Consumer Reports '07 Autos Preview

[micbarric]

As if we didn't know already! Wagons/minivans- Most reliable: Pontiac VibeScion xB Toyota Matrix Toyota SiennaArticle:http://www.asianpacificpost.co....html

[Vibr8tr]

That rocks.... our car is relliable.... I am just curious how they compared the Vibe and Trix? I mean.... the only difference is the body.... I guess our body is more reliable.

[GrayFox]

alphabetical perhaps?edit: nevermind the other catagories aren't like that.It does make you wonder why they didn't list it Vibe/Matrix

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by micbarric »As if we didn't know already! Wagons/minivans- Most reliable: Pontiac Vibe*Scion xB Toyota Matrix Toyota Sienna* unless you're talking about the one ColonelPanic used to own, then it is to be considered least reliable Silly Consumer Reports, they always forget the little details. lol!

[tots]

Good news from Consumer Reports ... the Vibe ranked #1 in reliability in its class!http://money.cnn.com/popups/20....html

[TRDman]

The last Consumer Reports I read had the Vibe and Matrix ranked differently as well. The only reason I could figure out, from reading the statistics and whatnot, was that they had tested the FWD Vibe and AWD Matrix, then let the different rankings of the FWD and AWD models stand for the two different bodies/manufacturers. That could be what happened here.

[ToolGuy]

This is good news for sure!However I do not like Cunsumer Reports because the rating are based on feedback from all their subscribers only.

[Houston]

Quote, originally posted by MiVibe-ToolGuy »However I do not like Cunsumer Reports because the rating are based on feedback from all their subscribers only. Consumer Reports has been my buying bible for well over forty years and hasn't yet steered me wrong. People on this board like their Vibes and the subscribers of that great magazine do too. Seems to me the magazine substantiates what we already know. So where's the problem?My buddy doesn't like the magazine, saying it's expected that people will brag about their cars. He conveniently fails to notice that lots of people shot down their cars. That proves him wrong, but he doesn't notice. You don't like their way of doing things, so please inform us of how you would do it.

[ragingfish]

I agree with Toolguy, CR is heavily biased towards the import brands. It unfairly penalizes domestic brands and - in my opinion - creates the stigmas against said brands that we've been trying to battle for countless years...

[ToolGuy]

Quote, originally posted by Houston »Consumer Reports has been my buying bible for well over forty years and hasn't yet steered me wrong. People on this board like their Vibes and the subscribers of that great magazine do too. Seems to me the magazine substantiates what we already know. So where's the problem?My buddy doesn't like the magazine, saying it's expected that people will brag about their cars. He conveniently fails to notice that lots of people shot down their cars. That proves him wrong, but he doesn't notice. You don't like their way of doing things, so please inform us of how you would do it.The problem is it is a closed group of people and the same people. This was discussed on the show Auto Line Detroit a couple of weeks ago and the host put the CR guy on the spot asking him the same questions. He just said well we have thousands of readers and WE FEEL it is a good group.I have never liked CR, it is not something to condemn but use as just a tool I feel. Enjoy the mag, that is what it is for. Please do not take offense to what I typed, I can see you got irritated. It is my opinion and no I will not tell you how I would do it, I do not have to. I am not in that field so how can I? What I stated is fact on the group surveyed and my opinion on the facts.

[Houston]

Quote, originally posted by MiVibe-ToolGuy »The problem is it is a closed group of people and the same people. This was discussed on the show Auto Line Detroit and the host put the CR guy on the spot asking him the same questions. He just said well we have thousands of readers and WE FEEL it is a good group.I have never liked CR, it is not something to condemn but use as just a tool I feel. The subscribers are normal, ordinary people like you and me who hope to get a bigger bang for our buck by reading of what others have experienced with a product before we decide whether or not to buy it. When their yearly survey is mailed to us, we inform them about whether we like the products we have and why or why not. I don't know how it could be more fair.It's all over CNN right now about safety issues with new cars. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, not Consumer Reports, is behind this one. Of the top 13 safest cars, not one was made in this country. Is that being unfair or is it telling it like it is? Is that highly respected United States organization now going to be accused of being biased? Does anyone really think they want the US auto industry to fail?I hired into Buick in 1963. Quality was horrible, but those crummy cars were shipped to the customers. Why? Because the customers didn't care, at least not as much as they do today. By and large, quality didn't improve until the mid-eighties when the Japanese cars began coming on strong. GM finally realized they'd best check into why and the answer came back that it was because of very high-quality cars. Bingo!W. Edwards Deming devised Stastical Process Control prior to that time and took it to the American auto companies. They didn't want to waste their time with it, so he took it to the Japanese auto companies. They jumped at the chance to use his method and the result was almost immediate improvement in the quality of their already high-quality cars. Buick sent me to classes to learn SPC and I was among the first at Buick (and probably the rest of General Motors) to use it on the job. I thought it was a waste of time, but you know what? I was wrong as wrong could be. It did work, and it worked very well. Buick started using SPC in the mid-eighties and the result was quick improvement to the quality of the cars I inspected. The problem is that Buick and the other US auto companies started way too late, and although the quality of the cars produced in the US has improved tremendously, we are behind and still trying to catch up.I'm not an off-the-wall guy, at least not with this subject. My pension depends on the future of General Motors, so I take much interest in what happens with the US auto industry. The quality of US built automobiles is just a hair behind that of those manufactured in Japan. The average person would not notice the difference, but it is very real. We are playing catchup with the Japanese auto companies and unless the Japanese lose sight of what's important, they'll always be ahead.The US auto companies were fools to not use Mr. Deming's talents. After all, he went to them first.

[micbarric]

Quote, originally posted by Houston »...Of the top 13 safest cars, not one was made in this country...Yea, even our local news stations made a big deal about no "domestic" cars being on the list. It's interesting that the media made no mention that there weren't any Toyotas on the list either!

[ToolGuy]

Here is a comment on the top 13 safest cars...Playing Safe with an AgendaThe Washington Post By Warren Brown (Commentary) Nov. 26, 2006 We've again been treated to the kind of Washington silliness in which a presumably sacrosanct group makes a pronouncement that sends a headline-happy media scrambling and sets the tongues of pundits to wagging. The latest catalyst was a missive from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the "independent, nonprofit, scientific and educational" research arm of the nation's biggest auto insurers. The institute reported ? dramatic drumroll, please ? that no domestic 2007-model car or truck was good enough to qualify for its top safety rating. Many in the media went giddily insane over the news, asking the profound and deeply troubling question: "What's wrong with Detroit?" As usual, in their rush to parlay the latest institute news release into an attention-grabbing story, the media blithely ignored one key fact. To wit: Despite its lofty self-description, the institute, based in Arlington, is not above playing politics in pursuit of its goals, which include reducing highway injuries and deaths and reducing billions of dollars in claims payments for insurers in the process. The institute, in fact, is better at playing politics and using the media as an enthusiastic teammate in the game than any bona fide, big money, high-powered lobbying organization in the Washington area. It has mastered the art of using "public interest" to push programs that often require governmental clout, including legislation, for effective implementation ? often "leaking" its reports, in part or in whole, along with accompanying photographs and film footage of its latest crash tests, to selected media outlets. Those outlets "break" the "news." That, in turn, creates a frenzy of publicity. If the issue appears juicy enough, there always is someone on Capitol Hill willing to fight for a vote-winning good cause. The institute's latest cause, the inclusion of electronic stability control systems as standard equipment in cars and trucks, is indeed good. But the institute's use of the "safest car" ruse isn't. In fact, it's downright unfair and misleading. First, as the institute knows, there is no such thing as the "safest car." Such a car would have to perform equally well in protecting its occupants in all kinds of crashes under all kinds of circumstances against all kinds of vehicles, big and small. There is not, has never been, and probably never will be such a vehicle that the average consumer can afford. Thus, "safest car," at best, is a relative term in a relative world in which no one can predict the exact kind of crash in which he or she might become involved. Second, the "safest car" designation, even with all of the institute's commendably sophisticated and reasonably thorough testing procedures, is arbitrary. Last year's "safest car," which might have done an excellent job of protecting its occupants in a severe crash, might not be this year's "safest car," because someone decided to change testing criteria. And that, my friends, is exactly what the institute did here. Electronic stability control systems are designed to help compensate for driver errors, such as entering a turn too quickly, overcorrecting to avoid a roadway obstacle, or braking at the apex of a curve. Those kinds of mistakes can cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle, which can lead to a crash or a vehicle rollover. Within the boundaries of the laws of physics, using a series of sensors and algorithms to determine a possible mismatch between steering intent and the vehicle's actual behavior, electronic stability control helps to set things aright. The institute, in its enthusiasm for standardizing this new technology ? which most car companies, foreign and domestic, already include in many models ? has issued an edict declaring that no vehicle can make its "safest car" list without electronic stability control. That meant domestic cars, such as the Volvo-derived Ford Five Hundred sedan, hailed as one of the institute's safety heroes only last year, did not make the list for 2007. It also meant that the 2007 Saab 9-3, a General Motors product by another name, one that shares the same Epsilon platform with the Chevrolet Malibu and the Pontiac G6, but that has electronic stability control, made the institute's 2007 "safest car" list. But its Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6 cousins, currently without electronic stability control, did not. And it meant that excellent domestic models, such as the 2007 Saturn Outlook featured in today's On Wheels column, equipped with standard traction and electronic stability control, were slighted simply because the institute has not gotten around to testing them or publishing its test results on those models. Clearly, the purpose of the institute's latest news release was to embarrass the domestic car companies, to regenerate a buzz about electronic stability control. It accomplished that much but did little else to educate consumers. I pity the poor buyer who, armed with the institute's latest "safest car" list, picks out something such as a mid-size Audi A4 and thinks that he or she is prepared to do battle with a Mercury Grand Marquis or a Hummer.

[mcgusto82]

Good article. Another thing i found, was that vehicles with excellent rating that were AVAILABLE with ESP did not make the cut. Vehicles like the Excellent Nissan Murano.

[Whelan]

I believe that GM cars are almost as reliable (very close to) Japanese cars, but one big thing plays a role. Image!!Think of the old Audi's that were considered crap in the 80's. Now they are 40K and up luxury cars. I have really only owned two GM cars, both Saturns, 1992, 1994 with 1.9L SOHC EFI engines. The only issue they ran into was the piston rings. But my Civic and now my Toyota have done right by me, no issues. I also have no faith in German cars, like Audi, BMW, Benz. nice cars, but I am not about to deal with reliability issues up the wazoo. I would rather buy a Lexus and call it a day. Besides, the new styling of BMWs is fugly, and with Audi, love the Q7 but its a VW product, which means big time electrical problems. Benz has just never hit the mark on quality/reliability and the Lexus to me is just sexier looking than all of them.

[kevera]

Bubb Rubb!

[EH2005]

While the Vibe and Matrix are nearly identical, they aren't made at the same factory. The Vibe is made at NUMMI in California and the Matrix is made at Toyta's Cambridge Ontario Canada plant, so theoretically the quality of assembly could be higher at NUMMI, leading to a higher ranking for Vibe.

[mkaresh]

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »I believe that GM cars are almost as reliable (very close to) Japanese cars... CR's dots are based on relative problem rates. When the absolute problem rates are very low, as they are with CR's data, then a few tenths of a problem can make a big difference.I've been conducting my own reliability research to be able to provide absolute repair rates. I've started providing some results:TrueDelta Vehicle Reliability Survey resultsThe GM cars I have data on so far do have higher repair rates. But we are still talking about tenths of a problem per car. I tell people to focus on the absolute numbers, not the relative rankings.I'm not collecting data on the Vibe or the Matrix yet, because not enough people who own them are signed up to participate. I'd like to start with these cars soon. Details: Vehicle reliability research

[TJinPgh]

Quote, originally posted by mkaresh »The GM cars I have data on so far do have higher repair rates. But we are still talking about tenths of a problem per car. I tell people to focus on the absolute numbers, not the relative rankings.The only problem I have with this is that while the number of trips per year seem rather low for all vehicle, it doesn't seem to indicate what those trips are for, costs involved, and how long each stay at the shop was.I mean, a Honda Civic taken once a year by drivers irritated by rattling noises in their dash isn't quite the same as a Dodge Caliber owner taking his car in because the transmission isn't shifting properly.I'm not saying that was or wasn't the case. But, without knowing the nature of the repairs, knowing how many of them there were doesn't mean much.

[mkaresh]

I'm collecting all of that other data as well, and more, but it requires a larger sample size to make the results meaningful. The less likely something is, the larger the sample you need to accurately measure it.