You don't have to apologize for realists.

The way I see it when somebody comes to a forum to discuss a problem with their car - that's the #1 purpose of a car forum... is to create informative discussion that others can use in the future via the search feature or add-on discussion so that they can recognize their symptoms and see that they are not alone.

You have those that think a car board is only for worship of a particular model or make of vehicle. And maybe they have had a perfect experience, and want to spread the joy.

Maybe some of the people with problems have been ticked off and are on a mission to spread warnings.

Neither one is really wrong just as long as they realize where the other is coming from. Everyone has different experiences and different opinions.

I am on a lot of forums with a lot of brands and models in mind and I see the same things there. Those that see absolutely no fault with their brand. Those that are trying to appreciate the brand but having not so great experiences, and those that are just flat out pissed at the brand and trying to warn others. It's not just here... in fact I've never seen a car board that wasn't like this.

 

CR is concerned with things that actually BREAK on vehicles.......or cease to function as they should, not with emotional questions like J.D. Power asks. And J.D. Power asks many related but irrelevant questions about personal satisfaction with the vehicle, and dealer sales and service experience....things that are centered more on opinion than fact. CR is concerned more with the overriding question of: is the vehicle reliable or not, and did you have trouble with things in these repair categories or not? In other words, did it BREAK or didn't it? Unlike most other companies, CR gets back hundereds of thousands of survey responses....the latest figure I saw was over a million.
CR also evaluates hundereds of thousands of vehicles across the nation, in the hands of an equal number of consumers. While the individual Four-Seasons tests that are done with the test cars in magazines and publications like Car and Driver, Road and Track, Autoweek, Automobile, etc..... are interesting and useful ( and I read them myself ) they only deal with the experience of ONE specific vehicle....not a wide example of similiar vehicles like with CR.
CR also does not accept any vehicle advertising from any manufacturer ( most magazines cannot say the same ), and accepts no political money. it is funded mostly by subscribers and people who buy the magazines.
And last, my own experience, both from the reviews that I do on new vehicles, from vehicles owned and driven by my friends, family, and colleagues, and of course vehicles that I have owned myself over the years, pretty much agrees with CR's findings.....although, admittedly, some surprises pop up now and then......like with some of the new 2007 Lexus products.
CR, for example, strongly verifies what I first started noticing several years ago....vastly improved quality and fit-and-finish on new Hyundai and Kia models. It also has correctly tracked the increase in the number of problems on new Camrys, although the Camry still is not considered an unreliable car by any means.

Now...that doesn't mean that CR is not concerned with other related questions such as dealer and vehicle satisfaction. They are, have surveys on it, and publish the results in the April New-Car issue.. But the main issue is reliability......always has been.

 

Always? The 1st year 4Runner we owned wasn't. The 1st year Armada we owned wasn't. The first year Accord and Civic weren't.

 

I have never taken a CR survey so I can't confirm that CR mainly asks about things that have broken and little of the rest. I can however verify that JD Power does ask a lot of questions outside of the basic 'what has broken' train of thought, as I've taken a few of their car surveys (and a whole lot of other JD Power surveys, too)
With that said, JD makes it very clear what you're answering and they don't tend to 'mix' data in their results unless that is their intention. They may ask me about my satisfaction with my sales experience at the dealer, but it's not like that is going to affect my answers when they ask what has broken on my car.
Still, I'm unsure why that alone would make their results more accurate. In fact if JD Power is able to use greater measures of overall satisfaction with the pre and post sales experience, they may be able to 'balance' out what reliability reports might be unfairly harsh or unrealistically kind because of the experiences outside of the reliability record itself?
Just something to consider.

Also do you have the actual number of surveys by CR and JD Power?
Last I heard CR only surveys their own subscribers, which may make a very significant impact on the polling results they receive - certainly far from a truly random sample as JD Power attempts to create.

 

thanks Threxxx that was thoughtful of you. This is realy the only forum/website I have spent any time on, I casually looked at the others out there for owners but did not decide to participate in them because when I first arrived here back in early August I saw a lot of posts by realists whose input helped me where my own prior ES350 was invloved. I only rarely see deliberate censoring to make something look less than it is or was, otherwise it is the good, the bad and the indifferent, a nice mix and what I really like about CL.

Your insight on forums is helpful.

 

No....first year models are NOT always problematic. That is nonsense..........an old myth that has far outlived its accuracy, and applies much more to American-designed vehicles ( and some European ones ) than to Asian-designed ones. In fact, with some vehicles ( newer Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover models are the best examples ) they STILL don't get it right even after several years of production.
Toyota and Honda, with some exceptions such as the new Camry, usually get it right the first year. And take the new Hyundai Azera....much better than average repair record, even in its first year, according to Consumer Reports. Same with the Ford Fusion / Mercury Milan / Lincoln Zephyr triplets...much better than average in their first year.....and from an American design at that.

 

This is true, but does not affect the reliability of the vehicles involved. It either needs to go to the shop or it doesn't. CR also asks the question of SERIOUS repairs vs. minor ones. Obviously, brake linings are going to wear out with time and have to be replaced.....that is normal, and driving conditions have a lot to do with that. But when brake pads and linings, with similiar drivers and driving conditions, last 10,000 miles on some cars and 100,000 on others, there is an obvious difference in brake reliability, as there is between, say, a simple pad replacement and having to repair or build the entire brake system........ruptured brake lines, warped-out rotors, leaking wheel cylinders, defective master cylinder, etc......

 

Nothing in the realm of car reliability is "always" a certain way. Lexus is not "always" reliable, and Mercedes is not "always" unreliable. I'm sure there are many Mercedes out there that have been perfect in terms of reliability, and Lexus that have been absolute lemons. Meaning you can't assume your experience will match the average and thus invalidating the words "always".

Well I think even your favorite guys - consumer reports - publish stats on the average number of repairs for the first year of new vehicle designs and the statistics don't lie. Last I saw.... while first year repairs are getting better and better, still, on average, the first year of almost all new models is going to be measurably less reliable than the second year and even still the second year less reliable than the third, though after the third year the returns become pretty diminished and insignificant on average. So no, not 'always', and it doesn't mean all vehicles are going to be 'unreliable' in the first year of their design, but statistically your odds of a problem-free experience are improved if you wait until the second or even the third year of a design.
So no, it's not nonsense.

What? We're talking relative reliability here. Are you saying Asian-designed cars on average are about as good as they're going to get in terms of reliability in the first year of design? That's just flat-out false. Just because a car has good reliability doesn't mean in the second year it can't get better... unless it was already nearly 'perfect' to begin with... and even the SC and LS which are as close as can be to perfect - I'll betcha Lexus tweaked and improved after the first year.

 

Yes, I agree with much of what you have written. I only brought up the fact that first-year models are NOT always problematic because another poster made the blanket statement that they WERE......which IS nonsense.
Some are...some aren't. Asian manufacturers ( more and more, Korean ones too ) generally do a good job the first time. But, of course, the CHANCES of a first-year model being more problematic than second or third-year ones, are, of course, a little higher. No one, me included, is disputing that. But there is a difference between a first-year model being slightly more unreliable than its later bretheren and being truly " problematic ".
The Lexus IS300 is a good example ( I owned one for 5 years ) . An almost perfect car from its very first day of production in U.S. trim, the intitial 2001 IS300 was marred by only a limited number of cars that got out of the factory with a slightly loose plastic cover under the engine in front and a slight electronic quirk in the 2-3 automatic transmission shift that would come and go. Whele that technically made them " more" problematic than the 2002-2005 ones, even the 2001's were close to perfect mechanically.....hardly " problematic ". Both problems were handled quickly and easily at the dealerships by factory fixes and campaigns.

So......I hope this clarifies for you what I was saying a little earlier about first-year " problems ". I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

 

True, but I think you can agree with me that potentially the average person who reads CR is a person who has found their results to be valuable. Meaning a lot of long-time Toyota and Honda owners who are subscribed to CR BECAUSE their experience has matched CR's either due to poor results with, say, Cadillac, and/or good results with Lexus.

Guess who doesn't subscribe to CR? The people who have found CR's findings to be inaccurate. Thus you are mainly asking people who have historically agreed with CR results and thus the results may be 'slow' to change.

Are you saying that JD Power doesn't do as good of a job as CR in terms of differentiating between seriousness of repairs?

 

That, and a number of other things as well. I was a J.D. Power focus panelist for several years. We would not just fill out paper or on-line surveys but actually have mass on-line chats about various automotive issues. The J.D. Power people in charge were nice and courteous, but didn't really seem to be deep into what they were doing......it seemed like a 9-5 job to them to collect a paycheck.
The new ( at the time ) Cadillac CTS was a good example. We discussed numerous things about it. I brought up a lot of things about the car ( from my own inspection and test-drive of it ) that many other people, even the people in charge of the panel group, just didn't seem to be getting....things like the drab, cheap-looking and cheap-feeling interior, the tendency of larger adults to bang their knees on the front lower-dash getting in and out, the predominance of funeral-home paint colors ( except the copper orange ) on what was supposedly a sports sedan, the lack of either wood or carbon-fiber trim, the creaks and rattles in the rather loose body structure, and the low quality of the plastics inside.
The focus group did not seem to be very interested in these matters, but many of the subsequent complaints about the CTS from actual owners did in fact mention at least some of these things.....and Cadillac, at the factory level, has addressed some of them in the last few years.

I also brought up the somewhat unrelated fact that J.D. Power had the annoying habit of NOT listing, by rank, vehicles and vehicle manufacurers that scored BELOW the industry average......they ONLY listed them alphabetically, by name. Yet they DID list the highest achievers....those who scored above the industry average...... by rank. This was, of course, misleading, and left one scratching his or her head about what the lowest-ranking vehicles and companies actually WERE. I pointed out that their chief rival, Consumer Reports, ALWAYS listed every standing by rank, not just alphabetically. So.....when I mentioned this to the panel leader, pointed out that this was misleading, and asked WHY Power did it that way, he sounded genuinely surprised and said......." I can't answer that....that has just always been our policy. It probably has to do with not wanting to make auto companies look and feel bad " ( ! ). So then I told him " I strongly suggest that you start printing your COMPLETE findings...not just re-juggle the results to make some companies look better on paper than others, or to artifically cover up the true results. "
He was silent for a few seconds and then said, " Mr. Marshall, you are the first person to truly bring this to my attention, and I will take your suggestions to Mr. Power himself."
Well....to his credit, he did, and while I did not notice any changes at first, eventualy the company did what I suggested and now prints everything by rank....not just those who scored above average.

So...I'm not going to just sit and bad-mouth Power and Co....they have their good points....... but they have just never impressed me the way Consumer Reports have.

 

But wasn't it you that said JD Power is too focused on the subjectives and not focused enough on the "did it break or didn't it break" hard line questions?

If the interior 'looks drab', doesn't have enough front knee room, has boring exterior paint colors, and doesn't offer premium trim options like wood... what in the world would that have to do with initial quality or reliability? I mean I understand why JD Power would be interested in it in terms of a focus group to give feedback to the manufacturers... but by your own measure you already said that stuff is meaningless in terms of reliability data.
The squeaks and rattles are the only one thing you mentioned there that would have any business being in a reliability and initial quality survey. "The color selection for the exterior paint is too limited or subdued" is valuable feedback, but not in a reliability/quality survey.

He said you were the first person to bring that to his attention? Either he was lying to you to make you feel good about something they had a policy of ignoring, or your entire story is a bit of a fisherman's tale - exaggerated to make it sound more impressive.

JD Power does list complete rankings but it's part of their privately held information that companies must pay to have access to. The amount of data they collect vs the amount of data they actually publish for the public to view free of charge is huge.

I'd actually find fault in CR for, in most areas, not publishing actual numbers - instead of they use their red/black circle system which doesn't give people any solid idea of how much actual difference there is in a given category between a car that is above average and a car that is below average.

I know people who are shocked when they see that, yes, Toyota is on average more reliable than GM in initial and mid-term quality, but the difference is far less substantial than you might tend to think by reading your typical editorial that uses overly colorful and exaggerated wording to make their publication seem more worthwhile and interesting.

 

Though, of course, one cannot read minds, it was neither...certainly not a fish tale on my part. He was a nice guy and I DID like him.
And I noticed the company did change their policy after a while.

Frankly, I don't care if it was because of me or not...I'm not that vain or ego-centered. I'm just glad they do a better job than they used to...but still, IMO, not the equal of CR.

We can go on all day long arguing this subject and tossing it back and forth...let's just agree, like gentlemen, to disagree. If you don't think CR is the best auto reliability source, fine....go with anyone you choose. But I'm sticking with them until I find someone better...and I haven't yet.

 

I think we can honestly say that first year models "tend" to have more issues than future year models. Nothing like a true field test to wring on the bugs.