J.D. Power Dependability Study ranks RAV4 highest small SUV

[ravenuer]

Originally Posted by The Ravster

J. D. Power is a much more reputable organization than Consumer Reports...in my opinion.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but Consumer Reports bases their ratings either on their own tests of cars they buy from a dealer, or the opinions of their subscribers. While you may not agree with their conclusions (and there have been times that I have not), to my knowledge no one has ever been able to factually impugn their reputation. By the way, Consumer Reports NEVER allows it's ratings to be used commercially. J.D. Power ALWAYS allows it's ratings to be used commercially. For a substantial fee, of course.

[BigSwede]

CR may not charge fees, but they receive "grants", often from manufacturers. Nobody is pure and innocent here.

[Meander]

Originally Posted by BigSwede

What are you guys talking about? The very first sentence of the JD Power study says it is for 3-year old vehicles.

3 years is not much for reliability to be taken seriously. I do prefer CR longer time span as I tend to keep vehicles past warranty period. So far CR have been spot on in my experience with cars.

[pico]

Originally Posted by BigSwede

CR may not charge fees, but they receive "grants", often from manufacturers. Nobody is pure and innocent here.

How do you know that, Steve?

[WJBertrand]

Originally Posted by BigSwede

CR may not charge fees, but they receive "grants", often from manufacturers. Nobody is pure and innocent here.

I'm skeptical of this remark. Can you produce an example?

[BigSwede]

Not really. I was told this many years ago by somebody I trust, during a discussion of the Isuzu lawsuit against CR for the Trooper rollover fiasco.

A look at CU's website says "As a nonprofit organization, we are not beholden to any commercial interest. We accept no free samples, and we pay for all the products and services we test.

We also accept no advertising. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports®, ConsumerReports.org®, and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants."

None of which explicitly refutes what I was told... they are getting 200 million in annual revenue from somewhere, and it ain't all from CR subscriptions.

In any case I'm just saying a healthy dose of skepticism is applicable even to such perceived paragons of virtue as CR.

In the example of the Isuzu and Suzuki SUV rollover ratings, I always found it curious that CR would go after small manufacturers like Isuzu and Suzuki, even though their SUVs were only middle of the pack in real world rollover rates, while the SUV with the highest rollover rate at the time was made by Ford (Bronco II)...never a peep from CR about the Bronco II. Why not? From this curious circumstance we can see that either their testing methodology was fundamentally flawed and not relevant to real-world conditions, or simply dishonest. I would hope that it was just a methodology problem, but some of the evidence in the Isuzu case would suggest otherwise.

All of which is not really relevant to the original topic here. Both the JD Power and CR reliability studies are simply statistical collections of data as reported by consumers. Yes, there can be some bias imposed on the data, such as what the definition of a "problem" is, or the simple fact that people tend to report unsatisfactory results more than satisfactory results, but by and large these studies are less biased than most of the data available, and certainly a better indication of the average likelihood of a problem than any one vehicle owner's experience with their car.

Now if you are going to suspect that these organizations are faking or altering the data collected to achieve some agenda, then all bets are off.

[BigSwede]

Originally Posted by Meander

3 years is not much for reliability to be taken seriously. I do prefer CR longer time span as I tend to keep vehicles past warranty period.

That's fine and I don't disagree, but I was responding to this quote:

Pretty much all new cars have great initial quality, but what about 3 or 4 years down the road? That's more important to me.

[JuneBug]

Originally Posted by BigSwede

A look at CU's website says "As a nonprofit organization, we are not beholden to any commercial interest. We accept no free samples, and we pay for all the products and services we test.

We also accept no advertising. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports®, ConsumerReports.org®, and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants."

Hmmm...."noncommercial contributions and grants"...therein lies the rub. So they will not accept a contribution or grant from, let's say, Ford or Toyota, but they might accept them from the wife of the CEO.....

[DVS]

Originally Posted by JuneBug

I totally agree with you! Pretty much all new cars have great initial quality, but what about 3 or 4 years down the road? That's more important to me.

I keep my vehicles until they become too unreliable to trust any more. I learned the hard way, twice, that for Ford cars with meticulous maintencnace that means less than 90,000 miles.

So what I want to know is 10 years down the road, and/or over, say, 120,000 miles. How are they doing then, reliability-wise, compared to the competition?

That's the true test of quality, and what I'd be most interested in knowing from solid sample data.

[JuneBug]

Originally Posted by DVS

I keep my vehicles until they become too unreliable to trust any more. I learned the hard way, twice, that for Ford cars with meticulous maintencnace that means less than 90,000 miles.

So what I want to know is 10 years down the road, and/or over, say, 120,000 miles. How are they doing then, reliability-wise, compared to the competition?

My wife and daughter share a 1995 Nissan Altima, built in Smyrna, Tennessee. We bought it from a friend 10 years ago for $2500. It has over 120,000 hard city miles on it, and other than a worn out distributor and alternator, it has been totally reliable. Now it could use new shocks and maybe a new muffler, but other than oil changes and routine DIY maintenance, we have spent very little to keep it going. I still see many of them on the road. Seen any 1995 Ford Contours still running?