Consumer Reports car ratings rant

[ERhoosier]

There are private web-based car 'clubs' or forums for many cars &/or brands. Owners swap impressions, problems, solutions, etc. Obviously these sites tend to attract more satisfied owners, but every model has its (possible) warts

 

[RAE]

Now days the difference between a average reliability and top marks for reliability wouldn't factor much into my buying decision. Perhaps 30 or 40 years ago when cars were less reliable and I needed to get work everyday I'd place a much higher premium.

I agree. I don't put much faith in CR's reliability ratings either. I've had vehicles that had very high CR reliability ratings that were junk, and vehicles that got low CR reliability ratings that I've had few problems with. Several friends have had the same experience. I think the difference in reliability between different makes of vehicles was probably much greater years ago than it is today.

 

[cranberryjoe]

TrueDelta has been mentioned a couple of times. I've been supplying my car's reliability data to TrueDelta for about 6 years. It's a valuable resource for (hopefully) unbiased reliability data. If you want a good alternative to CR, sign up and start answering their very short surveys to help build up the database.

It would be interesting to see what TrueDelta has to say about reliability of some of the twin brands.