Before purchasing a Prius V, I strongly considered a C-Max which met my minimum cargo needs. But the deal breaker was the C-Max's lack of a spare tire. I consider that unacceptable for a general-purpose car likely to be driven into areas lacking cell phone reception. Ok for a locally-driven electric car. Ford provides a can of sealer and an electric air pump. Tire sealer works on perhaps 20% of flats. If you do use the sealer, you will likely plug up the tire pressure sensor (reportedly a $130 repair). Two very poor solutions are run-flat tires (expensive, poor performance) or putting a spare in the cargo area (consumes a lot of that precious cargo space).
More and more cars are going the no spare route for weight and space reasons. Porsche has done it and you can't even get one of their normal tires in any of their trunks of the sports cars. So even if you could mount a spare, you couldn't get the original to a tire shop. They add "just call us" service which works some places some times. Even locally during rush hour you might be stuck for hours waiting.
We went to test drive the C-Max. The dealer only had one in stock and it was in the showroom. The battery was dead and it took forever for someone to come and figure out how to jump it. Once they got it out of the showroom, I took it on a test drive. The interior was very nice, perhaps nicer than the V. It drove okay but did not blow me away. When we got back to the lot, the salesman was trying to show some features. The battery was still dead so the lift back would not unlock. Neither would the electric door locks. He couldn't figure out how to get into the back seat. I opened the front door, reached into the back and flipped the manual door lock on the back door. The saleman looked amazed and asked how I did that. We bought the Prius V5 the next day.
Per Consumer Reports, the Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid got the worst [reliability] score, and the regular C-Max Hybrid wasn’t much better. Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Rankings: Japanese Dominance Cracks as Audi, Volvo, GMC Secure Spots in Top 10 However, also from Consumer Reports, the Prius V got a very poor score of the offset frontal crash test.
A ton of people, actually. Even if you have nits to pick with the specifics of their tests, they are an extremely influential publication, and overall, they do an extremely good job. One of the editors responsible for these tests posts on another board I'm a regular on and they take this stuff a lot more seriously than the flippant remarks made here would lead you to believe.
Being in the repair biz for 30+ years, I don't have anything good to say about Ford, except styling. All these years with GM, and I drive a Toyota because I hate working on cars anymore.
CR has data to back up their claims. Of course, opinion on the Prius C is another thing. You need to be able to separate opinion from data. Do you have any proof that they are bias? For example, Toyota paid them?
You may not like Toyota's opinion on the C, but it's not far from the mark. What they said, in essence, is that when you remove the above-average fuel economy from the equation, you are left with a car that is not class-competitive. How many C owners would have been likely to buy it if it got 38mpg and started at $16,500? Not many because ~$16k gets you into the territory of the Jetta, Focus, and Cruze which are all significantly more substantial cars. As they said, 'It's a cheap car with an expensive drivetrain.' That sums it up perfectly and is hardly an unreasonable opinion.
Every time CR publishes an article with "Toyota" in it....it gets immediately lauded or condemned on this site, depending on the article. For example: Consumer Reports pulls Toyota recommendations (Prius v, RAV4, Camry) | PriusChat Personally? I don't subscribe to CR, but I believe that they try their best to be fair and accurate in their testing. They're not perfect, but the fact that their articles are influential in the automotive community are partially illustrated by their re-postings on this forum time and time and time again. I use their reviews as a data point when I research a new car, along with all of the other ones that I can find. Generally speaking you find commonalities in the individual reviews that are not explained by sloth in the industry (such as occurs in the US news media) and you can prove/disprove their findings yourself by a simple test drive----right? If I read 14 reviews that all say that the G3 "turns like a toad" then I'll think that maybe some cut/copy/pasting occurred, but if all of the reviewers (except PC, or Hybrid News) give individual assessments that say that the handling is not up to scratch.....then that's something that I'm going to be looking for when I go to kick one in the tires ("tyres" if you drive on the wrong side of the road.) I find it interesting that somebody who already owns a new car would be influenced either positively or negatively by reading somebody else' thoughts on a product that they've already purchased. The C-MAX also has CR problems that they have to address!!! Like Toyota, I suspect that these problems have more to do with issues with the CAR than with the car reviewers, which is a real shame! The Fussion Energi is the FIRST 'eco-chic' car that I've ever seen (that a commoner can afford) that actually looks pretty decent to somebody that's not a carbon geek!
The more sensational the media can make the headline, the more papers/eyeballs/subscriptions they can sell. So you throw away the headline and read to see if there is anything there and form your own opinion. I do subscribe to CR. I use them as one data point always taking into account their bias (we all have some). As to IIHS, they have to find something new they can trumpet to justify their continued funding. What if suddenly every car met the standards. Who would need them. So keep changing the standards. Was my previous car any safer in the same situation? Is my Prius perfect, no and I have listed the deficiencies I find as a consumer on priuschat. Glad I bought it? Yes.
The value of CR lies in the boring, more mundane features and experiences that other car review sites or magazines don't get into. Edmunds does pretty good reviews as well. The reliability ratings of CR are generally good, but they don't release as much data as they should. While a summary of dots and bar graphs compiled from reader surveys is a good quick review, it would be far more helpful if they listed and weighted the issues. Influential? Sure I guess they are. But given Ford's sales, it doesn't seem like anyone pays them any mind, given CR's lack of recommending most Ford cars. They had endless recalls of most of their new models, which weren't media-pushed too much, but irritated those that lived at dealerships. To this day, I still have to laugh at the almost ignored Fusion Hybrid mileage claims, only the CMAX got panned, but the same issue exists for the FH. I think what most people have an issue with at CR is that they take their own personal biases and overweight them. Going above and beyond the driving tests, fit and finish, interior design and features, is a stretch for any car review. For instance, the latest offset crash tests should have been mentioned as they were last year, but not heavily-weighted into the car's review scale. But it's all relative, which is why multiple reviews and opinions should be read and digested before buying anything.
Yep. People need to separate their reporting of reliability results, which are from responses of surveys that are sent out to subscribers vs. their road tests/road test scores along w/their recommendations (which factors in stuff like road test results, crash test results, and reliability). Their road tests include stuff like acceleration, fit and finish, noise, comfort, material quality, handling, braking, etc. w/very little weighting on fuel economy. And, if a car has below average predicted reliability, it's automatically not recommended. Cars can also score too low on the road test to be recommended (e.g. Prius c, redesign of Lexus IS 250, etc.)
ZH believe I stumbled onto the other board during the cargo space part of the CMAX discussion. What is the theme of that board?
It's a general automotive enthusiast board. Has a decent mix of industry insiders, magazine editors, engineers from various parts of the industry, etc. Even one of the Top Gear US guys has an account there. Mostly it's just a good clearinghouse for all sorts of industry info. With plenty of BS mixed in.
Isn't that true of every alternative powered car? I certainly consider that my v is more expensive than similar CUVs with more features. And all of us want more for less of our money. But the benefits of the powertrain outweigh the cost to me and, after all, that is who I'm pleasing. My wife has a V-6 plushmobile, I hate it even though there is nothing wrong with it except its excess. Or maybe I'm just trying to go back to my youth and 1.3litre (Alfa) and 85 hp (914) ones that were enough to exceed the speed limit and more fun to drive than the bigger engined ones.
