My Car Match

stever

Hey look, a new Soul just arrived at the front door with a big bow on it.

Cool. Wonder who this Blagojevich marketing guy is that signed the thank you card? :shades:

fintail

If you drive on the highway, it's fine - 25mpg in interstate crusing, beats a lot of more boring and of course slower cars.

If this "tool" is actually based on Edmunds customer ratings, I can't see how it would suggest an Alpina B7, those are pretty rare, just above flying pigs but below hens teeth :shades:

colin_l

My father-in-law drives a 1992 500E with a rather famous lineage. It struggles to best 18mpg on the highway and 15 in town, but you couldn't pry it away from him.

ateixeira

Blagojevich is in jail, at least. :lemon:

ateixeira

I use the Miata in the city, the van for trips and getting the car pools around.

Funny thing is the giant 8 seater with the 3.5l V6 averages more than the tiny 2 liter two seat roadster.

I take full irresponsibility for my driving. :shades:

fintail

I think there's a lot at play - maybe gear ratios etc. My old C43 AMG got worse mileage on the highway than the E55 and barely better in town - with smaller displacement, less weight, and less power. My old W126 S-class, an I6 not much older than that 500E, got much less mpg on the highway and it had just over half the hp of the E55.

fintail

How often does the van see redline? :shades:

kathyc2

entertaining but very little value. I think it would be better if it asked for 1-10 ratings about how important the various items (drive type, luxury, technology, MPG and cost) are.

Interesting that it comes up my highest criteria is MPG, when I didn't even look at the ratings when choosing vehicles. It also seems that it gives high importance to the vehicles at the top of the price specified.

That said, it was nice that the 5 I just bought always came at the top or near top, along with various Infiniti, Volvo, Audi and MB models.

rhardy21

Hi

Sorry I'm late arriving in this conversation. I'm the product manager behind the My Car Match tool on Edmunds. I thought I'd spell out the things that drive the recommendations:

1. Objective data from Edmunds. Things like MPG, 0-60 time, sales volume, head room, leg room, etc.

2. Subjective data from consumers. We have an ongoing online survey that measures what people think about cars in terms of luxury, sportiness, and appearance.

3. Magic...OK, that's an exaggeration, but we have some pretty smart people who have created an algorithm that takes all that data, combines it with the choices you make as you pick between 3 vehicles, and then puts every car in order according to our best prediction of your preferences.

So sorry, no bribes or advertising here. But I will give you a few possible reasons you see things that don't make sense:

A. When you choose which body types (sedan, hatchback, etc.) that completely limits you to those types. So if you choose SUVs and Trucks only, MCM will look at the world as though only SUVs and Trucks exist. That's why you might see 19 MPG have a lot of stars next to it, because for a Truck, that's not bad. Also, if you choose all the body types or a weird combination like convertibles and trucks, MCM will have a harder time predicting your preferences.

B. The MCM nearly ignores brand (make) preferences. You'll notice that when you're choosing between 3 cars, we don't show the brand. It's because we'd have to ask you a lot more of those questions to figure out which brands you prefer and in what order. So instead we put a brand filter on the results page. If you care a lot about certain brands, you can filter for them there, but your list will still be in the order of your predicted preferences. We're working on some back-end tweaking that will take brand more into account. And no, it doesn't involve bribes or advertising.

C. This tool was not designed to tell you your one perfect car. It's more for people who are just starting their search and want a list of 10 or 15 cars to start from. I've never met anyone who honestly took the MCM and they didn't at least see a couple of cars they'd consider in their top 10 results.

D. We're still working on it... I know that's a lame excuse, but we don't have unlimited resources and you'll note that the MCM is one of very few pages that has no advertising at all. So it's somewhat of a labor of love. I hope we'll be able to expand it and implement some of the great suggestions I've seen on these and other forums. Number one on that list is to let you tweak your preferences once we've made our prediction. But those things take time and money and since I hope I've convinced you we're not taking bribes, I hope everyone will be patient.

Wow, this got a little windy. If anyone made it this far, thanks for reading. I'm also happy to answer other specific questions about the tool. So fire away.

Rob

ateixeira

I was just kidding about the bribes part.

You're sure, right?

KIDDING!

Who filled out the surveys? Existing Edmunds members, visitors, or a random sample? Just curious, really.

rhardy21

The survey is taken by anyone browsing on Edmunds or I think there are a few other places that have links to the survey. We try to make sure it's not gamed, but no it's not a true random sample survey that reflects the population. I wish it were, but that costs money.

You can see it here:

http://survey.edmunds.com/rating/

ateixeira

Yeah, it would be nearly impossible to get a random sample. They would not be interested enough to fill out the forms.

If I designed it I would take any and all bribes else just tell people what I think they should get.

roadburner

I still don't see how my top match was a Camaro. It never even asked me if I wore a mullet(I don't BTW).

plekto

The tool has a huge defect in it in that it doesn't allow you to select RWD vs FWD or exclude cars with automatics. I tried it and all it gave me for choices were a bunch of FWD jellybean rental boxes.

When I had a choice between a Kia, a VW, and a Nissan subcompact as the first three choices, all I could think was "where is the "none of these" option.

roadburner

When I had a choice between a Kia, a VW, and a Nissan subcompact as the first three choices, all I could think was "where is the "none of these" option.

Exactly!

iluvmysephia1

When I had a choice between a Kia, a VW, and a Nissan subcompact as the first three choices, all I could think was "where is the "none of these" option.

Kia. Though the very best choice out there, Mitsubishi, is not a pickable pick there. Keep trying.

rhardy21

We debated quite a a bit about what kind "must have" options/attributes we should allow people to choose between before we made their recommendations. RWD vs. FWD vs. AWD was right up there on that list. Unfortunately there are many things like that and if we showed all of them,it wouldn't really be a recommendation engine so much as a filtering tool.

With My Car Match, we know we're making a big assumption that people can make trade-offs between all the vehicle characteristics we show on the three cars. The reality is that there are some things people would never give up for anything. For you it sounds like it's RWD. For others it's something else. I have envisioned a version of MCM where we let you choose a couple of "must have" things before we have you start choosing between sets of three cars. The back-end gets a bit more complicated, but I can see how it would appeal to some people to have a bit more control. Maybe we'll get there with a future version.

About the wish for a "none of these" option when looking at the three cars, we don't want you to pick the one that you would actually buy, just the one that's better than the other two, given all the attributes shown. It's purposefully made to be difficult (i.e. showing you all FWD) so that you consider other attributes when making your choice.

Maybe try and think of it as this scenario: You have a friend who lives in a strange place where only the three cars shown are available. Your friend has to have a car and asks you to help decide which one to get.

Hope that helps.

Rob
Edmunds.com product manager

ateixeira

It never even asked me if I wore a mullet

Important feedback for the hosts!

qbrozen

I just tried this again and intentionally tried to force it to give me RWD coupes by picking coupes/hatches at the onset, up to $35k, and always picking the fastest one of the 3 choices, and always picking RWD when given that option (which only happened twice).

You would think this would give me the Mustang, Camaro, 1-series, Genesis coupe... any of those. Nope. What do I get? Kia Forte. Followed by the Accord coupe (HUH??), Altima, and Civic.

Genesis #5 and Camaro #6. BMW and Mustang nowhere to be found in the top 20.

This undoubtedly needs more work.

ateixeira

Well, if you picked RWD twice, you probably picked some other configuration more often.

Accord V6 coupe is quick, and you said coupe at the get-go.

I think part of our surprise is that it does not use criteria the way we're used to (driven wheels in this case), or traditional brand preference (they're not even mentioned).

qbrozen

Yes, unfortunately, several times it gives you 3 options of FWD cars. I do find that to be one of the faults in the system that needs tweaking. I think drive wheels is way up there in selection criteria for all buyers. How many times have we heard "I NEED AWD" or "I can't live with FWD" or "I'm afraid of RWD"?

I would keep brand preference out of it, though. I mean, if you know what brand you want, you don't need to use the tool anyway.

ateixeira

Agree about driven wheels. And that's merit-based, not about satisfying a bias.

A lot of folks also want domestic or import as well, no matter what. For this the tool is good, it cuts through that bias. It may even recommend a Korean car for fintail. LOL

rhardy21

I think I have my priority list for changes to MCM:

1. Filter: AWD, FWD, RWD, 4WD
2. Filter: Mullet/No Mullet

Thanks!!

fintail

Only if styling isn't part of the equation... :shades:

ateixeira

Maybe they could show you 3 photos, and you pick your preferred styling.

beedublu

Did it pick well for you?

Short answer: No. Not even close.

Without repeating too much of what others have posted, in order for this tool to be useful it needs to allow excluding those things that are unacceptable (in my case, manual transmissions, rear-wheel drive). And some of the criteria are vague and confusing: "Some luxury" vs. "No luxury" are in the eye of the beholder, to some degree.

stever

“In too many cases, people choose a car for its styling or because it is a trendy favourite,” he notes. But that implies consumers can easily ignore all the subliminal signals coming from those structures in the brain that are responsible for predicting the outcome of decisions and providing emotional rewards."

Difference Engine: You are what you drive (The Economist)