2012 Consumer Reports Automoblile Reliability Survey!

I laughed out loud when I saw the 'prius c' at the front of the web page, text list. But this gives me a good excuse to post this comparison table:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
0	[th]2001-03[th]Prius c[th]performance[tr][td]13.0 sec[td]11.3 sec[td]0-60 mph time[tr][td]$19-24	000[td]$19-24	000[td]original price[tr][td]$1	000[td]$0[td]est. annual repair cost/year[tr][td]41 MPG[td]50 MPG[td]EPA rating[tr][td]45.4 MPG[td]52.5 MPG[td]25 and 23 owner reports[tr][td]compact[td]compact[td]EPA style[tr][td]89/12 ft{3}[td]87/17 ft{3}[td]passenger/luggage volume

Source: Fuel Economy

Perhaps the 'Prius c' owners know something the Consumer Reports reviewers don't!

Bob Wilson

 

Congrats to the Prius C voted the "Most Reliable" car. Toyota had a few models in the line up. Funny that the BMW 328i made the reliable list in the Luxury Sedan catagory. I owned a BMW for 7 years and it was nothing but a Money Pit with numerous problems. It was no doubt the least reliable car I ever owned.
Consumer Reports names most reliable cars - (1) - CNNMoney

 

every car should be 100% reliable in its first year. this test should be made for cars 5 years and older. also, her hair could use a little more volume... no?

 

It sounds like CR thinks its crap, but it acts exactly like crap should. How do we take this seriously for a car sold less than a year?

 

Ford was zapped in the ratings mostly because of complaints related to their infotainment system, aka MS software.

I hope Toyota does not suffer the same fate with enTune, aka MS software.

 

No, Ford was zapped due to bad transmissions, bad Ecoboost engines and bad mysync - not just because it is hard to use, but because it breaks and goes wild.

This is why they are rated the worst in the USA.

 

Clarification from wsj
Ford’s Technology Push Backfires With Customers - Driver's Seat - WSJ

This is why I don't read consumer reports, or put much value in their surveys. BTW: I don't find JD powers initial quality surveys worthwhile either. Its really a dumb category. We can though find something to report in what consumers don't like initially.

They probably do need to improve that transmission and give the driver some other modes to feel more normal. The touch screen issues seem to be initial training and a lack of buttons. The question is when the fusion and escape are included next year, will ford jump in the rankings.

The Trouble With J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study - Feature - Car and Driver

 

Regarding the Prius c, there seem to be a disconnect between the real consumers and the Consumer Reports.

Prius c owners are happy and think it is a great car. CR believes otherwise.

 

I am not sure why are you quoting IQS which is basically 90 day survey, and CR, very different.

CR specifically mentioned Ford problems:
1. Transmissions
2. Ecboost reliability
3. MySync - not just usage issues, but system goes crazy.

Unlike MySync, Toyota's Entune is not tied to complete car, so if Entune breaks, you wont get AC blowing cold air in winter at full blast, like what people report with MySync.

MySync issues are not just poor user interface, but also reliability.
BMW, MB, Audi and Lexus all have complicated user interfaces and yet they are not last.

 

I do not subscribe to CR, and feel it is worthless when it comes to cars. I quoted the car and driver piece on JD powers because it talks about very bad problems in doing such surveys. CR does one like JD powers, only in a worse manner.

Car and Driver and JD powers agreed that the sync and powershift quality problems were not defects. They did not break they were design problems. That means test drive the car. Consumer reports claims the prius c has serious design flaws in its review, but its survey of defects are small. This kind of means CR itself thinks either its reviews or reliability survey are deeply flawed. I find both are whenever someone posts one of these things. If you want to quote CR on the prius c, you need to mention they think its a bad car. Doh. I disagree with CR, the prius c does not have serious design flaws, nor is it likley to have much higher quality than say a camry or prius. Its just very poor methods at CR.

Back to Ford, I have not heard of any quality or design defects with ecoboost. It was not mentioned in the articles. Can you provde the quote from consumer reports. Their spokesman did not mention it when talking to WSJ or the OP article.

The reports are trouble with people using voice recognition. Ford should have included buttons and voice according to most reviews. I used it in a rental and it was fine, but I understand how to use technology. I have not used entune, but went aftermarket in my toyota head unit because toyota's offerings were not up to my standards. I don't know why you bring up entune here.

BMW was hounded for years on their UI. Jaguar is last. I don't understand your strange propaganda. A poor interface is a design issue that ford knows it needs to address. It does not have reliability issues.

Here is TTAC on CR poor methods
2010 Consumer Reports Survey Analysis: Part Two: EcoBoost Oddity | The Truth About Cars

This was when CR reported ecoboost versions were more reliable than the non-ecoboost in 2010

 

I do not have CR subscription. I read somewhere that they put all the cars through a vigorous methodology that is the equilivant of years of driving on a car and then test various components for durability. Example of opening and closing the doors 10,000 times, or testing shocks for pot holes etc. But that has its limitations. I can say that 8 ago I purchased a Toshiba Plasma TV which CR ranked #1. They said it had a shelf life of 22 years but did recommend a Service Contract. The TV lasted 2 years and was a goner. The Toshiba stopped making Plazma and only made LCD. I had a Geek Squad contract on it and they gave me $ toward a new purchase. I replaced it with a Sony LCD which was the middle of the pack in CR ranking and had no problems with it to this day.

 

you seem not to understand the difference on CR rating cars - which is only partially about their reliability surveys and CR reliability surveys.

CR said Prius c is not recommended because it is loud and cheap car.
CR readers in a survey rated Prius c as most reliable car.

CR readers in a survey rated Ford as worst brand.

Thats the way it is - now you are trying to convince us that Ford buyers have no clue about what they are doing or what? Apperantly they dont understand how their transmissions work, how sync is just a usability issue, how ecoboost are mircale engines and that their hybrids actually get better mpg than whats written.

In the end, it does not matter... it is huge problem for Ford that their customers are least satisfied bunch of them all. You calling them stupid doesnt really help anything.

 

Car Testing | Auto Test Center - Consumer Reports
A guide to new-car Ratings and reviews | Consumer Reports

No. CR does not do accelerated life/reliability testing of cars nor what you describe on cars.

 

This is the link. You may be right on life/reliability testing.

Car Testing | Auto Test Center - Consumer Reports

 

And when Consumer Reports issued the press release they made sure to say

Read what they said, not what your interpretation is. Readers did not get asked what the most reliable car was. You can read all about the survey in my previous link.

Again this is not at all what they said. CR survey had the most complaints registered against Jaguar. The complaints were very high on powershift and sync on fords. No reader was asked what the worst brand was. That would likely have resulted in a very different answer.

No, what I am saying is the 20% of ford explorer owners surveyed by CR that put powershift or sync as a reliability problem are pretty clueless. If they had picked up the NYT, or Car and Driver, or Motor Trend they would have been clued in before buying the car. CR has a biased sample against technology, and an older demographic. We could have learned about the ford design problems from reading the reviews, not this strange survey.

But please, since the 2010 cr said ecoboost were more reliable, so me the quote from CR that it is not reliable now. That is your challenge, if you want to continue to bash with no evidence.

I think it is you that is calling them stupid. I did nothing of the sort. If a buyer doesn't inform himself by at least reading a review though, I would say he was a poor consumer. A survey that tries to collect poor consumers and pretend it represents "reliability" is simply flawed. Car and Driver's sumary of this is a race to the bottom, where innovation is styfled by loud uniformed consumers boosted in the media by poor publications like consumer reports.

IMHO consumer reports got the prius c exactly wrong, and low balled the mileage because of their poor testing methodology. If you want to defend the hack job they did on the prius c, be my guest.

 

To add to your comment, they certainly said 'loud' and 'cheap' but analysis of their scoring suggests their low score came from:

• driver position - it is not comfortable enough
• 11.3 sec, 0-60 mph time - had it been 11.0, it would have moved up

When they 'claim' fuel economy is important, there is no evidence of fuel efficiency every affecting their scoring system. Worse, their 'track' MPGs are significantly worse than EPA and ordinary drivers. CR's track measured MPG is broken with a non-linear effect that suppresses the MPG of high mileage, urban cars.

Bob Wilson

 

They do test things life of things like light bulbs and tires (Tires: Bittersweet ending to this year’s tread life testing).

 

That is a lot of the problem. Other publications also have some problems with the prius c

2012 Toyota Prius C First Test - Motor Trend

But they get 10.6 seconds to 60, which is likely more accurate than 11.3. If CR knocks of points because they aren't skilled enough to do a decent test, then it will be be a deeply flawed review. I would put their fuel economy tests in the same category. Now 10.6 seconds is slow, and anyone test driving the car should do acceleration tests to see if it meets there needs.

Its tough to hit a 50 mpg car at the prius c's price point. Perhaps they shouldn't recommend the car, but when they say "we don't like the prius c" and it is caused by poorly conducted tests, I just roll my eyes and say another fail for consumer reports. Here is a list of why they say avoid the car, but maybe they should at least learn to test drive first

'Consumer Reports' lists Prius C, Civic as cars to avoid

That means they got 11 mpg combined worse than EPA, but don't mention YMMV and how they tested.

 

At least now, after AG's latest CR rant I know at least one person uses TTAC for consumer information.

How exciting.