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My interpretation of the article was that Toyota SUCKS especially the Blundra, and Ford is the absolute greatest auto maker to ever be put on this earth and all others are second to us and should kiss our ring finger when they are in our presence. LONG LIVE FORD!!!!!!
It goes on to say that CR has been outed for the fraud they are and it has finally been proven that the imports have been paying off CR all these years and they are Domestic bias. But now all articles written in CR will be Pro Ford and Anti Toyota.
Does that mean that Ford paid CR more money then Toyota?
Now I see why they needed to sell off all their Euro brands it was either that or the CR goons were going to break Bill's legs for not paying up on time. :P
However, it isn't like there is some sort of secret conspiracy or anything. CR has been upfront about how they give redesigned Toyotas (and Hondas) the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their first year reliability. In the case of most car makers, CR will say something like "because of the redesign, we cannot predict reliability". However, in the case of Toyota/Honda, they will say something like "based upon the previous track record of model X, we predict that the redesign will continue to have above average reliability". So they have always disclosed that they are going off of their past reputation.
People seem to be implying that somehow CR has been dishonest with the public. However, that certainly is not the case. You may not AGREE with the way that the predict reliability (and I certainly don't - see my previous post), but at least they are up front and honest about how they calculate their ratings. There is a difference!
CR was probably stupid to give the Camry a pass as long as it did. If you look at the scores the Camry's received in the past few years, its reliability has been slipping for awhile compared to other cars.
That said, my own experience as your average car owner says CR's information is right on the money most of the time. Let us not forget that the information is essentially weighed against other cars. 95% of the cars CR reviews today are probably better than 100% of the cars ten years ago. But every above average needs a below average counterpart. It's simple math. I've owned several Hondas in my life. While there were parts of each that I was unhappy with, I have to admit that they were more reliable than GMs, Fords, Nissans, and Mitsubishis that I and other family members have owned.
An interesting stat to read is "Owner Satisfaction" at CR. Some average and above average cars get Worse than Average owner satisfaction scores. People tend to love what they love, and that usually colors their impression of the car. I know people who tell me that their Ford is the best car that they've ever owned, never been a lick of trouble, but then you see broken pieces of trim, rough idle, and other issues that you don't experience in another model. Perception is reality for many people. When push comes to shove, CR is as good as any indicator we have for determining reliability.
Still, I don't swallow a lot of what they spew out and I just think a lot of it is subjective.
They should evaluate cars with 150,000 miles! That would be a TRUE indicator of reliability. I don't doubt Fords are better than they used to be but I would take a high mileage Toyota over a miles up Ford anyday.
And their used car ratings sometimes make no sense either. I remember, they once gave Honda a black dot under "brakes" for, I think, a 1992 model Accord. The 1991's and 1993's had a solid red dot. Trouble is, nothing chnaged between the three years!
the cars may not have changed but they had different owners. Pretty much random data when you get down to it.
They may actually do that. Their surveys cover cars going back many years; some of those cars could very well have over 150,000 miles on them.
Also, they don't always rate Honda at the top. In their last published reliability study, they rated the '06 Accord V6 as only average in reliability and the '06 RSX as far below average. Just proves no one's perfect, I guess.
He bought a rougher 1993 that we had at the time simply because of that.
That's about the time I lost interest in CR ratings.
The recall involved inspecting all of those transmissions and we certainly inspected our fair share and then some.
Out of the hundreds we inspected we found two that looked like they **could** have a problem. Honda replaced those transmissions without question even though they were operating fine.
Honda gets little credit, however, from people like yourself for stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing.
These things are man made and will all have problems. Years ago there was a broad gap in quality between makes. Today not so much. Everybody for the most part makes a fine product, it is now a matter of which company can market there product the best. I don't believe there are many people I could not switch to a Ford product these days as long as they have an open mind and have not pre judged the product on past performance. It is all just a matter of getting there butt in the seat and driving it.
Ford went through some dark times and had some real quality problems.
OK, they are MUCH better now, but are people really willing to take that chance? The 1987 Taurus they owned had the 3.8 engine. It blew it's head gaskets in and out of warranty. It went through a transmission at 70,000 miles and the front motor mount broke twice.
So...Will that person take a chance on a new Fusion or be forever tainted?
Putting their butt in the seat and driving the car will only confirm the fact it's a nice car.
I'm afraid fear and past experience will overpower an "open mind".
Didn't swear off Fords though and 12 years later took a chance on an '06 Mustang GT convertible which, so far, seems to be a pretty good vehicle.
Some were good, some not so good.
And this was HONDA's recall. It wasn't forced on them!!
It would help if you'd stop trying to rewrite history. No one said the transmission recall was "forced" on Honda. But it WAS a NHTSA recall, as I noted. If you want me to post the URL to it, I will.
And I guess if a person is troubled by having to bring their car in for an "inspection" one could say they were "affected" so I suppose you are correct in that area as well.
Keep this up and you and I will get yet another topic shut down so let's end this before that happens!
That said, we do need to move on.
Maybe some diehard Ford fans who left the Ford camp because of troubles are beginning to test the waters once again.
Or, I know, sometimes people will say..." I have owned four Hondas in a row and they have been troublefree...I'm just tires of driving the same make of car and I want to try something else"
I don't know.
There is even something worse, which in my mind puts value of their whole rating system in question. When going on their website I chose a car with two (then) very different trims. It let me pick a very specific trim (it was Legacy GT Ltd. - one with the wicked turbo engine) and gave me its ratings on it. Imagine my disbelief when I saw "performance" in two (out of five) circles. For those who don't know - Legacy GT is probably quickest in its price and size class. The rating obviously came from 2.5i trim that is no-so-quick, of course.
So even in objective measurements the assigned ratings were completely useless. By letting the customer pick the trimlime they (JD Power) make you believe you are getting results for this particular trim, but all you get is some kind of averaged crap that is put together by people who know absolutely nothing about cars.
Then of course is their dependability study. Three years is hardly dependability - for that time it usually makes no difference to the owner, as most of these problems would be fixed by warranty. It is nice to know if your new car will be more comfortable in the dealer's garage or at yours, but real questions start how those components will hold after the manufacturer refuses to pick the tab for their replacement. That apparently is not much of interest for JD Power. Perhaps not useless - but "limited" would be understatement in this case.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Give it a rest. The domestic loss of market share and profit margin is a reality based on a perception of quality that was very real in th 1980s and 1990s- you can argue about Consumer Reports "pre-rating" redesigned Toyotas and Hondas, but that was certainly deserved over the years. Building cars that might be equal to the Japanese now is not enough for the domestics. It's great that their quality is improving, and that Toyota/ Honda might be slipping, but the domestics need to build a car that is a clear class leader, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a volume car that a domestic makes that is a class leader. People are not going to switch from makes that they know have been good to them just because the domestic manufacturer might have gotten better.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
What are you talking about here? What are demand charts? Can you put a link?
thanks
I agree with the 3 years being too short of a time BUT 85% of new car buyers have sold the car BEFORE 5 years. So by 3 years a huge percentage have sold the vehicle. I believe that JD only asks the original buyer to rate the car. Why? Probably to make sure the person filing out the survey knows what happened to the car during the entire life of the vehicle. So the sampling pool at 5 years would only be 15% of the owners.
I believe CR gets the data from whoever owns the car at whatever point the car is in its lifetime. So the owner at 5 years could have bought a car that spent the first year of its life as a rental car. Hmmmm. Since GM was dumping so many of its cars into rental fleets (some say 50% of cars) in the past perhaps these 5 year owners are reporting on damaged goods?
Regarding fleet/rental thing: I don't think it's really such a bad thing for the car itself. Perhaps there is a little more abuse than regular owner, but rental companies maintain their cars well enough. And I'm not as sure about the abuse. More severe driving conditions (short trips) perhaps - but most rentals are to people traveling in business, or families on vacation. They may accelerate harder couple of times, but their focus remains on getting in and out and the cars tend to be boring. If you get an Impala, there is not much "fun things" you can do with it anyway, is there.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
I know Hyundai made it onto my consideration list because of several very positive impressions with rental cars. And I tend to value low acquisition cost over life-cycle cost because I buy and hold a car for most of its useful life. It may get passed down through the family, but we typically go 150,000 miles or more.
Similarly, GM is making a comeback in my perceptions, again because of some very good rental car experiences with comfortable driving and great gas mileage.
The Consumer Reports and JD Powers surveys add weight to my anecdotal experience. The deviation between average and the top is compressing. Several of the Hyundais and GMs I like score very well now.
In fact, I can argue that those seeking to change their market position depend upon good statistical surveys to make a market move, precisely because it is hard to change entrenched consumer opinions when circumstances change. Consumers hurt themselves when they don't listen to changing evidence. Improvements need to be rewarded in the marketplace to keep the historic leaders honest. It is just as true for Toyota today as it was for GM twenty years ago.
Yes it is true. Think of all the 3-4 year leases. That is a huge percentage of sales. At five years of age every new car buyer will see his model replaced with a newer version. Many will have seen the newer model after 2 years of ownership. Almost all will have the car paid off at 5 years. At 5 years many will have over 100,000 miles and if you could afford a new car 5 years ago you are probably doing even better in your life (hopefully) and are ready to move up or have a new car. Also your needs can easily change in 5 years. Perhaps you got married. Or had kids. Or are now single again. Your curent car may not meet your needs/desires. Heck you may want to trade in the mommy van for a cool crossover Enclave!!
I do not know if that statistic is true or not, but recognize that the average person can differ from the average new car buyer. For example, if 1/2 of people buy a new car every 3 years and the other 1/2 buy new every 3 years, the the average car will be kept for 4.5 years, but the average person will be keeping their car for 6 years.
Or another example...if 20% of people buy (or lease) a new car every 2 years and the other 80% every 8 years, then 1/2 of new cars will be owned for only 2 years. However, at the same time, 80% of people will be keeping their car for 8.
To my knowledge, CR does not consider resale value when rating cars. Can you please provide a reference for your statement?
Just go to JD power.com and click on any car in the new car section. At the bottom of the page they have information on what the current demand is for that car along with info on what age and gender are buying it.
What puzzles me is that the same car seems to be in great demand if it is a 2008 but poor demand if it is a 2007. I didn't go through every possible car but it seems there are no 2008 models that have low demand.
The car makers should be happy about that.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
However, I maintain their statistical methodology regarding quality/rating does not match claimed "resolution" of the ratings, i.e. they make impression that they are rating very specific trim of the model, but all they do is applying more popular low-trim results into high trim and claiming those were actually high trim. It becomes useless.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
It seems to me that one of the major reasons why people may lease rather than buy is that they can acquire a fancier car for about the same monthly lease payment as compared to if they were buying a "less fancy" one. I would rather not have a fixed lease or car payment every month of my driving life. I strive to reduce my monthly fixed expenses, rather than having them go on "ad infinitum."
For example, BMW offers no cash or APR incentives on many modesl, but their lease rates on some are well below market (equivalent to 2-4% APR, depending on model and somewhat inflated residual). This makes lease virtually a nobrainer. In three years one pays less than 40% of car's value AND pays below market finance charges with no equivalent incentives to choose if they did not lease. After six years of two cars they end up pay about one car and change. Considering BMW high post-warranty cost and included maintenance, you can clearly see that lease is the acquisition of choice, even for an average non-business customer.
However, even without incentives in place, lease offers a lot of convenience for luxury buyers. Those people change vehicles often enough so that if they lease they don't have to go through all that trade-in dance. It costs them more, but they're willing to pay for it.
The situation is completely different for run-the-mills easy to sell cars, even if they have high residual. Those usually come with some incentives and from lower payment will not be offset higher cost of acquisition.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Sometimes the money factors are down in the .000190 range or below 1 percent APR. For example a VW routinely offers Leases with money factors of .000001 or essentially 0% APR which you just can't beat.
It may have some bearing on rankings so it's not that far out but all should consider that most of our vehicle specific discussions have a "Lease Questions" topic.
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