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Comments
I would really like to be able to buy an American car. They just can't get the reliability down. Saturn is about as close as I would go relibility wise but their fit and finish isn't that good.
It's funny on the reliability part the Chevrolet Prizm is higher in reliability that the Toyota Corolla. Figure that out.
Ah statistics....
Think of it this way. The rankings do not take reliability into consideration.
When they decide whether or not to recommend a car, then reliability does come into play.
Understand now?
I have the 2002 Buying Guide in front of me and I see no such thing.
In fact, I see the opposite. For whatever reason, the Corolla scores higher (i.e., has less problems) in more of the individual trouble spots.
Both the Prizm and the Corolla get the red check mark for overall reliability and they receive the top mark for predicted reliability.
1.)Ford Focus*
2.)Volkswagen Golf
3.)Honda Civic
4.)Toyoya Prius
5.)Toyota Echo
6.)Mazda Protege
7.Hyundai Elantra*
8.)Volkswagen Jetta
* Not Recommended because of below average reliability
My Personal Ranking
1.Mazda Protege-The best choice
2.Honda Civic-The safe choice
3.Volkswagen Jetta-The pricy choice
4.Toyota Echo-The odd looking choice
5.Volkswagen Golf-The funky choice
6.Ford Focus-The "Born in the USA"choice
7.Toyota Prius-The "green" choice
8.Hyundai Elantra-The low price choice
However, I think all of these vehicles are pretty good machines and would serve their owners well.
2.Focus-USDA choice
3.Jetta-Audi second choice
4.Golf-PGA choice
5.Echo-Ronald McDonald's choice
6.Protege-smart(bomb)choice
7.Prius-Sophie';s choice
8.Civic-homeboy's choice
God Bless,
Larry
In that same list they have the PT Cruiser NEON listed higher than the Protege which absolutely blew my mind.
Even their reliability results are I feel somewhat suspect. Sure they probably do give a general impression of the overall quality of a car, but with respect to requiring unscheduled maintainance or worse stranding the driver, I suspect that the difference between the top of the list and the bottem is that the top of the list will not start on one day in 10 years while the one at the bottem of the list will not start on 1.7 days in 10 years.
Contrary to what one poster in this thread stated, CR does give you some indication of the severity of problems. They ask owners about the realibility of their cars in 14 different areas. Problems with paint and trim, which I would consider minor, are not reported in the same category as the problems with the engine or another more major component.
I find it suspect that people whose cars don't do as well in the survey of reliability seem to be the ones who have the biggest issue with CR.
Now back to Kiplinger. One thing that Kiplinger reported on was the five year service costs for the various vehicles. Service costs were "estimated five-year cost of maintenance and unscheduled repairs, based on past costs."
What I did not understand was if the unscheduled repairs portion were for the cost of repairs outside the warranty or inside the warranty. Either way you slice it, I thought the five year service costs were a little on the high side for Hyundais.
What do the others who have seen the issue think?
Re paint problems... a lot of them are minor, like dirt in the paint, but some paint problems can be biggies, like where the paint comes off in large patches, requiring a repaint (and probably a lot of hassle for the owner getting the manufacturer to pay for the repaint).
Like I pointed out later, the fact that cars that are essentially twins, or worse are twins (like the Corolla/Prism) can be ranked differently certainly calls their rating system into question.
For the record I do not own a Korean Car.
And CR does give a guide as to what the various colors of "dots" mean.
There are so many false claims and mischaracterizations being made (by the people who complain about CR) that it makes me wonder if you guys really read CR carefully.
Now back to Kiplinger's and Backy's question. The article does not say how many miles a year they use in figuring out the service costs. They do say that Intellichoice compiled the figures. One would have to believe that the same method of computation is used on all the cars.
I do wish they had broken service costs down into regular maintenance and unscheduled service and explained whether the figures for unscheduled service were within warranty or outside the warranty. I would have found the information even more useful and informative.
If anyone would care to go to the Intellichoice website and see what they can find out, I would appreciate it. I have been to the website, but have never been able to figure out how to access the service cost data.
I did a quick comparison of the figures for my Echo and a Hyundai Accent. My Echo has a lower cost for maintenance and a lower cost for repairs.
Edit: I found out how IntelliChoice figures repair costs. They base it on a 5 year extended warranty with a zero deductible and a mileage limit of 70,000 miles.
The tester is the wild card.Two different people will see different pluses and minisus in the same car.A hard ride could mean "sportscar like"handling to one tester(+) and lousy comfort to another(-).These mags are good to narrow your test drive choices,but other then basic specs are not that useful to determine what car to buy.
Basing repair costs on the price of an extended warranty for 5 years/70,000 miles is an odd way of calculating repair costs. But then, how else would they do that unless they surveyed owners, which would cost a lot more than just using some arbitrary warranty costs. What they are saying is that an Accent owner would expect to pay $698 for an additional 10,000 miles of bumper-to-bumper warranty coverage during the first five years of ownership, while an ECHO owner would pay $565 for two additional years and 34,000 miles of warranty. I find that hard to believe, since I know I could have bought an additional five years and 40,000 miles of bumper-to-bumper warranty from Hyundai for my '01 Elantra for around $1000. In the real world, how many Accent owners would shell out $698 for 10,000 more miles of warranty? Not too many I'd wager. I think it is more likely that the actual unscheduled repair costs for a car that is not under warranty will be higher than for a car that is under warranty. Even for a reliable car like the ECHO--its probability of a problem during years 4 and 5 is not zero. I'll grant that the probability that the Accent will require unscheduled repairs in years 4 and 5 is greater than that for the ECHO, based on Toyota's historic high reliability vs. Hyundai's record, but at least the repair costs for the Accent will be zero up to 60k miles, wear items excepted. I wonder if Intellichoice's methodology adequately accounts for the long-term warranties in Hyundais and Kias?
As far as maintenance goes, Intellichoice stated that they follow whatever the maker's recommendations are. However, they don't say if they follow the severe driving schedule or the normal driving schedule.
Toyota recommends oil changes for my Echo every 5k under severe driving conditions and 7.5k under normal driving conditions.
I believe that is the schedule for all Toyotas so perhaps if someone who has a Hyundai can post what the oil change schedules are, we can reasonably assume the schedule for the Accent would be the same even if the person posting does not own an Accent.
But to answer your questions, I do not think that Kias are junk. They are just not very good cars. Yes, I have driven some.
But you don't necessarily have to drive a vehicle to form an opinion about the quality. Or do you think that checking out the operation of something like the glove box requires a test drive?
Scientific Experimentation often requires ways of hiding information from the user that might be a source of bias: In clinical trials of drugs there is always a control given a placebo, Particle Physicists now use methods to hide the results of an experiment until after all the data has been processed, etc. Unfortunately such methods are pretty much impossible with cars. I know that Hyundai tried hiding the identity of their Sonata a few years back but that was only for short test drives, it would be impossible to hide the identity of a car over an extended period of time.
Ultimately for Hyundai to overcome the perception of many, it is going to take many, many happy owners who have owned the cars for many years. Daewoo and Kia have even higher obstacles to climb since they enjoy far less recognition than Hyundai (and imho their products are less appealing (I know some people like the Optima, but I look at it and think Yuck, I like the Sonata much better in terms of styling).
Anyone else noticed the 80's like adds that Daewoo is running for it's Lanos? It's even got the ubiquitous panther-morphing-into-a-car routine. Oh an how about the car driving up the dam. (chuckle)
"The Daewoo Lanos dominates the road with it's 109 ft/lbs of torque"
If people's perceptions of cars were purely logical, then I imagine that GM would have gone out of business years ago, or at least trimed their line down considerably. The Cavalier for example is on an (in automotive terms) ancient platform, was never very refined, has a number of niggling problems associated with it and yet it still remains a very strong selling sedan for GM, indeed I would bet many of its buyers are buying their second Cavalier. Further I would bet that many of those Cavalier Drivers would claim it is just as good as any Japanese Car.
Also of course different people have a different idea of what constitutes quality. To some it is a car with no squeaks and rattles and an impeccable finish, to others it is a car that will run without letting them down for 100K+ miles. To the first group a flimsy cupholder (Like VW is infamous for) might be a sign of poor quality, to the latter group a GM car might well qualify (since many of the old engines in GMs stable are essentially bullet proof at this point) as being high quality.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Buy a Honda.
Ford's suck.
Buy a Honda.
Thank you for adding such valuable insight to this discussion! You are a very deep thinker and I hope you stick around to enrich this topic with more of your wisdom and illuminating information?
I guess what I am saying is that a minor problem in a Hyundai or Kia would bother me just as much as if I were in a Honda or Toyota and visa versa. Also a major problem would bother me just as much whatever car had it.
I paid 16,300 for my EX civic back in august. Has everything, including a rear spolier.
Honda's are better than Hundai's for many reasons, but here's one:
Honda: put the key in: ding, ding, silence
Hundai: put the key in: ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong
never ends. and that would make you a ding dong for buying it.
'nuff said
MORE WORDS OF WISDOM WHY WE SHOULD ALL BUY A HONDA. AS SEVERAL OF YOU KNOW I'M MOVING ONWARD AND UPWARD TO A WRX WAGON BY SUBARU. BUT AS A CIVIC OWNER FOR AT LEAST A LITTLE LONGER I STILL QUALIFY TO SPEAK IN THIS FORUM. I CAN TELL YOU FIRST HAND THAT HONDA'S ARE GREAT LITTLE CARS BUT ARE HARDLY ALL THAT. BLAND AND WITHOUT CHARACTER IS HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE MY COMMUTING APPLIANCE. YES I DRIVE THE AUTOMOTIVE EQUIVILANT OF A TOASTER. MY FIRST AND FAVORITE CAR (84 SUBIE WAGON
4X4) HAD ABOUT A GOOGLE MORE CHARACTER THAT MY CURRENT CAR. I NEEDED A CAR THAT HAD EXCELLENT GAS MILAGE AND AT THE TIME THE CIVIC WAS ONE OF THE BEST. NOW THAT I DONT COMMUTE AS MUCH, HIGH FUEL ECONOMYIS NOT AS MUCH OF A PRIORITY. I CAN SETTLE FOR SOMETHING IN THE LOW TO MID 20'S WHICH THE WRX SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING IF I STAY OFF THE GO PEDAL MOST OF THE TIME. ANYWAY THATS MY .02 FOR THE DAY. HAVE A GOOD AFTERNOON.
KYLE