Toyota loses its way

In message , Ashton Crusher writes

We get JD Power surveys over here, they're rubbish. Instead stead of putting cars though their own in house checks, the just sent out questionnaires and interview a few garages and well as not being able to piss off the people that advertise in them. At least "Which?" Buy their cars off of forecourts so the garage doesn't know where it's going and all their testing is in house, as well as questionnaires, and no advertisers to suck up to. That's America for you, profit is king, peoples lives come further down the list.

The Powers studies survey 1000's of cars. They pay the car owner a small sum to fill out their survey forms. Might not be perfect, but it measures a wide range of owner experience. In house testing of one or two samples isn't real world, and always turns out to reveal more about the testers' preferences/prejudices than anything else. Just as your use of the word "rubbish" reveals yours. As good a reason as any to prefer Powers over usenet postings.

durng the first few months of the vehicle's life - the bit they survey. if you keep a vehicle longer than that, you'll see a whole different reality. especially if you go to a junkyard and see all the 10 year old domestics lined up.

again, only when the car is new. hence they carefully use the wording "initial quality", the ones you're failing to acknowledge.

admittedly, domestics have improved on what used to be a dismal initial quality ratings, but down the road, they're still the garbage that ends up in the junk yard 10 years earlier than their import counterparts.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Powers has done a 3 year dependability study for years. Of course with Buick at the top of their list, it's a sure thing you'll discount it, what with all your boneyard counting. After all it's still only a 3 year study.

yes, only 3 years. that's typically 36,000 miles. hardly a real "test".

Yep. Better that the consumer rely on "jim beam's shot and a boneyard count" usenet posting method for selecting a dependable car. That'll work every time. Gar-an-teed. Makes sense that 36,000 miles of widespread data can't hold a candle to "jim beam's" 10 fingers. Makes real good sense.

hey dude, i can't force you to have a double digit i.q. but i can point out your logical fallacy that lasting only 36k makes a car "dependable".

Chill dude. I can go with your flow. The so-called 3 year "dependability study" is meaningless. What are they thinking with all that fancy statistical stuff? They could just ask the car salesmen at the dealerships. Or ask you to do a quick boneyard finger count to get an answer. Heck, just ask you what's dependable, even if you're wearing mittens. Keep numbers out of that part in case you miscount. Then put what you say in the list. And why fool around with 3 years when you can do 10 years? After all, lots of people buy 10 year old cars. Right? Why didn't I think of that before? Beats me. Just my dumb nature, probably. Hey, I got an idea. You take over from JDPower. JBeam - The 10-Finger Statistical Expert and Boneyard Car-Counter. That should work.

In message , jim beam writes

You've obviously never subscribed to "Which?" But you should be able to get a taste of what they're like from their web site. Because the don't work alone they do test hundreds of cars as the work is shared with other consumer magazines across Europe, and they also send out questionnaires to their readership but they don't pay for them, otherwise they'd get back what people thought they wanted to hear instead of the truth.

i think you only have one finger. or is it thumb.

In message , Bob Cooper writes

Compared to the "Which?" Where the answers in the studies are in two year segments, 2002-2003/2004-2005/2006-2007/2008-2009 so you can see at a glance if a car is improving in quality and reliability or otherwise.

"Which" looks similar to Consumer Reports, which is the long-time - and sometimes disputed - standard measuring device used by those who let magazines select their cars for them in the U.S. They also use their subscribers to measure older cars. It's been pointed out numerous times in these newsgroups that CR and JDPower "track well" against each other. I've never verified that.

In message , Bob Cooper writes

Consumer Reports and JD Power, on this side of the pond are frequently very different

Well, I did it three times in one day, quite often. Never had a problem.

Then again, I made sure the ATF was correct and at the correct level.

Are these the "Initial Quality Surveys"? Any new car I get better pass one of these, because they're conducted within three months of buying a car.

If a car can't pass one of these in 90 days, the automaker needs to go out of business.

But, the governemt shored up GM, didn't they?

Sure Whatever you say. Putz.

1978 Corolla 1200...only 50,000 miles before being done in by a "Rustang"... 1980 Corolla SR5 6 years and 244,000 miles. Finally traded for... 1985 Corolla GTS, 20 years and 258,000 miles. Sits in my back yard... 1988 Supra, 22 years, 215,000 miles...resting until spring. 1985 Celica GTS, 21 years and 245,000 miles.

Real world tests by someone who likes Toyotas for a reason.

you should cross-post to .frod, .gm, etc...