yeah, the fact that Motor Trend is a joke among enthusiast magazines is what the Ridgeline has going for it. but even them ******** arn't THAT jaded toward American brands as CR.

 

Is there any publication that is worthy of your reading or is your list of acceptable publications variable depending on which ones say what you already believe?

 

The only publication respected by the majority, on this particular board, is JD Power and Associates.

Not consumer guide, consumer reports, maritz, edmunds, carpoint, motor trend, road and track, car and driver, various news papers, or any other of the myriad of surveys and editorials.

Hmmm... wonder why that is?

 

Road & Track and Car and Driver have seldom let me down. C&D in particular has had the Accord win a spon on the "10 best" for 15 years running (I think) in case you think I'm some kind of "kool-aid drinker." C&D has NEVER given out a "car of the year" for anything because, honestly, there's no such thing.

 

wow, at least you acknowledged the fact that we CAN and DO indeed read. thank you for that oh superior one.

 

Superior? If you insist.

 

and so, as you say:
Thanks for the open confirmation...

 

anyone send an email to them???

 

I don't know if I disagree with any of their picks except the Ridgeliner... I think that's a category which should be dominated by Ford. The F150 is a great truck and if the GMT900 Silverado is better than it they're going to sell a trillion of them. The thing I do disagree with...

“Domestic vehicles have made substantial advances, Ford is doing better than GM and Chrysler, but new model launches are not as good,”

It seems like the new launches are getting closer to where GM needs to be. Lucerne was well received by the press, Tahoe, Solstice/Sky, Escalade, and even the Leindharts liked the HHR.

Oh well, opinions are opinions. I hope the domestics don't sponsor anything Consumer Reports does.

 

Let me use your college basketball analogy. If a team wins 101-100, they win. I agree. But what if the media doesn't place an emphasis on the actual final score, and presents it as a "dominating" performance by the winner? So a 1 point win is suddenly spun as "domination", leading basketball fans to believe one team is unbeatable and the losing team is garbage. Now that's real journalistic integrity.

My point is, sir, that the Asian sweep of these awards do not reflect what is actually going on here in terms of overall quality. And the media reports this as "Japanese dominance" (in fact, that very phrase was used in big bold type on AOL's welcome page last night. ) CR and the media in general allow this quality "dominance" myth to fester without even pointing out that while all the "best of the best" cars happened to be Asian according to CR, there are some darn good American cars out now as well, across the board.

This is my only real problem with how the whole survey was presented.

 

Nope. There's flaws with every survey you'll ever find. Stuff like JD Power, CR, or any motoring media review needs to be used as a general knowledge guide and little more. Sadly, far too many people shop where Consumer Reports tells them to.

It still cracks me up how 10 years ago when Asian brands dominated JD Power for initial quality, it was the yardstick for quality. Now, initial quality isn't nearly as important as long-term quality for some strange reason (which is harder to measure due to so many different variables anyway...)

 

Sarcasm, meet sarcasm.

Have a nice day.. hope your panties still fit.


I've honestly always used a combination of all surveys and my own observations to derive my personal opinions... I still use JD Power. It did lose some respect in my eyes when it rated the previous generation malibu (yes the steaming pile of crap one) as tops in every last category of quality - 5 out of 5 stars. Yet on carreview.com it was the absolute WORST ranked car out of every 4 door car on the market (over 250 models) when using a direct owner survey system to report (where owners just sign on and rate their own car - no 'filter' in place). Plus... well... I think anyone being honest would tell you it was no 5 star vehicle from the moment they sat in one.

 

Oh, I agree. Just seeing such glaring and unexplainable contridictions between two surveys says just about all you need to say about any of these reports. And it's never going to be perfect either, there are just too many ways to spin a "quality" report. It's just a shame that far too few people recognize this.

 

I laugh when I hear people talking about the reliability of their Mitsubishi or their Mazda because it's "Japanese"
IMO only Toyota is a company worthy of the hype; Honda too, perhaps.
But I have seen old Tercels with rock-solid build quality compared to a squeaky Mazda 3 or an Elcipse.

JUST BECAUSE IT'S JAPANESE DOENS'T MAKE IT GOOD.

Toyota and to some extent Honda have been carrying the reputation by building reliable, high-quality cars and the other Japanese companies jump on their reputation and use it to sell cars.

It's BS.

 

I should probably stay the H**L outta this thread........

---but what the heck.

I was sitting in a Marriott Lounge when Dianne Sawyer had herself a field day with the report.

I was so angry I nearly threw my drink at the TV screen.

You can say what you want.....but Consumer Reports does not use a scientific method when posting their results.

Further, when reading thru their various 'tests' it's plain to see they're not being consistent and objective. (yup...they even screw around with imports!)

So......Collins and Aikman, Delphi, and now Dana corp.....all in Chapter 11......and we wonder why..............