed survey.
Ed, I'd have to disagree with you at least wrt the Corolla which is said to be the best Toyota wrt reliability or so I've read before. I've got one old Corolla and 2 newer ones and they are reliable. Of course I can't speak about the other Toyotas tho. Personally I prefer Honda Accord because of comfort but it's not fair to compare the two. Both are very reliable tho I think the Corolla is cheaper to maintain.
And as far as the CU, I tend to agree with you. People who fill out the survey do so if they want to (therefore not too scientific) and some who do so are not too bright when it comes to cars. What I've read about CU in the past many times is that their reporting is biased in favor of their advertisers no matter what they claim. I've read this MANY times in other newsgroups and my concensus is, is that those who know cars don't use CU for their basis. That said in my own experience, I've found CU to fairly accurate (not always tho) but I don't rely on them as my only source of info (just to be safe) before I fork over serious money on a car/truck.
I've never said Corollas are unreliable. I'd agree that they are among the most reliable cars you can buy, but they are not alone at the top. The current Corolla is a "proven" (i.e. old) design by modern standards. And Corollas tend to be basic vehicles (not to many electric/electronic options). Both of these contribute to the reliability. Also, the type of person that buys a Corolla is not likely to abuse it (but the they might not maintain them perfectly either). BTW my Sister has an 11 year old Civic. In the 11 years she has owned it, the only repairs were to replace the muffler and the spark plug wires. And the muffler was her fault for backing it into a curb :). You couldn't really get a more reliable vehicle, though I wouldn't be caught dead driving the car (faded paint, faded interior, paint coming off the bumpers and wheel covers, fogged headlights, etc).
I am not sure what you mean by "advertising." Consumer Reports doesn't sell advertising. The only advertising in the magazines or on the web site is for their other products. Of course they do have monetary pressures. They have to make sure the magazine appeals to the subscribers. They don't provide any details on how many people respond for each brand of vehicle, but I believe that they have a very large number of subscribers who are Toyota owners. If you go look at Consumer Comments for various vehicles on there web site, there are always more comments for Toyota vehicles than for most others. For instance:
Here are the number of Consumer Reviews for various 2007 Toyotas:
By model: Crown Victoria (2) Econoline (2) Edge (32) Escape (23) Escape Hybrid (12) Expedition (15) Explorer (5) Explorer Sport Trac (14) F-150 (11) F-250 (3) F-350 (3) Five Hundred (11) Focus (13) Freestar (0) Freestyle (16) Fusion (15) Mustang (11) Ranger (4)
Only 192
Over 3 times as many people responded about 2007 Toyota models as for 2007 Ford models. Now some of this may have been because Toyota owners are more passionate than Ford owners, but I think a simpler explanation is that many more CR readers are Toyota owners than are Ford owners. Therefore when making editorial decisions, I suspect CR is less likely to offend Toyota owners than Ford owners. Plus it is clear over the years that CR has a preference for Toyota design decisions. CR has always favored simple, basic, proven, over exciting, interesting, high performance. I am not saying they are deliberately biased (they don't sit around in meetings saying " Let pump up Toyota") but they do have preferences that fit in with the Toyota type of cars (or maybe Toyota designs cars that suit the CR preferences). It is a chicken / egg thing - Do more Toyota owners buy CR because it prefers Toyotas, or do CR readers prefer Toyotas because they read (and trust) CR. Either way it is my opinion that CR's readership has a pro-Toyota bias. And this may influence the pro-Toyota bias of CR. This is all theory / opinion. It is not provable, at least by me.
Ok but didn't you say Toyota of which Corolla is one of them? And yes I own a Honda Accord and love it. Everything else of which you said I either agree or let me say I won't disagree too much.
One thing I said which I have to correct is I used CU when I meant CR. But I think you already knew that.
I have read similar comments many times in newsgroups as well and it only convinces me that there are a lot of people who like to bash CR, but who don't actually know much about it. As even White points out; CR doesn't accept outside advertising. This is probably the most fundamental principle of the organization and anyone who doesn't know this can hardly be considered an authority CR.
The subscribers want unbiased reviews of products to allow them to make informed buying decisions. What appeals to them is objectivity and testing skill.
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CR subscribers tend to make rational, well researched buying decisions. In the past, Toyota has ranked at the top of reliability so it isn't surprising that more CR subscribers prefer them. As for CR's preferences, well, read on.
Of course the survey results are not an editorial decision but rather the experiences reported by the owners. In this case, the owners are reporting that Toyota reliability has dropped for at least some models and Ford has improved. CR has chosen to highlight this fact in a special article. If their motivation is to stroke Toyota loyalists, they must be stupid. If the goal is unbiased reporting, they are doing their job.
This is another myth promulgated by CR bashers. CR favors cars that deliver what they are supposed to deliver. Simple and basic may be desirable for economy cars. For sports and luxury cars, low performance and blandness is a ticket to the bottom of the rankings.
Really? Read on.
Then why did they trash the V6 Camry, the V8 Tundra and the AWD Lexus GS?
Well, let's see if objective facts bear you out. Of the 21 categories of vehicles tested by CR, here are the manufacturers of the top rated models and the number of categories they won:
Honda 5 Toyota 4 Nissan 3 Porsche 2 GM 2 Mazda 2 Mini 1 Mercedes 1 VW 1
Hardly an overwhelming bias for Toyota. And considering the narrow range of cars manufactured by Porsche, having two models at the top of their respective categories is pretty impressive. Does Porsche make the simple, basic, proven, unexciting, uninteresting, low performance vehicles that you claim CR prefers?
If CR is biased toward Toyotas (because they prefer basic to interesting or for whatever reason), how do you explain these facts:
Among Sports/Sporty cars, Scion tC ranks ninth out of ten, beating only Cobalt.
Among Performance/Luxury Sports Cars, Lexus SC430 ranks eighth out of ten.
Among Budget Cars in both AT and MT categories, Yaris ranks sixth out of seven, beaten by a Kia, a Hyundai and a Ford.
Among Family Sedans, Camry ranks only fifth out of twenty.
Note that all of the above rankings are based only on CR testing. They do not take reliability into account.
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